dealing with "bad" mail...

dealing with "bad" mail...

[Dave Blacka]

It seems that certain versions of sendmail (I'm not sure which ones,
though) send bounce/notification messages (you know, the stuff sent
from "MAILER_DAEMON@yadda.com") with bad envelopes:

>From   Thu  Thu Mar 21 16:28:40 1996

is an example of a bad envelope from sendmail.

Gnus (I'm running sgnus .54, but I remember this happening on 5.0.x)
totally freaks out when it encounters this kind of mail, claiming that
it is an unknown mail format (which, technically, I suppose it is),
and that it might be corrupted.  What usually happens is that I'm
splitting a spool file, and, bam, sgnus stops the whole delivery
process, saving the bad message in .gnus-crash-box, which I have to
fix (or delete) if I ever want to start Gnus again.

Since this seems to be a standard (mis)feature of sendmail, perhaps
Gnus could be a bit more liberal in how it reads the envelope line?

Right now, I've got a rather wacky workaround which sends (most) of
these messages through formail to strip and re-add the envelope.  It
would be sort of nice to not have to do this.

Dave

-- 
David Blacka                    |dblacka@fuentez.com
Software Engineer               |Fuentez Systems Concepts

Re: dealing with "bad" mail...

[Roderick Schertler]

On 21 Mar 1996 20:25:15 -0500, Dave Blacka <dblacka@fuentez.com> said:
>
> It seems that certain versions of sendmail (I'm not sure which ones,
> though) send bounce/notification messages (you know, the stuff sent
> from "MAILER_DAEMON@yadda.com") with bad envelopes:
>
> >From   Thu  Thu Mar 21 16:28:40 1996
>
> is an example of a bad envelope from sendmail.

This is an old Unix mail thing.  Instead of accumulating the return path
in the `remote from foo!bar!baz' part of the initial From_ line some old
mail implementations turn the initial From_ line into a >From_ line and
add a brand new From_ line at the start.

(I'm piping up just to provide some background info, I don't have a fix
to allow Gnus to handle these.)

-- 
Roderick Schertler
roderick@gate.net

Re: dealing with "bad" mail...

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Dave Blacka <dblacka@fuentez.com> writes:

> It seems that certain versions of sendmail (I'm not sure which ones,
> though) send bounce/notification messages (you know, the stuff sent
> from "MAILER_DAEMON@yadda.com") with bad envelopes:
> 
> >From   Thu  Thu Mar 21 16:28:40 1996
> 
> is an example of a bad envelope from sendmail.

Well, I don't know whether Gnus should do anything to work around this
brokenness.  I think the best thing would be to install a sendmail
that isn't (this) buggy.

-- 
  "Yes.  The journey through the human heart 
     would have to wait until some other time."

Re: dealing with "bad" mail...

[Dave Blacka]

>>>>> "Lars" == Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

 Lars> Dave Blacka <dblacka@fuentez.com> writes:
 >> It seems that certain versions of sendmail (I'm not sure which ones,
 >> though) send bounce/notification messages (you know, the stuff sent
 >> from "MAILER_DAEMON@yadda.com") with bad envelopes:
 >> 
 >> >From   Thu  Thu Mar 21 16:28:40 1996
 >> 
 >> is an example of a bad envelope from sendmail.

 Lars> Well, I don't know whether Gnus should do anything to work around this
 Lars> brokenness.  I think the best thing would be to install a
 Lars> sendmail that isn't (this) buggy.

Ah. Yes.  That would be a solution, except that these messages are
coming from "distant" bounces.  That is to say, from sendmails that I
have no control over.

-- 
David Blacka                    |dblacka@fuentez.com
Software Engineer               |Fuentez Systems Concepts

Re: dealing with "bad" mail...

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Dave Blacka <dblacka@fuentez.com> writes:

> Ah. Yes.  That would be a solution, except that these messages are
> coming from "distant" bounces.  That is to say, from sendmails that I
> have no control over.

Delivery into the mbox is always done by your own sendmail, isn't it?
It's "deliver" that puts things into /usr/spool/mail, I would have
thought? 

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: dealing with "bad" mail...

[Dave Blacka]

>>>>> "Lars" == Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:
 Lars> Delivery into the mbox is always done by your own sendmail, isn't it?
 Lars> It's "deliver" that puts things into /usr/spool/mail, I would have
 Lars> thought? 

Well, actually delivery to mbox is handled by the local delivery agent
(usually /bin/mail), which is invoked by sendmail.  It is possible
that the local sendmail is re-writing the envelope, but, I am unsure.
In any case, the question isn't what causes the problem; the question
is whether or not the MUA (in this case, GNUS) should be able to
handle this, or at least fail more gracefully.  I think it should, but
it certainly isn't necessary that it do so.

Dave

-- 
David Blacka                    |dblacka@fuentez.com
Software Engineer               |Fuentez Systems Concepts

Re: dealing with "bad" mail...

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Dave Blacka <dblacka@fuentez.com> writes:

> Well, actually delivery to mbox is handled by the local delivery agent
> (usually /bin/mail), which is invoked by sendmail.  It is possible
> that the local sendmail is re-writing the envelope, but, I am unsure.

I thought the envelope wasn't transmitted at all?  That the "From "
line was created locally?  (I don't know anything about sendmail,
though.) 

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: dealing with "bad" mail...

[Steven L Baur]

>>>>> "Lars" == Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

Lars> Dave Blacka <dblacka@fuentez.com> writes:
Dave> Well, actually delivery to mbox is handled by the local delivery agent
Dave> (usually /bin/mail), which is invoked by sendmail.

By custom from the Mlocal rule:
Mlocal,         P=/usr/bin/procmail, F=SAw5:|/@glDFMPhsfn, S=10, R=20/40,
                T=DNS/RFC822/X-Unix,
                A=procmail -Y -a $h -d $u

Procmail and deliver are popular alternatives to /bin/mail.

Dave>  It is possible
Dave> that the local sendmail is re-writing the envelope, but, I am unsure.

Lars> I thought the envelope wasn't transmitted at all?  That the "From "
Lars> line was created locally?  (I don't know anything about sendmail,
Lars> though.) 

This is customizable.  The default with sendmail 8.7.3 seems to be to
throw incoming ones away and make new ones.  Procmail looks like it
does pretty much the same thing.

The deliver program delivered with Linux Slackware and installed as
the local mailer has some very bad bugs in it where it will take valid
messages and destroy the headers on their way to the mbox.

Regards,
-- 
steve@miranova.com baur
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread for $250/hour.
Andrea Seastrand: For your vote on the Telecom bill, I will vote for anyone
except you in November.