Default mail address

Default mail address

[Ben Gertzfield]

*wavewave* Ack, I lost my .gnus, and I've fallen prey to the old
problem where my "Sender" header guesses that my hostname is the same
as the computer I'm at, instead of what I want it to be. 

I want Gnus to know that my email is "wilwonka@imsa.edu" -- how do I
tell it to use that again? :) I checked C-h v for anything starting
with mail, but that wasn't it.. 

thanks!

Ben

-- 
Brought to you by the letters P and Q and the number 5.
"It is sad. *Campers* cannot *dance*. Not even a *party*." -- Orz, SCII
Ben Gertzfield <http://www.imsa.edu/~wilwonka/> Finger me for my public
PGP key. I'm on FurryMUCK as Che, and EFNet and YiffNet IRC as Che_Fox.

Re: Default mail address (duh, solved)

[Ben Gertzfield]

Oh. Whoops.

Maybe I should look at my own headers next time :)

Message-ID: <y8soh91xiye.fsf@pepsi.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-shoot-me>

*grin*

-- 
Brought to you by the letters U and D and the number 8.
"If it wasn't for disappointment, I wouldn't have any appointment." -- TMBG
Ben Gertzfield <http://www.imsa.edu/~wilwonka/> Finger me for my public
PGP key. I'm on FurryMUCK as Che, and EFNet and YiffNet IRC as Che_Fox.

Re: Default mail address

[Justin Sheehy]

Ben Gertzfield <wilwonka@imsa.edu> writes:

> *wavewave* Ack, I lost my .gnus, and I've fallen prey to the old
> problem where my "Sender" header guesses that my hostname is the same
> as the computer I'm at, instead of what I want it to be. 

You shouldn't care what your Sender: looks like.  It is From: that is
important, and yours looks fine.

There is no good reason to change the Sender: header.

> I want Gnus to know that my email is "wilwonka@imsa.edu" 

See the FAQ:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/software/contrib/gnus/#Q2_16

-Justin

 

Re: Default mail address

[Alan Shutko]

>>>>> "Justin" == Justin Sheehy <dworkin@ccs.neu.edu> writes:

Justin> Ben Gertzfield <wilwonka@imsa.edu> writes:
>> *wavewave* Ack, I lost my .gnus, and I've fallen prey to the old
>> problem where my "Sender" header guesses that my hostname is the
>> same as the computer I'm at, instead of what I want it to be.

Justin> You shouldn't care what your Sender: looks like.  It is From:
Justin> that is important, and yours looks fine.

Justin> There is no good reason to change the Sender: header.

I would like to disagree.

I have sendmail set up with genericstable to map my address to
ats@acm.org.  It only works right now with simple usernames, not ones
with hostnames.  So, I have user-mail-address set to ats@acm.org.
Now, the only difference between mail sent by Gnus and /bin/mail is
the existence of the Sender: line mentioning hubert.wustl.edu.

With /bin/mail, I can mail to lists
(eg. redhat-list-request@redhat.com) and it responds to ats@acm.org.
Do the same thing with Gnus, and Smartlist replies to
ats@hubert.wustl.edu.

This gives me a good reason to change the Sender header.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@hubert.wustl.edu> - By consent of the corrupted
Honk if you love peace and quiet.

Re: Default mail address

[Justin Sheehy]

Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> writes:

> >>>>> "Justin" == Justin Sheehy <dworkin@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
> 
> Justin> There is no good reason to change the Sender: header.
> 
> I would like to disagree.
> 
> I have sendmail set up with genericstable to map my address to
> ats@acm.org.  It only works right now with simple usernames, not ones
> with hostnames.  So, I have user-mail-address set to ats@acm.org.
> Now, the only difference between mail sent by Gnus and /bin/mail is
> the existence of the Sender: line mentioning hubert.wustl.edu.
> 
> With /bin/mail, I can mail to lists
> (eg. redhat-list-request@redhat.com) and it responds to ats@acm.org.
> Do the same thing with Gnus, and Smartlist replies to
> ats@hubert.wustl.edu.

Software that replies to the Sender: and ignores the From: header is
broken and should not be catered to.

-Justin

 

Re: Default mail address

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> writes:

> This gives me a good reason to change the Sender header.

Report it as a bug.

I've never received mails on my `Sender' address.

-- 
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia
--------------------------------+--------------------------------
4.  Thou shalt not warlorde a sig if it bee the sig of Kibo, nor if
    it bee the sig of the Inner Circle.

Re: Default mail address

[Russ Allbery]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:
> Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> writes:

>> This gives me a good reason to change the Sender header.

> Report it as a bug.

> I've never received mails on my `Sender' address.

I receive mail at my Sender address *constantly*, often including
autoreplies.  But that doesn't change the point, which I agree with;
that's broken behavior, specifically incorrect according to RFC 822, and
should be reported as a bug.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)         <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Re: Default mail address

[Johan Danielsson]

Justin Sheehy <dworkin@ccs.neu.edu> writes:

First some background.

     4.4.2.  SENDER / RESENT-SENDER

        This field contains the authenticated identity  of  the  AGENT
        (person,  system  or  process)  that sends the message.  It is
        intended for use when the sender is not the author of the mes-
        sage,  or  to  indicate  who among a group of authors actually
        sent the message.  If the contents of the "Sender" field would
        be  completely  redundant  with  the  "From"  field,  then the
        "Sender" field need not be present and its use is  discouraged
        (though  still legal).  In particular, the "Sender" field MUST
        be present if it is NOT the same as the "From" Field.

        The Sender mailbox  specification  includes  a  word  sequence
        which  must correspond to a specific agent (i.e., a human user
        or a computer program) rather than a standard  address.   This
        indicates  the  expectation  that  the field will identify the
        single AGENT (person,  system,  or  process)  responsible  for
        sending  the mail and not simply include the name of a mailbox
        from which the mail was sent.  For example in the  case  of  a
        shared login name, the name, by itself, would not be adequate.
        The local-part address unit, which refers to  this  agent,  is
        expected to be a computer system term, and not (for example) a
        generalized person reference which can  be  used  outside  the
        network text message context.

        Since the critical function served by the  "Sender"  field  is
        identification  of  the agent responsible for sending mail and
        since computer programs cannot be held accountable  for  their
        behavior, it is strongly recommended that when a computer pro-
        gram generates a message, the HUMAN  who  is  responsible  for
        that program be referenced as part of the "Sender" field mail-
        box specification.

> Software that replies to the Sender: and ignores the From: header is
> broken and should not be catered to.

     4.4.4.  AUTOMATIC USE OF FROM / SENDER / REPLY-TO

        For systems which automatically  generate  address  lists  for
        replies to messages, the following recommendations are made:

            o   The "Sender" field mailbox should be sent  notices  of
                any  problems in transport or delivery of the original
                messages.  If there is no  "Sender"  field,  then  the
                "From" field mailbox should be used.

With Gnus I get a sender that looks like `joda@blubb.pdc.kth.se',
which is not a mailbox; blubb.pdc.kth.se does not have an MX record
and does not run any kind of MTA.

What is so good about adding a useless `address' as sender of the
message?

/Johan

Re: Default mail address

[Per Abrahamsen]

joda@pdc.kth.se (Johan Danielsson) writes:

> What is so good about adding a useless `address' as sender of the
> message?

For News, Son-of-RFC 1036 compliance:

          6.4. Sender

          The Sender header identifies the poster, in the  event  that
          this differs from the author identified in the From header:

               Sender-content = From-content

          In  the  absence of Sender, the default poster is the author
          (named in the From header).

               NOTE: The intent is that the Sender header have  a
               fairly  high probability of identifying the person
               who really posted the  article.   The  ability  to
               specify  a  From  header naming someone other than
               the poster is useful but can be abused.

          If the poster supplies a From header, the posting agent MUST
          ensure that a Sender header is present, unless it can verify
          that the mailing address in the From header is a valid mail-
          ing address for the poster.  A poster-supplied Sender header
          MAY be used, if its mailing address is  verifiably  a  valid
          mailing  address for the poster; otherwise the posting agent
          MUST supply a Sender header and delete (or rename,  e.g.  to
          X-Unverifiable-Sender) any poster-supplied Sender header.

               NOTE:  It  might  be  useful to preserve a poster-
               supplied Sender header so that the poster can sup-
               ply  the full-name part of the content.  The mail-
               ing address, however, must be right.   Hence,  the
               posting  agent  must generate the Sender header if
               it is unable to verify the mailing  address  of  a
               poster-supplied one.

               NOTE:  NNTP implementors, in particular, are urged
               to note this requirement  (which  would  eliminate
               the  need  for  ad  hoc headers like NNTP-Posting-
               Host), although there are admittedly  some  imple-
               mentation  difficulties.   A user name from an RFC
               1413 server and a host name from an  inverse  map-
               ping  of  the  address, perhaps with a "full name"
               comment noting  the  origin  of  the  information,
               would be at least a first approximation:

                    Sender: fred@zoo.toronto.edu (RFC-1413@reverse-lookup; not verified)

               While  this does not completely meet the specs, it
               comes a lot closer than not having a Sender header
               at all.  Even just supplying a placeholder for the
               user name:

                    Sender: somebody@zoo.toronto.edu (user name unknown)

               would be better than nothing.

Gnus should not create Sender for mail.

Re: Default mail address

[Johan Danielsson]

Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:

> For News, Son-of-RFC 1036 compliance:

Yes, but what should be the contents of the sender header? Shouldn't
it be a valid mailbox.

/Johan

Re: Default mail address

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

> >>>>> "PA" == Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:
> 
> PA> For News, Son-of-RFC 1036 compliance:
> [...]
> PA> Gnus should not create Sender for mail.
> 
> Pardon me, Per, but what the hoek have you been smoking?  Using
> Son-of-RFC 1036 as an argument for mail handling is absurd.

According to SoR1036, `Sender' *should* be generated.  According to
RFC822, `Sender' should *not* be generated in the context in which
Gnus does it.  From that Per correctly infers that Gnus should not
`Sender' create `Sender' for mail.

What is wrong with that?

Or, have I (or Per) misunderstood the relevant part of RFC822?
Admittedly, RFC1036 is much clearer on that point.

-- 
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia
--------------------------------+--------------------------------
"Silence!" cries Freydag. "I did not call thee in for a consultation!" 
"They are my innards! I will not have them misread by a poseur!"

Re: Default mail address

[Robert Bihlmeyer]

Hi,

>>>>> On 20 Jun 1997 15:53:47 -0400
>>>>> Justin Sheehy <dworkin@ccs.neu.edu> said:

 Justin> You shouldn't care what your Sender: looks like.  It is From: that is
 Justin> important, and yours looks fine.

 Justin> There is no good reason to change the Sender: header.

I think there is: I want this account's address to _not_ go into any
newsgroup in any form, not in a "From:"-, and not in a
"Sender:"-header. Perhaps today spammers ignore "Sender:", but
probably not forever.

My From (and my Sender, if it were not redundant) contains one of my
mailboxes. This unambigously identifies me. So IMHO this is correct
per RFC - it's just not <thisaccount>@<thismachine>.

	Robbe

-- 
Robert Bihlmeyer	reads: Deutsch, English, MIME, Latin-1, NO SPAM!
<robbe@orcus.priv.at>	<http://stud2.tuwien.ac.at/~e9426626/sig.html>

Re: Default mail address

[Per Abrahamsen]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

> Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:
> 
> PA> For News, Son-of-RFC 1036 compliance:
> [...]
> PA> Gnus should not create Sender for mail.
> 
> Pardon me, Per, but what the hoek have you been smoking?  Using Son-of-RFC
> 1036 as an argument for mail handling is absurd. 

What exactly do you think `For News' mean in this context?  

Re: Default mail address

[Johan Danielsson]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

> The relevant sections of RFC822 boil down to this: when the mailbox
> in the - From header is something other than "authenticated
> submitting agent @ canonical network name of submitting host" a
> Sender header must be generated.

Which section are you referring to?

/Johan

Re: Default mail address

[Roderick Schertler]

On 21 Jun 1997 02:01:49 -0700, Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> said:
> Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:
>> 
>> Report it as a bug.
>> 
>> I've never received mails on my `Sender' address.
> 
> I receive mail at my Sender address *constantly*, often including
> autoreplies.

Many are probably from procmail's formail, by default it prefers Sender
to From when generating replies.  The -t switch defeats this.  I think
this default is a mistake.  At least it gets Reply-To right.

-- 
Roderick Schertler
roderick@argon.org

Re: Default mail address

[Steven L Baur]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> writes:
>> This gives me a good reason to change the Sender header.

> Report it as a bug.

> I've never received mails on my `Sender' address.

There are some broken MLMs that peek at it (listserv comes to mind) and
won't let you unsubscribe from a mailing list unless the Sender: matches
the address you are subscribed as.  This can be most inconvenient.
-- 
steve@calag.com baur
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