Re: bad (i.e. serious) mail problems

[Dmitry Yaitskov <dima@apexsc.com>]

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

> I've gone back to determine where the problem might be.  It is not Gnus,
> and it is not pop3.
> 
> * Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com>  on Sun, 28 Mar 1999
> | [...]  If I understand that situation correctly (please tell me that I'm
> | wrong) this is kind of by design. Or am I missing something here?
> 
> Your MTA is.
> 
> Gnus uses Content-Length headers, when they exist, to determine where to
> split messages.  When they do not exist, it uses SMTP envelopes (what you
> mistakenly call 'headers')

Where did I talk about headers?

> just like Berkeley mail and every POP server
> known to me to delimit messages.  If your MTA does not generate a
> Content-Length header, it is required to escape lines that look like
> envelopes.  All in all, Gnus has been very good at Doing the Right Thing
> with properly formed messages.
> 
> Your MTA is not generating Content-Length headers, nor is it escaping lines
> that look like envelopes.  In short, it is broken -- at least that is my
> supposition.

Eh.... sorry, what *is* my MTA? I'm afraid I don't have one :). Or I
am again missing something, in which - quite probable - case I'd
appreciate if you explained in more detail what you mean. I am on
WinNT, and my mail is fetched from pop3 servers by, if I get this
right, pop3-movemail. pop3-movemail gets messages from the servers one
by one, so I do not see why it would be necessary for the "\n\nFrom "
lines in messages' bodies to be escaped in any way - there is no
boundaries between messages to determine at this stage. (I just looked
up rfc1725 - it says that the message should comply with rfc822 -
which I think doesn't say anything about "\n\nFrom ". So I don't think
it is required by anything in this chain although of course I may be
wrong.) pop3-movemail puts the messages in its crashbox (BTW, could it
perhaps add Content-Length to messages missing it at this stage?),
from where on it is Gnus (nnmail) who transports the messages to
appropriate groups. What is the broken MTA here?

> I do not want to add your patch to pop3.el.  Message transports are not
> allowed to modify message bodies in any way.  Less (or perhaps more,
> depending on one's perspective) importantly, your patch is a workaround for
> what appears to be a really badly broken MTA, one that I have no means (or
> intention, sorry) of testing against.  I cannot support code that I cannot
> (or for some reason will not) test against.  Sorry.

Is ok. :)

-- 
Cheers,
-Dima.