header error

header error

[Haines Brown]

In trying to correct one problem, I created another, and have not been
able to trace back my steps.

When I write a new message, the From line in my message header at
first reads: 

  From: Haines Brown <hartford-hwp.com>

Using it causes the error message to appear:

  Denied posting - The From looks strange : "Haines Brown
  <hartford-hwp.com>"

My work around is to edit the line so that in place of my domain name
is my e-mail address. 

I need to figure out where gnus is getting that information so that I
can correct the error at its source.

The following results not quite seem right 

$ hostname returns: teufel.hartford-hwp.com
$ hostname -a returns: localhost.localdoman teufel.hartford-hwp.com
$ hostname -d returns nothing   (should be my domainname)
$ hostname -f returns: localhost (should be my fqdn)
$ hostname -s returns: localhost (should be "teufel")
$ hostname -v reuturns: gethostname()=`teufel.hartford-hwp.com'
                        teufel.hartford-hwp.com 

/etc/hosts/ has:
  127.0.0.1 	localhost localhost.localdoman teufel.hartford-hwp.com
  192.168.1.1	teufel teufel.localdomain

My /etc/mailname file has: hartford-hwp.com, and I understand that it
is the domain name that should be here. However, I'm not sure that
this file is relevant here.

-- 
 
       Haines Brown
       KB1GRM       

Re: header error

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 13:25:56 GMT, Haines wrote:

> When I write a new message, the From line in my message header at
> first reads: 

>   From: Haines Brown <hartford-hwp.com>

> Using it causes the error message to appear:

>   Denied posting - The From looks strange : "Haines Brown
>   <hartford-hwp.com>"

> My work around is to edit the line so that in place of my domain name
> is my e-mail address. 

An easy way to control the email-address is by setting
user-mail-address:

 (setq user-mail-address "youremail@example.com")

> I need to figure out where gnus is getting that information so that I
> can correct the error at its source.

,----[ C-h v user-mail-address RET ]
| `user-mail-address' is a variable declared in Lisp.
|   -- loaded from "sendmail"
| 
| Value: "asjo@koldfront.dk"
| 
| Documentation:
| *Full mailing address of this user.
| This is initialized based on `mail-host-address',
| after your init file is read, in case it sets `mail-host-address'.
`----


  Best regards,

-- 
 "Q: Who tells you what to do?                                Adam Sjøgren
  A: The Bell Telephone Company. The telephone rings     asjo@koldfront.dk
     and I do what I'm told to do."

Re: header error

[Haines Brown]

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 13:25:56 GMT, Haines wrote:
> 
> > When I write a new message, the From line in my message header at
> > first reads: 
> 
> >   From: Haines Brown <hartford-hwp.com>
> 
> > Using it causes the error message to appear:
> 
> >   Denied posting - The From looks strange : "Haines Brown
> >   <hartford-hwp.com>"
> 
> > My work around is to edit the line so that in place of my domain name
> > is my e-mail address. 
> 
> An easy way to control the email-address is by setting
> user-mail-address:
> 
>  (setq user-mail-address "youremail@example.com")

I tried a number of such expedients. This one:

  (setq user-mail-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")

Seems to kill the From line altogether. I have to type the entire line
by hand when I use this line in ~/.gnus.

> > I need to figure out where gnus is getting that information so that I
> > can correct the error at its source.
> 
> ,----[ C-h v user-mail-address RET ]
> | `user-mail-address' is a variable declared in Lisp.
> |   -- loaded from "sendmail"
> | 
> | Value: "asjo@koldfront.dk"

This was not much help:

  user-mail-address's value is 
  "brownh@hartford-hwp.com"

-- 
 
       Haines Brown
       KB1GRM       

Re: header error

[Haines Brown]

Haines Brown <brownh@hartford-hwp.com> writes:

> asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:
> > An easy way to control the email-address is by setting
> > user-mail-address:
> > 
> >  (setq user-mail-address "youremail@example.com")
> 
> I tried a number of such expedients. This one:
> 
>   (setq user-mail-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")
> 
> Seems to kill the From line altogether. I have to type the entire line
> by hand when I use this line in ~/.gnus.

Yep (following up on myself - sorry), I see that my mail arriving on
the newsgroup has the proper From: line. Am I correct to assume that
this line was culled from the envelope From line? If so, then the
user-mail-address apparently sets the envelope From line, not the
message header From: line. 

-- 
 
       Haines Brown
       KB1GRM       

Re: header error

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 15:34:40 GMT, Haines wrote:

>> An easy way to control the email-address is by setting
>> user-mail-address:
>> 
>> (setq user-mail-address "youremail@example.com")

> I tried a number of such expedients. This one:

>   (setq user-mail-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")

> Seems to kill the From line altogether. I have to type the entire line
> by hand when I use this line in ~/.gnus.

That is odd. If I set user-mail-adress - as you did above - and press
'm', I get a buffer that starts with:

,----
| To: 
| Subject: 
| From: brownh@hartford-hwp.com (Adam Sjøgren)
| Gcc: nnml+archive:mail-2005
| Organization: koldfront - analysis & revolution, Copenhagen, Denmark
| --text follows this line--
`----

>> ,----[ C-h v user-mail-address RET ]
>> | `user-mail-address' is a variable declared in Lisp.
>> |   -- loaded from "sendmail"
>> | 
>> | Value: "asjo@koldfront.dk"

> This was not much help:

>   user-mail-address's value is 
>   "brownh@hartford-hwp.com"

Uhm, you cut the documentation that might be of help - the lines
describing from what variables user-mail-adress is generated (if you
do not set it yourself later).


  Best regards,

-- 
 "Q: Who tells you what to do?                                Adam Sjøgren
  A: The Bell Telephone Company. The telephone rings     asjo@koldfront.dk
     and I do what I'm told to do."

Re: header error

[Haines Brown]

> >> ,----[ C-h v user-mail-address RET ]
> >> | `user-mail-address' is a variable declared in Lisp.
> >> |   -- loaded from "sendmail"
> >> | 
> >> | Value: "asjo@koldfront.dk"
> 
> > This was not much help:
> 
> >   user-mail-address's value is 
> >   "brownh@hartford-hwp.com"
> 
> Uhm, you cut the documentation that might be of help - the lines
> describing from what variables user-mail-adress is generated (if you
> do not set it yourself later).

I have these two lines in ~/.gnus:

  (setq user-mail-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")
  (setq mail-host-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")

I also have: 

  (setq user-full-name "Haines Brown")

Here's my message header:

  Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.gnus
  Subject: Re: header error
  References: <87fyupwhss.fsf@teufel.hartford-hwp.com> 
    <87wto1qs25.fsf@koldfront.dk> 
    <87hdf5e2gf.fsf@teufel.hartford-hwp.com> 
    <877jg1ndib.fsf@koldfront.dk> 
 
This message will out OK without the From line because all that's
needed, apparently, is the envelope From line.  

The user-mail-address has a default value that I'm overwriting, and I
wonder where it gets it's value.

As for mail-host-address, it uses (system-name) (but I don't know how
to display the current value of a variable in emacs). In any case, the
basic file /etc/emacs/site.start.d/00debian-vars.el suggests that the
default sets mailname to the value of /etc/mailname, which in turn is
"hartford-hwp.com".

I am very uncertain how I should have defined /etc/mailname, but here
I've changed it to "brownh@hartford-hwp.com", but it didn't help. I'm
also very uncertain as to how to define /etc/hostname, and I used the
value "teufel.hartford-hwp.com". Some places I read seemed to say I
should use the FQDN, rather than local hostname ("teufel"). I've asked
around on both of these issues, but never got a reply. I'd love to
hear some wise advice here. In any case, I don't see that it would
cause the header From: line to be missing entirely.

Perhaps because of this configuration, I get odd returns from the
hostname command:

  $ hostname -a
  localhost.localdomain teufel.hartford-hwp.com
  
  $ hostname - d 
  [nothing is returned for the domain name]

  $ hostname -f
  localhost 

  $ hostname -s
  localhost

Something very odd is going on.

-- 
 
       Haines Brown
       KB1GRM       

Re: header error

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 02:00:46 GMT, Haines wrote:

> I have these two lines in ~/.gnus:

>   (setq user-mail-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")
>   (setq mail-host-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")

This last line is definitely 100% WRONG:

,----[ C-h v mail-host-address RET ]
| `mail-host-address' is a variable declared in Lisp.
|   -- loaded from "/home/mohura/packages/build-area/xemacs21-21.4.17/lisp/startup.elc"
| 
| Value: "koldfront.dk"
| 
| Documentation:
| *Name of this machine, for purposes of naming users.
`----

When you set this to your email-address instead of - what it says -
the name of the machine, your Message-Id will have two '@'-signs and
therefore be invalid.

Where did you get the idea to set mail-host-address like this?

[...]

> As for mail-host-address, it uses (system-name) (but I don't know how
> to display the current value of a variable in emacs).

You can use - tada - C-h v variable-name RET.

You can run a function (like (system-name)) by simply placing your
cursor after the closing paren and pressing C-x C-e.

> I am very uncertain how I should have defined /etc/mailname, but here
> I've changed it to "brownh@hartford-hwp.com", but it didn't help. I'm
> also very uncertain as to how to define /etc/hostname, and I used the
> value "teufel.hartford-hwp.com". Some places I read seemed to say I
> should use the FQDN, rather than local hostname ("teufel"). I've asked
> around on both of these issues, but never got a reply. I'd love to
> hear some wise advice here.

This is all not that relevant to Gnus (how you configure your box),
but setting user-mail-address should bypass this anyway, I would
assume.

> In any case, I don't see that it would cause the header From: line
> to be missing entirely.

No, that is a little strange. Doesn't happen here.

If I were you, I'd either locate the line in my configuration that
makes the From:-line stop appearing (by commenting out lines), or use
edebug to walk through the relevant function to see why it doesn't
appear.


  Best regards,

-- 
 "Ge mig en vinterdrog, ge mig allt du har                    Adam Sjøgren
  Kom nu jag är kroniskt låg, bara mörkret hörs"         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: header error

[Haines Brown]

Thank you for your patience.

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> Where did you get the idea to set mail-host-address like this?

Brain fried because of 15-hour days this week. I apologize.
 
> [...]
> 
> > As for mail-host-address, it uses (system-name) (but I don't know
> > how to display the current value of a variable in emacs).
> 
> You can use - tada - C-h v variable-name RET.

It returned "teufel.hartford-hwp.com". This is my FQDN, but if
"machine name" really means the local hostname (teufel), then I've got
a problem (unrelated to gnus) However, I'm not having problems with
e-mail headers.   

> This is all not that relevant to Gnus (how you configure your box),
> but setting user-mail-address should bypass this anyway, I would
> assume.
> 
> > In any case, I don't see that it would cause the header From: line
> > to be missing entirely.
> 
> No, that is a little strange. Doesn't happen here.
> 
> If I were you, I'd either locate the line in my configuration that
> makes the From:-line stop appearing (by commenting out lines), or use
> edebug to walk through the relevant function to see why it doesn't
> appear.

I went so far as to remove my .emacs file and have only the nntp
server line in .gnus, and the problem persists. 

I looked into Edebug, but it got a little deep for me. Apparently,
after it is initialized, I can then call the function in
question. Problem is that I don't know what function to call. I tried
to look into /etc/share/emacs/21.4/lisp/gnus/nnheader.elc, and search
for "From:". There were a couple places, but they seemed to have to do
with parsing names. I had trouble reading the file because it is
compiled. In any case, I saw no reference to a function I could run
for Edebug. In fact, just initializing it was a problem because I've
got C-M-x bound in my window manager to start an application. If I use
Edebug, I'll have to remove that key-binding.

-- 
 
       Haines Brown
       KB1GRM       

Re: header error

[Haines Brown]

Just a followup. I'm beginning to wonder if the From: line in my
outgoing message header is added only as it goes out. This message
lacks a From: line as I write it, but when it is read in the
newsgroup, it has acquired one. Is it possible that I have an
imaginary problem? 

-- 
 
       Haines Brown
       KB1GRM