Re: header-munging

[[e-mail]]

On 24 Sep 1996 20:00:45 -0000, you said:
> > The SMTP server is NOT generally able to determine the domain of the sender.
> This is a frivolous objection.

Not at all frivolous...

> > In other words, the SMTP server doing the fixup has to know when it
> > has better information than the sender himself.
> 
> Nonsense. It is providing a _default_ domain. Users who are happy with
> the default can use it. Users who aren't can override it.

Hmm.. just today alone, our Listserv machines and Bitnet-Internet
gateway bounced 17 (so far, and it's only noon) pieces of mail from
various addresses that died specifically because the "default domain"
didn't work.  I've had 5 that got mangled into
'[e-mail]' just because transport-server.whatever.the.heck
didn't see fit to fully qualify its domain name....

I have no idea where this transport-server machine is - it's easier for me
to just hit the 'Del' key (actually, these days I have a procmail recipe that
auto-sorts to the bit bucket for THAT address).  But I'm willing to place
bets that the "users" (who probably aren't happy with the default behaviour
of losing mail) are not able to override it....

Tell you what.. You tell me how the SMTP server at vtbit.cc.vt.edu can
*reliably* tell what the domain name is, when 98% of the 30,000+
pieces of mail a day it sees are from outside the vt.edu domain,
outside our 128.173.x.x and 198.82.x.x networks, may be coming from an
address that does not have a correct PTR entry in a reachable
nameserver, and quite likely have been through 1 or more other SMTP
servers before, and then I'll allow that it's a frivolous objection...

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Engineer
				Virginia Tech