On Reply-To: munging from RFC-822, section 4.4.3 (page 22)

From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc_at_armigeron.com>
Date: Thu Feb 3 16:46:51 2000

It was thus said that the Great Rich Lafferty once stated:
>
> On Thu, Feb 03, 2000 at 04:42:45PM -0500, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner (spc_at_armigeron.com) wrote:
> >
> > Just in case you missed it last time (from RFC-822, available via
> > ftp://nis.nsf.net/documents/rfc/rfc0822.txt , page 22):
> >
> > 4.4.3. REPLY-TO / RESENT-REPLY-TO

  [ snip ]

> > That last sentance allows majordomo to ``munge'' the Reply-To: field. If
> > you want, I can even send you the RFC in question.
>
> You left out the context of that passage, which describes how the
> *originator* can use the Reply-To header. Majordomo is not the
> originator of messages sent to the list, it's the sender. RFC 822 also
> specifies
>
> Note: The "Reply-To" field is added by the originator and
> serves to direct replies, whereas the "Return-Path"
> field is used to identify a path back to the origina-
> tor.

  That note comes from section 4.3.1, which covers RETURN-PATH. But this
now hinges on what you (or RFC-822) means by ``originator.'' I interpret
that to mean the mailing list software. I (originator #1) send a message to
the list. That in turn accepts the mail, then turns around and then becomes
originator #2 in sending a copy out to the recipients of the list.

> Although I'm starting to wonder if this isn't symptomatic of a
> majordomo bug, or at least a design flaw. It would make sense to me to
> configure Majordomo such that the Reply-To points to the list *unless*
> the originator added its own Reply-To, in which case it would leave
> that there.

  To me that sounds reasonable, but that still means you have to be careful
in replying privately to a message send publically without an explicit
Reply-To: added by the original sender.

> While trying to figure out why, I came across the following in the
> majordomo FAQ which might be worth considering:
>
> The most important reason why Reply-To: to the list is bad is that it
> can cause mail loops if any of the members of your list are running
> fairly-common but broken software which doesn't know what an envelope
> address is. (Many Microsoft products, as well as many other PC-based
> non-SMTP/Internet mail systems which work through an SMTP gateway.)
>
> I don't have any of those systems to find out what they're talking
> about, though. Or are they just referring to autoresponders?

  You got me there. My experience has only been with Unix based tools.

  -spc (The Devil is in the details, eh?)
Received on Thu Feb 03 2000 - 16:46:51 GMT

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