Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
I made some progress. My original problem was that Emacs or one of the components which intervene *locally* generate and introduce the Message-ID no matter the value of message-required-mail-headers. When message-required-mail-headers excludes Message-ID and message-generate-headers-first is true: then Message-ID doesn't appear when composing the email. Predictably sendmail adds it, but I still cannot explain why sendmail makes it correspond to the value of message-user-fqdn, which clearly only mentions "Message" in its name and id a variable defined in ‘message.el’ . How does sendmail know about it?! "Which entity (i.e., which device) should be responsible for adding the Message-ID header to a message composed on a device which has little or no notion of its own host identity, and in those cases what should the Message-ID be?" My device composes the message before posteo.de transmits it. What is my authority to use the formula x...@posteo.de in the Message-ID, especially because the mix of self-generated and official-looking @posteo.de looks intellectually confusing. Think of physical post: the post office will stamp the branch number and timestamp the envelope when they accept my parcel. posteo.de are charged with transmitting my email: it only sounds reasonable they would add the Message-ID, which is essentially hostname plus timestamp. Now one could make the case for the added freedom which comes with deciding the Message-ID of your own emails: but if the host can overwrite this anyway, then the benefit of the potential added privacy which comes from setting Message-ID at the MUA level is not guaranteed, but the drawback of having possibly same Message-ID's for different emails (sent through the same host or even distinct hosts) is real. (A) Ideally the host would then feed back the Message-ID together with confirmation that the email was accepted for delivery, and then if the email is being saved locally (FCC) the MUA would store the Message-ID in the email message. In practice, which is not ideal for the reasons explained above and in particular the inconvenience of storing (FCC) an email with Message-ID different from the one the host server might decide to assign by overwriting the locally-generated one, the first system handling the message will create the Message-ID and store the email (FCC) with that Message-ID as soon as the email is accepted for delivery. In this case the message-ID can be anything because everything is done locally, but I suppose would be good practice to make what comes before @ algorithmically generated by the MUA and what is after be the hostname. To mitigate the big inconvenience of the recipient having a different Message-ID from the one the sender stored with the sent-email, it would be good if the server would confirm that it accepts the message for delivery AND that it will honor the Message-ID locally generated, and if not both conditions are verified then abort sending the email. I don't think this happens. I wish that (A) were the way things worked.
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
You can set `message-generate-headers-first' to t and see what headers Message produces when you start editing a message. Good suggestion: I just tried. Now message-generate-headers-first is true, and Message-ID doesn't appear in the message-required-mail-headers. Result: my emails all have Message-ID header, and it always reflects the value of message-user-fqdn! Allow me to make a precision here; my emails *as received* have Message-ID, but when editing before send, the header is not there.
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
Well, how else do you explain that when I remove Message-ID from message-required-mail-headers and send my email, then the Message-ID is given by the value of message-user-fqdn or when nil, by system-name? As I already said: My guess was that your sendmail program adds a message-id. But then why does such Message-ID always reflect the value of message-user-fqdn ? If it really were sendmail adding it and not Message, then why would sendmail set the value of the Message-ID header according to the value of the variable message-user-fqdn? I think that sendmail doesn't even know about the message-user-fqdn variable. You can set `message-generate-headers-first' to t and see what headers Message produces when you start editing a message. Good suggestion: I just tried. Now message-generate-headers-first is true, and Message-ID doesn't appear in the message-required-mail-headers. Result: my emails all have Message-ID header, and it always reflects the value of message-user-fqdn! The mystery persists.
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
One advantage of your email program setting the Message-ID is that the unique identifier of the email is then known by your email program. Best regards, Adam -- "It was called Tinderbox so we could make the joke,Adam Sjøgren 'the tree is on fire'. Puns are very important ina...@koldfront.dk naming tools."
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
Dear Liman, Am I right in understanding it as "my host doesn't know its own hostname (identity), so it's unable to create a useful Message-ID"? Not sure, because my original problem was that Emacs or one of the components which intervene *locally* generate and introduce the Message-ID no matter the value of message-required-mail-headers. This is still unresolved. The underlying intellectual conundrum I think you summarize well: "Which entity (i.e., which device) should be responsible for adding the Message-ID header to a message composed on a device which has little or no notion of its own host identity, and in those cases what should the Message-ID be?" My device composes the message before posteo.de transmits it. What is my authority to use the formula x...@posteo.de in the Message-ID, especially because the mix of self-generated and official-looking @posteo.de looks intellectually confusing. Think of physical post: the post office will stamp the branch number and timestamp the envelope when they accept my parcel. posteo.de are charged with transmitting my email: it only sounds reasonable they would add the Message-ID, which is essentially hostname plus timestamp. Now one could make the case for the added freedom which comes with deciding the Message-ID of your own emails: but if the host can overwrite this anyway, then the benefit of the potential added privacy which comes from setting Message-ID at the MUA level is not guaranteed, but the drawback of having possibly same Message-ID's for different emails (sent through the same host or even distinct hosts) is real. I happen to know the author of the mail specification RFC, and I'm thinking about asking him for his thoughts. Would you object to that? I don't object.
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
On 12/11/23 11:01, Lars-Johan Liman wrote: FWIW, I agree with Arash's sentiment. This, again, goes back to the notion that a message without a Message-ID is (more or less) invalid. Therefore any and all e-mail software (user agents and transport agents alike) is disciplined to add a Message-ID to any message without one, to avoid transferring invalid messages. A quite normal arrangement is to have separate MTA (message transfer agent, for internet-incoming email) and MSA (message submission agent, for your local email clients) services. MSA's (which typically require user authentication) often don't enforce message rules as strictly as MTA's which have to contend with incoming spam, and thus can add in missing Date, Message-ID etc fields. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_submission_agent -- /* * * Otto J. Makela * * * * * * * * * */ /* Phone: +358 40 765 5772, ICBM: N 60 10' E 24 55' */ /* Mail: Mechelininkatu 26 B 27, FI-00100 Helsinki */ /* * * Computers Rule 0100 01001011 * * * * * * */
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
FWIW, I agree with Arash's sentiment. This, again, goes back to the notion that a message without a Message-ID is (more or less) invalid. Therefore any and all e-mail software (user agents and transport agents alike) is disciplined to add a Message-ID to any message without one, to avoid transferring invalid messages. It boils down to Postel's principle: "Be liberal in what you accept, and consevative in what you send!". ;-) Cheers, /Liman rameik...@posteo.net writes: >> Well, how else do you explain that when I remove Message-ID from >> message-required-mail-headers and send my email, then the Message-ID >> is given by the value of message-user-fqdn or when nil, by >> system-name? ar...@gnu.org 2023-12-11 07:35 [+0100]: > As I already said: My guess was that your sendmail program adds a > message-id. You can set `message-generate-headers-first' to t and see > what headers Message produces when you start editing a message, maybe > that gives you a clue. Besides that, I have no other idea. > Best, Arash
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
rameik...@posteo.net writes: > Well, how else do you explain that when I remove Message-ID from > message-required-mail-headers and send my email, then the Message-ID > is given by the value of message-user-fqdn or when nil, by > system-name? As I already said: My guess was that your sendmail program adds a message-id. You can set `message-generate-headers-first' to t and see what headers Message produces when you start editing a message, maybe that gives you a clue. Besides that, I have no other idea. Best, Arash
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
Hi rameiko87! I know more about message standards then I know about the internals of GNUS. That's why I come from that angle. I'm beginning to understand your undelying problem, though, and I realise it's a generic one that more people "ought to have". Am I right in understanding it as "my host doesn't know its own hostname (identity), so it's unable to create a useful Message-ID"? If I "zoom out" and try to rephrase your problem as a generic question, I come up with this: "Which entity (i.e., which device) should be responsible for adding the Message-ID header to a message composed on a device which has little or no notion of its own host identity, and in those cases what should the Message-ID be?" Is that in line with the problem that you're having? I happen to know the author of the mail specification RFC, and I'm thinking about asking him for his thoughts. Would you object to that? In the meantime, I'll provide this link in the hope that you can find grains of help in this section of the mail message standard. The full answer is not in there, but maybe you can make a better informed decision of what to do if you read that. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.4 Best regards, /Liman rameik...@posteo.net 2023-12-09 14:16 [+]: > Dear Lars-Johan Liman, > Thank you very much for your kind and exhaustive reply. I read in the > Gnus manual: >> If you have no idea what to insert for "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld", >> you’ve got several choices. You can either ask your provider if he >> allows you to use something like yourUserName.userfqdn.provider.net, >> or you can use somethingUnique.yourdomain.tld if you own the domain >> yourdomain.tld, or you can register at a service which gives private >> users a FQDN for free. > None of these apply to me. Then I read just below: >> Finally you can tell Gnus not to generate a Message-ID for News at >> all (and letting the server do the job) [...] you can also tell Gnus >> not to generate Message-IDs for mail by saying: >> //there's some code here// >> , however some mail servers don’t generate proper Message-IDs, too, >> so test if your Mail Server behaves correctly by sending yourself a >> Mail and looking at the Message-ID. > This is perfect! So I customized message-required-mail-headers. Now > your explanation shows why I should not remove the mail headers, but > still I wonder about the meaning of the lines cited above from the > Gnus manual. And I also wonder what is the meaning of the variable > message-required-mail-headers if it's essentially ignored by Message > when I remove the Message-ID header from the list. > Anyway now I'm back to the original problem where I don't know what to > insert for Message-ID because the recommendations from the Gnus manual > above don't apply, and also I can't understand how Message generates > the portion which comes before the at-sign... > And by the way, the standard for me would be > fedora.mail-host-address-is-not-set . Is this even a fully qualified > domain name, without extension? And how would I set mail host address? > Because I can only find the variable mail-host-address which is set to > system-name, which is fedora. Therefore I would expect the Message-ID > to be fsfxxx@fedora > (which by the way I think would miss the extension). If I set > mail-host-address manually to fedora.ext, would Message-ID then be > fsf...@fedora.ext? Then why don't they say > mail-host-extension-is-not-set rather than > mail-host-address-is-not-set in the default Message-ID when the > mail-host-address *is* set but has no extension? So much confusion. > On 09.12.2023 08:03, Lars-Johan Liman wrote: >> Hi! >> Message-ID is one of the very few _mandatory_ header lines, so a >> message >> without one is not a valid RFC 5322 (the sucessor of RFC 822) message. >> Therefore the message "must not/cannot" leave your computer without >> one. >> It has to be set on the computer if it's being shipped by a >> mail-related >> protocol ((E)SMTP/LMTP/IMAP/POP[23]/...). >> What you _can_ do (if I remember my sendmail.cf right, it's been a >> few >> years since I taught that course ... ;-) ) is to _modify_ the >> Message-ID >> header in your mail server. "If it looks like it's coming from the >> computer, then modify Message-ID to look like ... (bla)". But I >> wouldn't >> recommend it. Message-ID is supposed to be set by the sending software >> (the Mail User Agent (MUA)) and it's supposed to uniquely identify the >> message across all messages in the world ... ever. Modifying it would >> make it very difficult to trace and debug how the message traverses the >> Internet (which includes your computer). You can probably also >> influence >> exactly how Emacs generates the Message-ID, but again, it's probably >> not >> a good idea to mess with that. >> Can I ask what problem you see with having your Emacs generate the >> Message-ID? >>
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
Not 100% relevant, and I have posted an earlier version
before, but I have fun with the following which completely
randomizes the Message ID and user agent for every email I
send from gnus. (Sometimes you actually want this; think
about it!) However some SMTP servers rudely go ahead and
substitute their own Message ID for mine. Bad manners indeed.
Gmail fortunately does not.
;;; Fully anonymize/randomize FQDN.
(defun munge-message-id (orig-fun args)
"Make a random FQDN and User Agent"
(let* (
(alpha "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789")
(domain '("com" "org" "net" "info" "us"))
(part1 "")
(part2 "")
(part3 "")
(part4 "")
(part5 "")
num0 rnum)
;;; Temporary. Not in right place at all.
(munge-user-agent)
;;; FQDN.
;;; Front half.
(setq num0 (+ 8 (random 6)))
(while (> num0 0)
(setq rnum (random 35))
(setq part1 (concat part1 (substring alpha rnum (+ 1 rnum
(setq num0 (- num0 1))
)
(setq num0 (+ 8 (random 6)))
(while (> num0 0)
(setq rnum (random 35))
(setq part2 (concat part2 (substring alpha rnum (+ 1 rnum
(setq num0 (- num0 1))
)
;;; Back half.
(setq num0 (+ 4 (random 6)))
(while (> num0 0)
(setq rnum (random 35))
(setq part3 (concat part3 (substring alpha rnum (+ 1 rnum
(setq num0 (- num0 1))
)
(setq num0 (+ 4 (random 6)))
(while (> num0 0)
(setq rnum (random 35))
(setq part4 (concat part4 (substring alpha rnum (+ 1 rnum
(setq num0 (- num0 1))
)
;;; TLD.
(setq part5 (nth (random 4) domain))
;;; Build the message-id.
(concat "<" part1 "." part2 "@" part3 "." part4 "." part5 ">")
)
)
(advice-add 'message-make-message-id :around #'munge-message-id)
;;; Semi-randomize User-Agent.
(defun munge-user-agent ()
"Change user-agent to semi-random string"
(let* ( (agents '("Mozilla" "Chrome" "Safari" "Brave" "Vivaldi" "Edge"))
(versions '("5.0" "5.5" "6.0" "6.5" "4.5" "7.0")))
(setq gnus-user-agent (concat (nth (random 5) agents) "/" (nth (random 5)
versions)
--
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i
- Via GNU/Linux/Emacs/Gnus/BBDB
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
I'm not sure if Message is ignoring the value of `message-required-mail-headers'. Well, how else do you explain that when I remove Message-ID from message-required-mail-headers and send my email, then the Message-ID is given by the value of message-user-fqdn or when nil, by system-name? My guess is that your message-id like this: Message-ID: is generated by your sendmail program. Nono forget about these messages to info-gnus-english, which I'm sending using posteo's webmail. Maybe you want to check your sendmail program. The Message-ID of my email always depends on message-user-fqdn, therefore I deduce that it's Message which is setting it.
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
rameik...@posteo.net writes: > This is perfect! So I customized message-required-mail-headers. Now > your explanation shows why I should not remove the mail headers, but > still I wonder about the meaning of the lines cited above from the > Gnus manual. And I also wonder what is the meaning of the variable > message-required-mail-headers if it's essentially ignored by Message > when I remove the Message-ID header from the list. I'm not sure if Message is ignoring the value of `message-required-mail-headers'. > Anyway now I'm back to the original problem where I don't know what to > insert for Message-ID because the recommendations from the Gnus manual > above don't apply, and also I can't understand how Message generates > the portion which comes before the at-sign... My guess is that your message-id like this: Message-ID: <8b21e2aa979f8c1944fc0b5ca4be1...@posteo.net> is generated by your sendmail program. I use msmtp which has an option: ‘set_msgid_header [(auto|off)]’ When to set a Message-ID header: ‘auto’ adds a Message-ID header if the mail does not have one (this is the default), and ‘off’ never sets a Message-ID header. Message-IDs have the form ‘hash@domain’, where ‘hash’ is a hash over some values that uniquely identify the mail, and ‘domain’ is either the value of the domain command (unless that is the default value ‘localhost’), or the domain part of the envelope-from address (if available), or the host name of the SMTP server. Maybe you want to check your sendmail program. Best, Arash
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
Dear Lars-Johan Liman, Thank you very much for your kind and exhaustive reply. I read in the Gnus manual: If you have no idea what to insert for "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld", you’ve got several choices. You can either ask your provider if he allows you to use something like yourUserName.userfqdn.provider.net, or you can use somethingUnique.yourdomain.tld if you own the domain yourdomain.tld, or you can register at a service which gives private users a FQDN for free. None of these apply to me. Then I read just below: Finally you can tell Gnus not to generate a Message-ID for News at all (and letting the server do the job) [...] you can also tell Gnus not to generate Message-IDs for mail by saying: //there's some code here// , however some mail servers don’t generate proper Message-IDs, too, so test if your Mail Server behaves correctly by sending yourself a Mail and looking at the Message-ID. This is perfect! So I customized message-required-mail-headers. Now your explanation shows why I should not remove the mail headers, but still I wonder about the meaning of the lines cited above from the Gnus manual. And I also wonder what is the meaning of the variable message-required-mail-headers if it's essentially ignored by Message when I remove the Message-ID header from the list. Anyway now I'm back to the original problem where I don't know what to insert for Message-ID because the recommendations from the Gnus manual above don't apply, and also I can't understand how Message generates the portion which comes before the at-sign... And by the way, the standard for me would be fedora.mail-host-address-is-not-set . Is this even a fully qualified domain name, without extension? And how would I set mail host address? Because I can only find the variable mail-host-address which is set to system-name, which is fedora. Therefore I would expect the Message-ID to be fsfxxx@fedora (which by the way I think would miss the extension). If I set mail-host-address manually to fedora.ext, would Message-ID then be fsf...@fedora.ext? Then why don't they say mail-host-extension-is-not-set rather than mail-host-address-is-not-set in the default Message-ID when the mail-host-address *is* set but has no extension? So much confusion. On 09.12.2023 08:03, Lars-Johan Liman wrote: Hi! Message-ID is one of the very few _mandatory_ header lines, so a message without one is not a valid RFC 5322 (the sucessor of RFC 822) message. Therefore the message "must not/cannot" leave your computer without one. It has to be set on the computer if it's being shipped by a mail-related protocol ((E)SMTP/LMTP/IMAP/POP[23]/...). What you _can_ do (if I remember my sendmail.cf right, it's been a few years since I taught that course ... ;-) ) is to _modify_ the Message-ID header in your mail server. "If it looks like it's coming from the computer, then modify Message-ID to look like ... (bla)". But I wouldn't recommend it. Message-ID is supposed to be set by the sending software (the Mail User Agent (MUA)) and it's supposed to uniquely identify the message across all messages in the world ... ever. Modifying it would make it very difficult to trace and debug how the message traverses the Internet (which includes your computer). You can probably also influence exactly how Emacs generates the Message-ID, but again, it's probably not a good idea to mess with that. Can I ask what problem you see with having your Emacs generate the Message-ID? Best regards, /Lars-Johan Liman
Re: Have message-ID set by my email server rather than by Message
Hi! Message-ID is one of the very few _mandatory_ header lines, so a message without one is not a valid RFC 5322 (the sucessor of RFC 822) message. Therefore the message "must not/cannot" leave your computer without one. It has to be set on the computer if it's being shipped by a mail-related protocol ((E)SMTP/LMTP/IMAP/POP[23]/...). What you _can_ do (if I remember my sendmail.cf right, it's been a few years since I taught that course ... ;-) ) is to _modify_ the Message-ID header in your mail server. "If it looks like it's coming from the computer, then modify Message-ID to look like ... (bla)". But I wouldn't recommend it. Message-ID is supposed to be set by the sending software (the Mail User Agent (MUA)) and it's supposed to uniquely identify the message across all messages in the world ... ever. Modifying it would make it very difficult to trace and debug how the message traverses the Internet (which includes your computer). You can probably also influence exactly how Emacs generates the Message-ID, but again, it's probably not a good idea to mess with that. Can I ask what problem you see with having your Emacs generate the Message-ID? Best regards, /Lars-Johan Liman rameik...@posteo.net 2023-12-08 18:44 [+]: > Hello everyone! I'm on Emacs 29.1 and I use Message and sendmail for > writing emails. I don't load Gnus but I do the easy C-x m. I can't get > Emacs not to add Message-ID to my outgoing mail! I would be very > grateful if some of you could help me out a little, I'm kind of a > beginner. I set https://bpa.st/QLDQ and yet every email I write > contains a message-ID which is set by emacs, rather than my email > server. > If I customize message-user-fqdn then the Message-ID will reflect > that. Therefore whatever is setting my message ID despite the config > telling Message not to, is taking it from the variable > message-user-fqdn! > Help is very much appreciated!
