Oliver Oberdorf writes: >> No! Reply-To: is something entirely different, and will *not* solve >> the problem. >[...] >> hostnames=sfere.elmail.co.uk:sfere.uk.geeks.org >> - the names which should be recognised as being local. >> So [EMAIL PROTECTED] is assumed to be `user' >> on my machine, rather than requiring external >> delivery. > >Reply-to: IS the right thing to do, IMO, since it will get >people to reply to the correct address.
Unfortunately your opinion is wrong, since it won't get machines to reply to the correct address. There are three things here: * The `return path' is the envelope sender address. This tends to get used for bounce messages, and therefore must point somewhere sensible. (Consider the case of a message with no valid headers at all; a bounce must still go somewhere sane.) * The From: line in the header. This needs to be set correctly so that replies go to the right place. There are, I believe, systems which try to bounce to the From: header or send a reply to the envelope sender, of course, but they're broken badly. (The latter will work remarkably badly on the wrong side of a POP connection, for example.) * The Reply-To: line in the header. This is used when one is to reply to some address(es) other than those in the From: line. You will not get bounces sent to the Reply-To address. >It is very simple and users can do it without root permission on your >system - even if you're the only user that's nice. Any user can put in a From: line. If you add them to the list of trusted_users in Smail's configuration file then they won't get a Sender: line added in such cases. root is not needed. I think only the trusted users can set the envelope sender address, however. >Additionally, if you ever connect to the internet through multiple >ISPs, you don't have to change system files every time you connect to >a different one. That's only a problem if you insist that connecting through different ISPs smeans you change your email address. I'd solve that by using a single canonical email address all the time. >The problem with the solution presented above is if you want to send >mail *to your ISP* about something, it'll try and deliver locally. >For example, mail to root, support, webmaster, postmaster... @ISP.com >will all get delivered locally and you don't want that. Indeed not. AFAIK Smail can't solve this properly without some kind of wrapping - rewrites are not a feature of the program. Hope I've got that lot right ... l-) -- Richard Kettlewell http://www.elmail.co.uk/staff/richard/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Eat a live toad before breakfast and nothing worse will happen to you all day.
