On Tue, 13 Apr 1999 09:37:18 +0200, Juergen Schubert wrote:
>I'm searching for a patch which lets qmail to accept mails with characters
>>126 ( e.g. german umlauts ) in the mail headers. I searched all archives
>but it seems no one didn't ask for this up to now.
Please post an actual bounce message to the list.
qmail does not reject such messages. Other mailers (exim - depends on
config) do at the SMTP level, which is why your report comes from
qmail.
Here's the scoop:
Some people have decided that all that is not explicitly allowed is
forbidden. To twart SPAM, the check the incoming message at the SMTP
level with certain rules (no From: header => SPAM). As a part of this,
they do a syntax check. Usually, they are in the US and blissfully
unaware of characters that fall into the >127 category.
DJB/qmail has a more intelligent philosophy. Be strict on sending,
liberal on receiving, EXCEPT when it may corrupt the message (e.g. bare
LF handling). Also, they realize the common use of >127 characters in
headers (comments/names - it is trictly forbidden in addresses).
This causes the MTA to reject mail with:
1. Umlauts in headers.
2. Badly formatted headers, even e.g. "From: <me@host>".
3. Messages with e.g. CC: address, but not "To: address".
etc, depending on configuration.
What to do:
mail the postmaster at the site and Cc: the customer explaining what it
happening and why. Hopefully, the MTA programmers will build around
this common (although not explictly rfc822 allowed) use, and still be
able to apply whatever spam rules are desired.
PS: The real joke is all the MX out there that reply "we do not relay".
Their customers get mail intermittently and nobody understands why. On
mailing lists I run, this is maybe half of the bounces. Probably due to
installing a new sendmail version and not knowing what they do ;-)
-Sincerely, Fred
(Frederik Lindberg, Infectious Diseases, WashU, St. Louis, MO, USA)
