On Fri, 28 Nov 1997, Mike Zanker wrote:
> I've just noticed that when Exim is sending a delivery error report it uses
> a blank envelope from address (MAIL FROM:<>). Is this intentional?
>
> Some mail hosts are rejecting them because of this (sprintmail.com MX hosts
> for example).
Those hosts are broken. From RFC 1123:
5.2.9 Command Syntax: RFC-821 Section 4.1.2
The syntax shown in RFC-821 for the MAIL FROM: command omits
the case of an empty path: "MAIL FROM: <>" (see RFC-821 Page
15). An empty reverse path MUST be supported.
...
5.3.3 Reliable Mail Receipt
...
If there is a delivery failure after acceptance of a message,
the receiver-SMTP MUST formulate and mail a notification
message. This notification MUST be sent using a null ("<>")
reverse path in the envelope; see Section 3.6 of RFC-821. The
recipient of this notification SHOULD be the address from the
envelope return path (or the Return-Path: line). However, if
this address is null ("<>"), the receiver-SMTP MUST NOT send a
notification. If the address is an explicit source route, it
SHOULD be stripped down to its final hop.
--
Philip Hazel University Computing Service,
ph10@??? New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
P.Hazel@??? England. Phone: +44 1223 334714
--
*** Exim information can be found at
http://www.exim.org/ ***
