On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Tom Fischer wrote:
> if the Envelope-to: is set in the header of a mail exim ignores the
> To: ? is this correct?
No that is not correct. Mail while being transported has three parts:
(1) The envelope (which is not actually part of the message)
(2) The headers
(3) The body
Of course the body can be divided into parts using MIME, but that isn't
relevant.
The envelope will have a sender (or "envelope from") and a list of
recipients ("mail to", "envelope-from" etc).
Those things don't have to correspond with anything in the headers. In
mailing lists, you will find that the headers of the mail and
the actual envelope are not identical.
According to the mail standards, certain activity should make use of the
envelope and not the headers. Most notably, non-delivery reports
(bounces) should go to the envelope from and ignore anything in the
headers. Indeed that is why mailing lists have a seperate address in the
envelope then in the headers, so that bounces go to a list administrative
address.
Now exim has a feature where when it delivers mail to a final destination
(typically a file) it will add a header "Envelope-to: ". That is a
non-standard header that normally plays no role in transport, as it is
only added at the very end of transport has the mail is delivered to your
mail box. That way, you can see what the envelope-to was. For example,
If I get mail with not useful information in the headers as to how the
mail was addresses to me, I could look at the Envelope-to (if my ISP
provided that).
So nothing is making use of envelope-to. (Actually, if you use something
like fetchmail to retreive mail via POP3 and reinject into SMTP, then you
can tell fetchmail to make use of that information.)
> what can i do to avoid this? i've tried to set
> envelope_to_remove in the configuration file under the transport-section
> but exim says the option is unknown.
In your transport that does local delivery just say
envelope_to_add = no
If you are still seeing an envelope_to then it must be being added
elsewhere. Are you using something like fetchmail? You could remove it
using Remove_header, but it won't solve your problem, since exim is never
reading that line.
Indeed, I don't actually know what the misbehaviour you are experiencing
is. What is happening that you don't want to happen?
-j
PS: Is there a "mail transport basics HOWTO" that we can make people
read?
--
Jeffrey Goldberg
I have recently moved, see
http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/contact.html
Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice
