Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!eric%ucbarpa@UCB-VAX.ARPA From: eric%ucbarpa@UCB-VAX.ARPA Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: From:, Mail, and sendmail Message-ID: <12346@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Sat, 11-Aug-84 16:17:00 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12346 Posted: Sat Aug 11 16:17:00 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 15-Aug-84 00:50:33 EDT Lines: 21 From: Eric AllmanThe problem with using the UNIX-style "From" line as a return address is that it is not necessarily the sender of the message. It corresponds to the "Return-Path:" field in Arpa-land, which is really the address to send delivery errors to. In UNIX these have traditionally been the same (he who sends the mail gets the errors), but that is changing. Several sites now change that address when they forward messages to a list. For example, mail to "INFO-UNIX@BRL-VGR.ARPA" is resent "From INFO-UNIX-REQUEST@BRL-VGR.ARPA". My belief is that the "correct" solution is to eliminate routing from the addresses, so that it would not be necessary to rewrite headers on the fly. For example, a reasonable address would be "eric@ucbvax.UUCP" no matter where you were sitting on the net. [Peter Honeyman would accuse me of being an at-ist (he proudly admits to being a bang-ist), but you can't have everything.] The "uucp project" is putting together software now that appears to have this functionality. eric