>>>>> "LH" == Lindsay Haisley <fmouse@fmp.com> writes:
LH> I recently encountered a situation in which certain messages resent by
LH> Majordomo to list subscribers at an ISP were being bounced by the ISP's
LH> spam filters with the message "550 Body To: is missing or empty".
Their choice, I suppose.
LH> Although I haven't had a chance to examine the code, my impression is
LH> that Majordomo simply resends posts to list subscribers with all
LH> headers intact unless a specific instruction is present to rewrite one
LH> or more of the headers - as with a reply_to config directive.
Correct. I try to follow the principle of "least header modification",
meaning that the headers should be left as close as they were originally
because the mailing list manager only forwards the message. The actual
requirements are (again) rather vague; my view is that Majordomo shouldn't
make things look any different than a simple Sendmail alias list.
LH> RFC 822 - which I believe is still authoritative - is somewhat
LH> ambiguous on the subject of a To: header requirement.
Yes, 822 is still relevant, as modified by 1123 (which doesn't make any
relevant modifications here). The whole thing is being completely revised,
though, by the DRUMS group. The current draft requires _only_ Date: and
From:, with Message-ID: as a SHOULD and various other requirements dealing
with multi-address From: headers and the various Resent- headers as
necessary. See
http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-drums-msg-fmt-06.txt,
section 3.6. I think there's little point in arguing over the vagueness of
822 when it's due to be replaced soon anyway.
LH> What is your understanding of this situation with regard to Majordomo?
IMHO: Majordomo is doing the right thing by not futzing with the message.
The ISP that's bouncing the message is violating a very important
principle, the Robustness Principle: be conservative in what you generate
and liberal in what you accept (RFC1123 1.2.2). If Majordomo were to
reject the message, it would be violating that principle.
LH> Would it be appropriate to add code to Majordomo to either a) reject
LH> posts not containing a To: header
That is your choice; in Majordomo2 (this is the workers list, after all),
add an entry like
!/^To:/i
to taboo_headers. Majordomo1 cannot do this without code modification, but
such a hack would be relatively simple.
LH> or b) to insert a To: header with the list address into posts in which
LH> a To: header is absent?
I don't believe that's really acceptable. Slightly more acceptable would
be to add something like
To: No-To-Header-Present;:
(or Unlisted-Recipients;: or something like it) but I really prefer to
leave it alone.
--
Jason L Tibbitts III - tibbs@uh.edu - 713/743-3486 - 660PGH - 94 PC800
System Manager: University of Houston Department of Mathematics
"I survived while Ruby died in Jackie's trashy fantasy..."
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