Subject: How to disable the addition of '@hostname' to addresses?

From: Jos Vos <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 93 16:09:52 MET

Pine automatically appends an '@' followed by my local hostname
to outgoing addresses without an '@'.
Is there a simple way to disable this (or to hack the code
for this purpose?

In my opinion this is a function of the mail transport agent
(sendmail in our case), not of the mail user agent.

Especially, the "rewriting" of

	hosta!hostb!user
to
	hosta!hostb!user@myhost

I don't like, because this type of addresses often confuses some
mailers (I know it's officially correct).

-- 
--    Jos Vos <[email-masked]>   (UUCP: ...!{uunet,mcsun,sun4nl}!nlbull!jos)
--    Bull Netherlands, Professional Services, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1993 12:33:09 -0700 (PDT)

Jos -

Pine is a RFC-822 syntax mailer.  It is not intended to be a UUCP-syntax 
mailer.  Since Pine runs on DOS configurations as well, it has to take on 
the responsibility of building proper RFC 822 format headers.

If you run sendmail, you can configure your UUCP routing to use RFC-822 
syntax using the Domain Name System, or you can configure sendmail to 
convert RFC-822 syntax to UUCP syntax.

Regards,

-- Mark --

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From: Jos Vos <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 07:56:56 MET

> convert RFC-822 syntax to UUCP syntax.

We have Sendmail running, using UUCP to the outside world and SMTP
in our internal network.  And our Sendmail *does* use domain addresses
as much as possible.

But: that's just the reason that I don't want Pine to mungle headers.
Our Sendmail takes its own decisions to change headers.

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 00:06:13 -0700 (PDT)

I don't think you understand what is going on inside Pine.

Pine does not ``mungle'' headers.  Pine accepts input and parses it into a
structured representation of that particular field.  While doing so, it
does services such as address book lookup, etc.  When the message it sent,
it generates a header from that structured representation.  The original 
input is not used at all.

This structured representation includes a ``hostname'' subfield in the
case of an address field.  This is not an optional field.  It gets filled
in with the local domain if it is not specified.  The alternative is to
give you an error message if you don't specify a hostname; I don't think
anyone wants that! 

There have been many problems caused by mail programs which fail to set up
fully-qualified e-mail addresses prior to sending the mail.  The Internet
e-mail development mailing list archives are filled with horror stories of
such dating from at least 1977.  The potential for user confusion and
technical problems with incomplete e-mail addresses is *enormous*.

What you are really asking is not ``make Pine not mungle headers''.  In 
actuality, you are saying ``make Pine use exactly what the user typed in 
instead of generating proper Internet format, and trust that sendmail 
will mungle the headers to be valid.''

Please consider moving your UUCP network towards using the domain name
system via MX records instead of UUCP routing syntax.  This is a more
robust system and is better supported by modern e-mail tools such as Pine. 
I do not see any means that we can make the hostname field optional in
addresses without inflicting 16+ years' worth of documented horrors on
novice users.

---

From: Jos Vos <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 08:56:53 MET

> will mungle the headers to be valid.''

Yes, that's exactly what I'm asking.
Sendmail is much better occupied for that job than any mail user agent.

> robust system and is better supported by modern e-mail tools such as Pine. 

We *do* use domain addresses for almost all destinations (even UUCP hosts).
But in some cases people use, for whatever reason, use an UUCP-path.

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From: Dan Schlitt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 11:38:10 -0400 (EDT)

Mark is exactly right about using fully qualified domain names in the
headers generated by Pine.  It would be nice if all MUAs did the same. 
Please don't change it.

Mixed bang and @ addresses are a bad thing because they are ambiguous
in meaning.  Users probably should not be generating full bang paths
either.  The topology of the uucp network tends to change more rapidly
than most people's knowledge of it.  If one needs to use bang paths
for delivery then the MTA should generate them and not the user.

There have long been MTAs that can both handle domain style addresses
to uucp sites and generate the correct bang path for delivery from the
uucp maps.  People who use uucp should use that software and not
burden programs like Pine with those problems.

/dan

Dan Schlitt                           School of Engineering Computer Systems
[email-masked]        City College of New York
(212)650-6760                         New York, NY 10031

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From: Ed Greshko <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 23:51:17 +0800 (TPE)

> Sendmail is much better occupied for that job than any mail user agent.

	I must say that I fully agree with Mark.  Even to this day I see
broken mailers and broken sendmails were mail shows up on my doorstep
in the form user@hostname...and they are no where close to being in my
domain.  

	You are making a bad assumption about sendmail since I think you
are also assuming that everyone knows how to properly configure it to
follow the rules.  I can add to the "horror" stories that prove it bad
a bad assumption.

	For pine to be the mailer it wants to be, i.e. the mailer of
choice for the non-techincal, it needs to make inteligent decisions
based upon standards.  I personally find that to be commended.
Not only that...it helps to reduce the "mistakes" made by even the
most techie mail user.

	Within our local network we use SMTP, IMAP, POP2, POP3 and UUCP[B
as protocols.  For ease of making routing decisions and getting
everything to interoperate...we don't fool around we simply use
fully qualified domain names all of the time.  The only thing we have
is a "fire wall" that strips off the host part from all mail escaping
our domain.

	If you want a mailer to do as you requested....try /bin/mail :-)

Edward M. Greshko			Control Data Taiwan
Voice: +886-2-715-2222 x287		6/F, 131 Nanking East Road, Section 3
FAX  : +886-2-712-9197			Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C

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From: Dan Schlitt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 11:38:10 -0400 (EDT)

/dan