Subject: IMAP & sun-mailtool

From: [email-masked]
Date: 13 Aug 1995 17:55:14 +0200

I use both IMAP & sun-mailtool. Sometimes when I receive a message
sent with mailtool and I read it with IMAP, it will be separated in
2 or more parts.

For example when I forward a message with mailtool, the message will 
contain the following 3 lines (approx):

----- Begin Included Message -----
 
>From sztaki!FlashBack.com!flash Tue Feb  7 16:09 MET 1995

IMAP will cut the message into 2 messages, though with mailtool
I could read the message as one. The problem is more annoying,
because after only visiting (and not reading) the message with
IMAP, mailtool becomes also unable to read the message correctly.

I think, mailtool uses one of the headers Content-Length or
X-Lines, to recognize, that this is one message, rather than two.

Is this a known compatibility problem? Is there a fix for it?
I tried Keith Moore's sun-to-mime program to resolve this problem,
but it didn't work.

thanx a lot for any answer in advance,

Ivan Szanto

[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Kari E. Hurtta)
Date: 13 Aug 1995 16:52:07 GMT

[ Added comp.mail.misc as receiver. Followups to comp.mail.misc ]

[email-masked] writes in comp.mail.{pine,mime}:
»I use both IMAP & sun-mailtool. Sometimes when I receive a message
»sent with mailtool and I read it with IMAP, it will be separated in
»2 or more parts.

»For example when I forward a message with mailtool, the message will 
»contain the following 3 lines (approx):

»----- Begin Included Message -----
» 
»From sztaki!FlashBack.com!flash Tue Feb  7 16:09 MET 1995

»IMAP will cut the message into 2 messages, though with mailtool
»I could read the message as one. The problem is more annoying,
»because after only visiting (and not reading) the message with
»IMAP, mailtool becomes also unable to read the message correctly.

»I think, mailtool uses one of the headers Content-Length or
»X-Lines, to recognize, that this is one message, rather than two.

»Is this a known compatibility problem? Is there a fix for it?

Your IMAP server don't support that mailbox format where "From " -lines are
not escaped. Instead there is Content-Length -header, which tells lenght
of body of mail in mailbox in bytes.

Yes, you have compatibility problem between your local mailer and IMAP server.
(Your local mailer does actual delivery to mailbox.)

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From: Andy Behrens <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 15:23:58 -0400

> sent with mailtool and I read it with IMAP, it will be separated in
       . . . . .
> I tried Keith Moore's sun-to-mime program to resolve this problem,

The problem is that Sun has chosen a slightly non-standard format for
their mailboxes.  Instead of just marking the beginning of a new
message with a line beginning with "From ", they use the "From " line
together with the character-count contained in the Content-Length:
line.

Because Sun uses this format, they allow mail messages that contain
"From " as the first 5 characters on a line.  Sun-supplied mail readers
(like Mailtool) know that these lines are part of the message, but
other programs (like Pine) do not.

Fortunately, the solution is simple.  If, as I suspect, you're on a
Solaris system, just edit the /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file and change the
line

    Mlocal, P=/bin/mail, F=flsSDFMmnP, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
to
    Mlocal, P=/bin/mail, F=EflsSDFMmnP, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u

The F=E flag tells sendmail to replace "From" with ">From" when
delivering mail to a user on your machine.

Andy

-- 
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.        (Anne Herbert)

Andy Behrens			       <[email-masked]>
Burlington Coat Factory, Schoolhouse Lane, Etna, N.H. 03750

---

From: [email-masked] (Alan Thew)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 12:32:05 GMT

>    Mlocal, P=/bin/mail, F=EflsSDFMmnP, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
What does mailtool do now since the content-length will have changed? Is
there any effect at all?

Thanks.

-- 
Alan Thew
[email-masked]   ...!uknet!liv!alan.thew   Tel: +44 151 794-4497
University of Liverpool, Computing Services     Fax: +44 151 794-4442