Subject: Re:Lists in PINE 3.95

From: [email-masked] (Robin Cordova/Open Systems Consulting and Training Inc)
Date: 22 Apr 1997 15:40:34 GMT

On Mon, 21 Apr 1997, Lucio Chiappetti wrote:

>   Use the Bcc and Lcc fields in the header. See relevant help within pine
>   (just press ^R to get a rich header, go on the Bcc and Lcc lines and
>   press help)
> 
> 
and Jeff Douglas wrote:
> - From the FAQ:                                                          
>                                                                          
>  How do I send a message to multiple recipients without showing         
>  all their names?                                                       
>                                                                         
>  In Pine's message composer, with the cursor in the message             
>  headers area, press Ctrl-R ("rich headers"). Then read the             
>  context-sensitive help screens for the Bcc: and Lcc: fields.           
>                                                                         
>                                                                         
>Basically stick the list name in the Lcc: field instead of               
>the To: field.                                                           

But when I try this for my list "Open Systems" nick=office, I get an
error:
  POSTING ERRORS Result: (USER) unknown user name in "Open Systems: ;"

and then:
  [Posting program /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -oem -t returned error]

If I delete the To: line contents, I get similar results except the
unknown user name is the "Undisclosed recipients" default value. 

The list works fine when it is entered on the To: line.  The result prior
to the error looks just like the context sensitive help advertises.

This is a SCO Open Server Enterprise 5.0.2 system using mmdf as the MTA,
if that makes a difference.

-- 
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Open Systems Consulting & Training, Inc.
6851 So. Holly Circle
Suite 170                                               (303)694-9304 voice
Englewood, CO 80112					(303)694-1318 fax

---

From: Steve Hubert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 12:06:33 -0700 (PDT)

I think it does make a difference that it is SCO running mmdf. Because
mmdf's emulation of sendmail does not handle the -bs flag correctly, the
default pine sending method on SCO is to use the sendmail -t method
instead of the sendmail -bs method. There is (what I consider to be) a bug
in sendmail -t which causes it to fail if the To line has a group syntax
address with no actual addresses specified. This bug is apparently
faithfully reproduced in the mmdf emulation of sendmail. This means that
there is no way to use the sendmail -t method of submission and also have
a To header with an empty group syntax address on it, which is what Lcc
and Bcc try to do on SCO systems.

There are some work-arounds. The easiest is if you can set the smtp-server
configuration variable in pine to something. It should certainly work if
you can set it to the name of a close by smtp server, and I think it will
also work if you set it to "localhost". 

You could set "empty-header-message" to "" (two quotes). Then the empty
group syntax address won't be produced at all, so you'll have no To line. 

You could use bcc and put some real address on the To line, like your own
address. 

You could add a hack to your sendmail.cf file that fixes the "bug" by
noticing the empty group syntax address and sending it to /dev/null. I
don't know how to do this with mmdf, but you could add something like the
following in sendmail.cf: 

# Dispose of empty group lists.  There needs to be an alias
# "nobody: /dev/null" in the aliases file.  The idea behind this is to
# allow (empty) list syntax to be used in a header and have it "work" with
# sendmail -t.  That is, it passes through unchanged and unused.
R$*:;                   $#local$:nobody         group syntax hack

This would usually come right before the last line of ruleset 0, which
disposes of local mail.  The idea is that it actually delivers it but to
/dev/null.  This should make sendmail happy.

-- 
Steve Hubert <[email-masked]>
Networks and Distributed Computing, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

On 22 Apr 1997, Robin Cordova/Open Systems Consulting and Training Inc wrote:

> [...]

> > [...]