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Re: sendmail : reply-to : why do you need it ?



On 29 Jan 1998, Harvey J. Stein wrote:

> "Peter L. Peres" <plp@actcom.co.il> writes:
> 
> > On 29 Jan 1998, Harvey J. Stein wrote:
> > 
> > > "Peter L. Peres" <plp@actcom.co.il> writes:
> > > 
> > > > Off topic: Why on earth do you need the Reply-To: field is From: is
> > > > specified ?! The only reason to use this, is when someone sends mail as
> > > > guest from another account and wants the answers at home. Setting both
> > > > fields the same might confuse some mailer or filter, causing duplicate
> > > > messages or such.
> > > 
> > > Such a mailer or filter is broken.
> > 
> > Yes. Shouldn't one foresee and prevent problems ?
> 
> Why not just remove all programs and source code and have no problems
> whatsoever?

You mean from all the far away machines that run mail exchanges that get
confused by UNIX headers sometimes ? I aggree !

> > > > Is there something I have missed ?
> > > 
> > > Yes.  So that the message can, for example, be from a mailing list
> > > for which replies go back to the author, not to the mailing list.
> > 
> > It was in front of my eyes and I had not seen it. It must be the SMD work
> > I do.
> > 
> > Anyway, the H headers are not documented in the docs that come with
> > sendmail packages on Linux. (for the exact version, look at my mail
> > header).
> 
> RTFM - the email RFCs, not the sendmail documentation.

The email RFCs have no business mentioning that a line starting with:

H?F?

in a file called /etc/sendmail.cf on some hosts running UNIX, may include
a header of type 'Reply-To:' in a sent message. And they do not. Neither
does the sendmail doc supplied on Linux, as far as I can tell.  

Peter