From husc6!rutgers!pyrnj!mirror!xanth!kyle Fri Feb  6 09:42:52 EST 1987
Article 135 of comp.mail.headers:
Path: husc6!rutgers!pyrnj!mirror!xanth!kyle
>From: kyle@xanth.UUCP (Kyle Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Routing using @host1:@host2:user@host3
Message-ID: <488@xanth.UUCP>
Date: 6 Feb 87 03:10:15 GMT
References: <4611@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU> <837@astrovax.UUCP> <1322@ncr-sd.UUCP> <608@brl-sem.ARPA>
Organization: ODU Computer Science
Lines: 38
Keywords: routed addresses RFC-822
Summary: sendmail.cf bug causes @host1:@host2:user@host3

In article <608@brl-sem.ARPA>, dpk@brl-sem.ARPA (Doug Kingston <dpk>) writes:
> In article <1322@ncr-sd.UUCP> matt@ncr-sd.UUCP (Matt Costello) writes:
> >What is the status of using
> >	@host1:@host2:user@host3	# 1
> >versus the 'correct' but ugly
> >	@host1,@host2:user@host3	# 2
> > ...
> >I've noticed that sendmail sites tend to use form #1, and MMDF sites
> >(on CSNET) tend to use form #2.  What I'd really like to know is if
> >form #1 is enough of an unofficial standard (like the magic '%' rule)
> >to make it universally acceptable?
> No.  Don't use it.  If SENDMAIL is then its wrong and should be fixed.

The bug is not in sendmail itself but rather in a widely used sendmail
configuration file.

There is a line in ruleset 3 which converts all commas to colons in an address
to simplify route-addr parsing.

# make sure <@a,@b,@c:user@d> syntax is easy to parse -- undone later
R@$+,$+			@$1:$2				change all "," to ":"

Unfortunately the line in ruleset 4 which is supposed to undo this looks
like this:

R@$+:$+:$+		$@@$1,$2:$3			<route-addr> canonical

which changes the first colon to a comma and leaves the rest of them
untouched.  Change the line to

R@$+:$+:$+		@$1,$2:$3			<route-addr> canonical

and the correct route-addr syntax is restored.

-- 
kyle jones, odu computer science
ARPA: kyle@xanth.cs.odu.edu		CSNET: kyle@odu.csnet
UUCP: kyle@xanth.uucp


