lost headers

Thu Aug 4 10:14:55 MST 2005

Exactly.

Your fields came through as headers as follows (Braces added, last List header included to highlight lack of blank line):
{
Errors-To: plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
X-Null-Field: this is a test header
X-Null-Field: this is not an actual header
X-Null-Field: if this had been a real header, you would have been instructed
X-Null-Field: on what to do with them.
}

Technomage wrote:
> ok. this is new to me.
> 
> so, if I were to place a number of lines above that started with a ":" 
> followed by a comment, some clients would interpret that as header info?
> 
> btw, this e-mail is also a test.....
> 
> On Thursday 04 August 2005 02:21, Joseph Sinclair wrote:
> 
>>I'm not missing anything, the information is just hidden from view.
>>The first few lines (the ones with ":" characters) are being *properly*
>>interpreted by Thunderbird as header lines, and those don't show unless I
>>do a view source.
>>
>>The "tool" that's compressing out the blank lines between header fields is
>>somewhere in the SMTP cloud between you and me.  I have no idea where, and
>>no way of hunting that down.
>>
>>BTW Section 4.2 of RFC 2822 on the IETF web site states:
>>    In the obsolete syntax, any amount of folding white space MAY be
>>    inserted where the obs-FWS rule is allowed.  This creates the
>>    possibility of having two consecutive "folds" in a line, and
>>    therefore the possibility that a line which makes up a folded header
>>    field could be composed entirely of white space.
>>
>>The EBNF in the spec states that a line with nothing but whitespace (i.e.
>>tab or space) is allowed on input (compliant software should NEVER generate
>>such a header), but a lot of older MTA's interpret that as "Blank Lines Are
>>Allowed" on incoming messages. I know that's not perfect behavior, but
>>speaking as someone who worked on MTA's about 15 years ago when the
>>standing spec was RFC 822, a LOT of MTA's allowed completely blank lines,
>>and a lot of other MTA's would remove those extra "fold" lines as a way of
>>reducing message size without harming the content.  There are still a lot
>>of MTA's out there that follow this, admittedly obsolete, reasoning, but
>>there's also very little I can do to fix it, since I don't know which
>>servers they are, and I couldn't do much about obsolete proprietary
>>software even if I did.
>>
>>The point of all this is that it's a simple fix to just DON'T PUT LINES
>>WITH ":" CHARACTERS IN THE FIRST LINE OF YOUR MESSAGE. Is it that hard to
>>just accept that there are bad MTA's out there and take simple steps to
>>avoid having them munge your message?
>>
>>I'm not asking you to do something terribly hard here, just to be a little
>>more considerate when you put links in a message by prefacing them with
>>something simple, like a line stating what the link is for.  It's not hard,
>>and we're all used to doing simple things like this to work around flaws in
>>widely used, but flawed, proprietary software (like IE).
>>
>>==Joseph++
>>
>>Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 3 Aug 2005, Joseph Sinclair wrote:
>>>
>>>>The User Agent isn't the only actor here.  The intervening mail
>>>>servers are permitted to interpret the headers of the message as
>>>>provided under section 4.2 of RFC 2822, and they're permitted to
>>>>modify those headers to add trace information, reorder fields,,
>>>>etc...  This is what's happening for me, and probably for some other
>>>>people as well.
>>>>One of more servers between you and me (at least 7 for the message
>>>>below) is removing the blank line before your "fake" headers, and
>>>>Thunderbird sees it, properly, as part of the header block.  According
>>>>to the RFC 2822 spec, all conforming UA's SHOULD accept messages with
>>>>blank lines between headers to accommodate sending UA's that are
>>>>designed to the RFC 822 spec (which allowed this behavior).
>>>
>>>4.2 is the wrong section (unless different rfc2822 are sectioned
>>>differently).
>>>
>>>The problem is that my two extra lines are not part of the header :)
>>>
>>>Please quote the specific section that allows putting "a line with
>>>nothing preceding the CRLF" between the real headers and more headers.
>>>
>>>I'll admit that I don't know the mail specs perfectly. But I do have
>>>experience with email message parsing: I have done POP3 server
>>>development for around six years and have maintained vm-pop3d for over
>>>four years; taught mail server administration for over four years; and I
>>>have read a lot of exim, postfix and sendmail MTA code and mail.local
>>>MDA code (and other SMTP mailers) and wrote and use "mailout" SMTP-out
>>>sendmail replacement.
>>>
>>>
>>>>Note, the replied messages below are NOT modified in any way, and your
>>>>"fake" headers are not shown.  I don't just make this stuff up, and I
>>>>rather resent your implication that I did.
>>>
>>>We should track down specifically what mail *tool* lost my important :)
>>>email message. I agree with Kurt: it's a bug that needs to be reported.
>>>
>>>Please see
>>>http://lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/lurker/message/20050804.005401.9719e855.e
>>>n.html
>>>
>>>and
>>>http://lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/lurker/message/20050804.013243.964e82c1.e
>>>n.html
>>>
>>>
>>>Does anyone know where the lines were lost?
>>>
>>>I am interested in solving this. Other readers: please let me know if my
>>>two lines were missing for you.
>>>
>>> Jeremy C. Reed
>>>
>>>                 BSD News, BSD tutorials, BSD links
>>>                http://www.bsdnewsletter.com/
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>>
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