Bug 922 - From line handling incorrect in mail.local
Summary: From line handling incorrect in mail.local
Status: Closed FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Base System
Classification: Unclassified
Component: misc (show other bugs)
Version: Unspecified
Hardware: Any Any
: Normal Affects Only Me
Assignee: freebsd-bugs (Nobody)
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 1995-12-30 06:00 UTC by gil
Modified: 1998-04-12 19:19 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:


Attachments
file.diff (889 bytes, patch)
1995-12-30 06:00 UTC, gil
no flags Details | Diff

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Description gil 1995-12-30 06:00:01 UTC
	If a "From " line is in the text of a message, a ">" is not
	consistently prepended to the word "From ", causing mailers such
	as elm to erroneously think that a new message has started.

	The problem occurs specifically when a "From " line occurs in the
	text of a message without a blank line before it.

	The problem has manifested itself more recently because I think
	the old local mailer in sendmail had the F=E option, and I know
	it doesn't now.  mail.local is the correct place to do the
	substitution, not sendmail.

Fix: The logic for the original mail.local for handling "From " lines makes
little sense.  I have interpreted it as attempting to leave existing
"From " lines in the header alone, although I'm pretty sure that these
are supposed to have a prepended ">" also if there is a duplicate.  I
will leave it up to the sendmail people to interpret what the code should
have done, and what it should do now.

The bug is also in the current mail.local in the latest version of sendmail.
I have not checked the 2.1.0-RELEASE of FreeBSD to see if it exists there.
How-To-Repeat: 
	Forward a message to yourself using elm, or remotely using any
	mail user agent that will not automatically prepend ">" to
	"From " lines.  The mail.local program will not do the proper
	prepending.
Comment 1 Peter Wemm freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 1996-01-01 12:30:15 UTC
State Changed
From-To: open->analyzed

This is actually intended behavior... 

The end-of-message marker is a blank line followed by "^From ".. 
ie: 
"nnFrom " 

So, if you have a message like this: (indented for example) 

foo bar baz 
From this I can see blah.. 

It should not be escaped because there is not a blank line. 

However: 

foo bar baz 

From this I can see blah... 

...should be escaped as the mail system cannot distinguish the end-of-msg. 

The actual bug is in pine and elm's mailbox decoding. 

Perhaps a 'bug compatable' flag for mail.local is needed? 
Comment 2 Poul-Henning Kamp freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 1998-04-12 19:19:02 UTC
State Changed
From-To: analyzed->closed

timed out