[Mailman-Users] Problems with To Header

[Brad Knowles]

At 6:48 PM -0500 2006-06-09, Joseph Perrie wrote:

>           However, I still couldn't see why Sendmail would force the
>  To-header back to the canonical name when Mailman was setting it correctly.
>  Eventually, I happened across this email (
>  http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/1998-August/004971.html)
>   on the dev list that solved the problem by manually editting sendmail.cf's
>  rulesets to bypass canonicalization. I'm sure this violates some RFC.

	Yup.  The problem is, your server isn't the only one to perform 
canonicalization.  All other servers your machine talks to should do 
the same, which means that anything you do to eliminate 
canonicalization on your own machine should have absolutely no 
positive impact whatsoever.  You may think it does, but in fact 
everyone else will turn around and do to you exactly what your own 
server was doing.

>  It's absolutely wrong to do this because if you edit sendmail.mc, and
>  restart sendmail, the cf file gets regenerated automatically which
>  obliterates the change. Is there a better way to fix this without violating
>  RFCs and changing sendmail rulesets? Note: I don't have access to the DNS
>  server.

	I'm sorry, the only way to really fix this problem is to fix the 
DNS.  Even if you have complete and total control over your own 
machine, you're still hosed by every other machine on the Internet.

	You have to get the DNS fixed.  That's the *only* solution.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

  LOPSA member since December 2005.  See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.