masqmail

annotate docs/oem-option @ 323:29de6a1c4538

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Fixed an important bug with folded headers! g_strconcat() returns a *copy* of the string, but hdr->value still pointed to the old header (which probably was a memory leak, too). If the folded part had been quite small it was likely that the new string was at the same position as the old one, thus making everything go well. But if pretty long headers were folded several times it was likely that the new string was allocated somewhere else in memory, thus breaking things. In result mails to lots of recipients (folded header) were frequently only sent to the ones in the first line. Sorry for the inconvenience.
author meillo@marmaro.de
date Fri, 03 Jun 2011 09:47:27 +0200
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meillo@258 1 -oem
meillo@258 2 ====
meillo@258 3
meillo@258 4 This document explains what I found out about the -oem/-oee options. It
meillo@258 5 is intended as a knowledge base for further development on this topic.
meillo@258 6 In version 0.3.0 (2010-11), masqmail's implementation of -oem is
meillo@258 7 considered broken and -oee is not implemented.
meillo@258 8
meillo@258 9 Following is the behavior masqmail actually had:
meillo@258 10
meillo@258 11 If -oi/-i is given, -oem is ignored.
meillo@258 12 If no -oi/-i is given, always return with a non-zero return code.
meillo@258 13
meillo@258 14 This current behavior is not like it should be.
meillo@258 15
meillo@258 16
meillo@258 17 The desired behavior
meillo@258 18 --------------------
meillo@258 19
meillo@258 20 It had been difficult to identify good explanations. The problem, as
meillo@258 21 often, is that sendmail's source would be the definitive definition.
meillo@258 22 But in which version and what if common behavior differs from sendmail's
meillo@258 23 (maybe as a result of misunderstanding)? Exim's documentation has proven
meillo@258 24 to be a valuable resource.
meillo@258 25
meillo@258 26 In exim the behavior is such:
meillo@258 27
meillo@258 28 If an error is detected while a non-SMTP message is being received
meillo@258 29 (for example, a malformed address), the error is reported to
meillo@258 30 the sender in a mail message. Exim exits with a non-zero return
meillo@258 31 code then, no matter if the error message was successful or not.
meillo@258 32 (In exim, -oee is similar but exim returns successful if the error
meillo@258 33 message had been sent successful.)
meillo@258 34
meillo@258 35 The mutt wiki writes about ``sendmail -oi -oem'':
meillo@258 36
meillo@258 37 The mail server (in this case sendmail) will receive the message
meillo@258 38 in input, and will parse it. In case of a malformed message,
meillo@258 39 it will send an error message to the user to whom belongs the
meillo@258 40 MUA trasmitting the message (e.g. user@localhost.localdomain),
meillo@258 41 and it will exit with a non zero exit code: the -oem flag forces
meillo@258 42 the returning of a non zero exit code even in the case the error
meillo@258 43 message has been successfully sent to the local server.
meillo@258 44
meillo@258 45
meillo@258 46 What does it mean for masqmail?
meillo@258 47 -------------------------------
meillo@258 48
meillo@258 49 Masqmail does not send error messages on malformed addresses. It does
meillo@258 50 not much check for syntax. It detects general errors (unexpected EOF,
meillo@258 51 no recipients, max message size exceeded) (see masqmail.c:mode_accept())
meillo@258 52 but simply prints a message to stderr and exits non-zero. I think that
meillo@258 53 currently it is not of need to add some elaborate error handling in
meillo@258 54 this area. Hence, for the implementing of -oem and -oee would do assume
meillo@258 55 that sending the error message does always fail (because we never send
meillo@258 56 any such message) and hence we exit non-zero on error. This is the
meillo@258 57 similar behavior of both options.
meillo@258 58
meillo@258 59 From 0.3.1 on masqmail will not recognize -oem anymore and thus ignore
meillo@258 60 it like any unknown -oXXX option. It's behavior is then as if error
meillo@258 61 message sending fails.
meillo@258 62
meillo@258 63 Remind that all this affects only the case of accepting non-SMTP messages
meillo@258 64 on stdin.
meillo@258 65
meillo@258 66
meillo@258 67 On the relationship of -oi and -oem
meillo@258 68 -----------------------------------
meillo@258 69
meillo@258 70 It seems as if the two options should not affect each other; in contrast
meillo@258 71 to the behavior in masqmail before 0.3.1. Their relationship is just
meillo@258 72 that -oem does only affect non-SMTP messages on stdin, which is the
meillo@258 73 typical use case of -oi.
meillo@258 74
meillo@258 75
meillo@258 76 meillo