smail problem: always resolves domain to bang

[James Van Artsdalen]

In article <28 at maxx.UUCP>, tyager at maxx.UUCP (Tom Yager) wrote:
> [...] every time I send mail to a domain address, it gets resolved to
> all uucp. Example:

>    fred at decwrl.dec.com
>      gets resolved to
>    smarthost!decwrl.dec.com!fred

> [...] I'd prefer it left the domain portion of the address alone and
> resolved to

>    smarthost!fred at decwrl.dec.com

The problem here is the issue of what a!b!c means vs. a!c at b.  Many if
not most mailers consider @ to be higher priority than ! - for
example, feed smail your "smarthost!fred at decwrl.dec.com".  I'll bet
you get back "smarthost!decwrl.dec.com!smarthost!fred", which isn't
what you wanted at all.  I believe that RFC822 requires that @ have a
higher priority than !, and that smail's interpretation is correct.
In general it is a bad idea to mix ! and @.  decwrl.dec.com!fred is
perfectly legal under RFC976, and probably desired.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james   "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746