In <[log in to unmask]> John Sullivan <[log in to unmask]> writes:
 
Just catching up on mail messages:
 
> I just noticed that mail delivered to HPDesk is sometimes
> unreplyable.  Has anyone noticed this?
>
> For instance, an internet message comes through the Openmail
> gateway and goes into desk.  The original message would have
> a Return-Path: of [log in to unmask] and a From: of [log in to unmask]
 
The above case would certainly be a difficult one. A hybrid 'bang path'
(UUCP style) and domain address is a tough one to parse...
 
> According to what I've read, the mailer is supposed to reply
> to the From: address, not the Return-Path: but of course
> this is not what is happening.  And of course it is affecting
> our board of directors.
 
Actually, the rules for replying to mail should be (in highest preference
order):
 
RESENT-REPLY-TO
RESENT-FROM
RESENT-SENDER
REPLY-TO
FROM
SENDER
 
MANY mailers are broken in respect to the address they reply to (as evidenced
by many past erroneous hp3000-l postings...).
 
Desk, unfortunately, only understands "one" return address. In pure HPDesk
environments this isn't typically much of a problem; though when you start
talking to people 'out in the real world', the realities of mail addresses
cause problems for mailers like that. It's not uncommon for reply-to
addresses to be different from sender or from addresses, and for good
reason! (often the sender/from address ISN'T directly reachable from the
outside world.) UUCP style addresses getting into the Internet are often an
example of this. Many modern Internet-style mailers don't understand the
(old fashioned - sort of) UUCP style addressing, understanding only Internet
style domain addressing. While gateway1!myhost!myuser might be a perfectly
valid mail address among uucp systems, Internet mailers will typically require
a more conventional "[log in to unmask]" address (which, by the way,
some nameserver/uucp-gateway combination down the road will eventually
translate back to the 'gateway!myhost!myuser' format for return deliveries).
 
Anyway, to cut to the chase, my guess is that your Openmail gateway is either
choosing the 'wrong' address to hand to desk (if it's a bang path address then
that's probably a pretty safe bet) or it's not parsing the hybrid address
(a combination of domain address and bang path- [log in to unmask]) correctly
- which is not uncommon either. Technically, while on the Internet, I believe
the rule is that if the address ends in a domain.org then that part is to be
used as the next host to pass the mail to, in this case "zzz.com" should be
passed the message to deliver to "xxx!yyy", which if that machine understands
UUCP addressing, would deliver to user "yyy" on host "xxx".
 
I assume in your case that the message does still leave the desk system and
get to OpenMail? Or does Desk itself give you an error when you try to reply
to the message?
 
> Hey Chris, any ideas?!  I've installed all the latest patches!
>
> --
>      john sullivan
>      [log in to unmask]  or http://www.interex.org/~sullivan/
>      408 747 0227
 
                         -Chris Bartram
                          3k Associates