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Diffstat (limited to 'fetchmail-FAQ.html')
| -rw-r--r-- | fetchmail-FAQ.html | 47 |
1 files changed, 45 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/fetchmail-FAQ.html b/fetchmail-FAQ.html index 0444a6d9..0f15679f 100644 --- a/fetchmail-FAQ.html +++ b/fetchmail-FAQ.html @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ <table width="100%" cellpadding=0><tr> <td width="30%">Back to <a href="index.html">Fetchmail Home Page</a> <td width="30%" align=center>To <a href="/~esr/sitemap.html">Site Map</a> -<td width="30%" align=right>$Date: 2001/09/26 14:11:25 $ +<td width="30%" align=right>$Date: 2001/09/26 14:28:57 $ </table> <HR> <H1>Frequently Asked Questions About Fetchmail</H1> @@ -141,6 +141,7 @@ my Received headers as it should.</a><br> <a href="#X5">X5. Using POP3, retrievals seems to be fetching too much!</a><br> <a href="#X6">X6. My mail attachments are being dropped or mangled.</a><br> <a href="#X7">X7. Some mail attachments are hanging fetchmail.</a><br> +<a href="#X8">X8. A spurious ) is being appended to my messages.</a><br> <h1>Other problems:</h1> @@ -2665,6 +2666,48 @@ discovery on the mailserver. Or, if there's a modem in the link, it may be because the attachment contains the Hayes mode escape "+++". <hr> +<h2><a name="X8">X8. A spurious ) is being appended to my messages.</a></h2> + +<p>Blame it on that rancid pile of dung and offal called Microsoft +Exchange. Due to the problem described in <a href="#S2">S2</a>, the +IMAP support in fetchmail cannot follow the IMAP protocol 100%. Most +of the time it doesn't matter, but if you combine it with an SMTP +server that behaves unusually, you'll get a spurious ) at message end. + +<p>One piece of software that can trigger this is the Interchange mail +server, as used by, e.g., mailandnews.com. Here's what happens: + +<p>1. Someone sends mail to your account. The last line of the message +contains text. So at the SMTP level, the message ends with, e.g. +"blahblah\r\n.\r\n" + +<p>2. The SMTP handler sees the final "\r\n.\r\n" and recognizes the +end of the message. However, instead of doing the normal thing, which +is tossing out the ".\r\n" and leaving the first '\r\n' as part of the +email body, Interchange throws out the whole "\r\n.\r\n", and leaves +the email body without any line terminator at the end of it. RFC821 +does not forbid this, though it probably should. + +<p>3. Fetchmail, or some other IMAP client, asks for the message. IMAP +returns it, but it's enclosed inside parentheses, according to the +protocol. The message size in bytes is also present. Because the +message doesn't end with a line terminator, the IMAP client sees: + + ....blahblah)... + +where the ')' is from IMAP. + +<p>4. Fetchmail only deals with complete lines, and can't trust the +stated message size because Microsoft Exchange fscks it up. + +<p>5. As a result, fetchmail takes the final 'blahblah)' and puts it +at the end of the message it forwards on. If you have verbosity on, +you'll get a message about actual != expected. + +<p>There is no fix for this. The nuke mentioned in <a +href="#S2">S2</a> looks more tempting all the time. + +<hr> <h2><a name="O1">O1. The --logfile option doesn't work if the logfile doesn't exist.</a></h2> <p>This is a feature, not a bug. It's in line with normal practice for @@ -2878,7 +2921,7 @@ date from the last Received header.<p> <table width="100%" cellpadding=0><tr> <td width="30%">Back to <a href="index.html">Fetchmail Home Page</a> <td width="30%" align=center>To <a href="/~esr/sitemap.html">Site Map</a> -<td width="30%" align=right>$Date: 2001/09/26 14:11:25 $ +<td width="30%" align=right>$Date: 2001/09/26 14:28:57 $ </table> <ADDRESS>Eric S. Raymond <A HREF="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com"><esr@thyrsus.com></A></ADDRESS> |