Actually, if you're already in the "parse 822 addresses" business (Reply-To: is one of them - possibly one of the more controversial) then one would assume you've been through most of the "who am i" problem already. Otherwise I'd be happy to share my copy of UCBMail, 1985, with you; many years later it has actually learned that I am <lindberg@cdg.chalmers.se>, not bad, right :-). Sorry, but I couldn't resist :-). Point taken, workaround noted, you <auto-dbm> folks probably have enough things to do anyway. Gunnar

From: johnpc@xs4all.net Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 23:57:20 +0200 To: David Kessens <davidk@ISI.EDU>, Gunnar Lindberg <lindberg@cdg.chalmers.se> Cc: db-wg@ripe.net Message-ID: <19980910235720.D28191@xs3.xs4all.nl> Subject: Re: Cc: in <auto-dbm> replies

On Thu, Sep 10, 1998 at 06:18:17PM +0000, David Kessens wrote:

...

...

Folks, I'm not on this list but <ripe-dbm@ripe.net> suggested I send the idea to you. Right now I hope there is no spam-filter :-).

My suggestion:

Could you please make <auto-dbm@ripe.net> keep the Cc: list and return responses to everybody on it (as well as everybody on To:).

Currently, The 'From:' field (note: not the 'To:' field) is used which is a field that is set by the user upon arrival of the update message and set by the db after sending the message as the human mail box of the database.

I've just tested, and it seems the Reply-To: field is used if present. So if you want to get the ripe-dbm to reply not only to you, but to your coworkers as well, simply send the mails using:

Reply-To: you@w.ork.com, orkers@cow.ork.com

...

When the 'Cc:' address would be used too, there is no way for the database to break the loop since the 'Cc:' address is set by the user and can possibly contain the automatic mail address of the db and/or a (local) alias to the db.

You could break the loop by putting all the Cc: addresses in the To: field, which isn't examined by the db. Well, unless seriously broken mailers but the addresses back in the From: or the Cc: lines. But then there's...

...

With the volume of mail that RIPE receives, broken mail systems and user errors like this do happen and would result in an unstable db system which is not very desirable.

You're RIPE, right? Just reclaim their IP space and add it to RFC1918/RFC1597 :) (oh, wait, this ISN'T bofh.general? :)

-- #! ##### Jan-Pieter Cornet ##### <johnpc@xs4all.net> ##### perl ++$_;$!=$_+++$_;($:,$,,$/,$*)=$!=~/.(.)...(.)(.).(.)/;$!=$_+$_; ($@,$\,$~)=$!=~/(.)(.).(.)/; $_="$,$/$:"; $@++; $~="$~$_";($_)= \$$=~/\((.)/;$|=++$_;$_++;$|++;$~="$~ $@$:";`$~$/$\$*$, $|>&$_`