Re: Possible bug in balsa, libesmtp, or MS exchange server

[Brian Stafford <brian stafford uklinux net>]

On Tue,  2 October 21:29 Heber Farnsworth wrote:
>  (The subject of this e-mail prompts the reflexive response that the MS
>  product must be the problem but before we pass judgement let's figure out
>  what we can.)
>   I use balsa in a network with an exchange server (not my fault) which
>  serves as my IMAP server and my SMTP server.  The SMTP part is the part
>  that bothers me at the moment.

I have regularly used balsa + libESMTP in this configuration without
problems.  Until now I thought I was the only one!

>  When I send an e-mail with an address like farnsworth@olin.wustl.edu or
>  <farnsworth@olin.wustl.edu> the send goes just fine.  But if I try
>   	Heber Farnsworth <farnsworth@olin.wustl.edu>
>   then I get a popup message that says "The data is invalid".

This is nothing to do with libESMTP (it does not parse mailbox addresses in
message headers so it has no mailbox address parser to have a bug in it :).
Furthermore SMTP does not use this syntax for the RCPT command.

The syntax
	``Heber Farnsworth <farnsworth@olin.wustl.edu>''
is legal by RFC 2822.  As long as Balsa is creating the headers correctly and
without complaint (which I believe it does) the problem lies elsewhere *after*
the message has been transmitted via SMTP.

One possibility is that the response to the SMTP DATA command contains the
text "The data is invalid".  However this would likely be accompanied by a
failure to accept the message (i.e. the response to a DATA command would be
5xx).

>   The mail still
>  goes through but I wonder where the message comes from.  I've mentioned the
>  message on this list before but no one could figure it out.  I've done a
>  bit more experimenting.  From the above you can see that the <> don't cause
>  the problem.  However a leading space or any text before the < will give
>  the message.  The only way to avoid the message is to enclose the name in
>  quotes as
>   	"Heber Farnsworth" <farnsworth@olin.wustl.edu>

This is also legal by RFC 2822.  Seems like somebody has been lazy about
what is considered valid syntax.  RFC 2822 doesn't change much in this
area from the historic RFC 822.

Try using the libESMTP example program to send a message via Exchange.  The
protocol trace will give a clue what is going on.

The file test-mail is a reasonable template of what is needed to try
some different formats of the To: address.  Using the example program has been
discussed here previously.


Brian Stafford