GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 72608
Pan doesn't correctly deal with articles where the Followup-to header contains an email address
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
Pan incorrectly sets the post-to groups when an article has been assigned an email address as a follow-up header. Headers from an example article that causes this are pasted below. When hitting "F" to follow-up this message, Pan places the contents of the Followup-To header in the "Post to groups" list, and when you attempt to send the post, complains (obviously) that the text in this field is not a valid group name. I guess it needs to detect "Followup-To" headers containing email addresses and place them in the "Mail-to" field... From: Trevor Chapman <trevor.chapman@xalt.co.uk> Subject: Seagate Barracuda 2.1g Newsgroups: uk.comp.os.linux Followup-To: Trevor Chapman <trevor.chapman@xalt.co.uk> Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 21:09:41 +0000 Lines: 28 User-Agent: KNode/0.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Message-ID: <lmn35a.oh1.ln@newgardens.freeserve.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-153-4-60-62.vip.uk.com X-Trace: 21 Feb 2002 21:15:26 GMT, modem-153-4-60-62.vip.uk.com X-Report: Report abuse to nntpabuse@vip.uk.com Path: monolith.news.easynet.net!easynet-monga!easynet.net!newsfeed.esat.net!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.icl.net!iclnet!news1.vip.uk.com!newgardens.freeserve.co.uk!nobody Xref: monolith.news.easynet.net uk.comp.os.linux:56635
Looking into this...
I think this is a KNode bug. :) According to the RFC's, the Followup-To: header can have two possible values: a list of newsgroups or the string "poster". In the latter case, the followup will be sent as email, using either the Reply-To: header (if specified) or the From: header as destination. An email address in the Followup-To: header is not a valid case. Having said that, it would be fairly easy to handle this case more gracefully by checking whether the Followup-To header is a valid email address, in which case we send the followup via email. Thoughts ?
Chris is right that the Followup-To: header in the example is wrong. Son-of-1036 section 6.1 is explicit about this: ``NOTE: The way to request that followups be mailed to a specific address other than that in the From line is to supply "Followup-To: poster" and a Reply-To header. Putting a mailing address in the Followup-To line is incorrect; posting agents should reject or rewrite such headers.'' Since newsgroup names don't parse as email addresses, Chris' suggestion of testing it as an email address if a matching group can't be found is probably the best way to go. If it _does_ match as an email address, then we need to place the string in the "Mail To:" GUI field instead of the "Post to Groups:" field. Likewise, if "Reply-To:" is a groupname... :)
Fixed in CVS.