From:	MERC::"uunet!vms.ecs.rpi.edu!list-mgr" 27-APR-1992 01:04:14.27
To:	mx-list@vms.ecs.rpi.edu
CC:	
Subj:	Re: UUCP and AT&T Mailers (Query)

Things are also bad for mail that ATTmail forwards onto Internet from
an X.400 source via the AT&T MHS service.

We had one poor soul, thus connected, wanting to join the Info-Stratus
mailing list, and the From: line that her mail bears when it comes in
via SMTP looks like

    mhs!mc!Patricia_Sherman/OU=0205925@attmail.com

OK, so bangpaths as the local part of an RFC822 address are sometimes
a necessary evil.  But to stick in the "Organizational Unit" field,
RFC987-style, of an X.400 Originator/Recipient address is a new
extreme of address klugery.

To add insult to kluge, the address is un-replyable; ATTmail cannnot
find a way to get mail through in the reverse direction, sent back to
this same address.  If you put in more pieces of the O/R address
(derived from inspecting the voluminous header), the mail bounces with
the complaint "Inaccessible X.400 administrative domain".

You have to use a better-formed address, with no O/R stuff, for
ATTmail to send mail back to her:

    mhs!mc!Patricia_Sherman@attmail.com

On the list host, running MX 2.3, we eventually installed some
address-rewrite rules that seem to work when the phase of the moon is
right to allow her to receive mail from the list.  But figuring out
what would work was a lot of trouble, and the ATT people whom we
contacted seemed either to misunderstand or to be unable to help.

--
 ....Richard S. Shuford  | "A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge,
 ....shuford@cs.utk.edu  |  but the simple keep going and suffer for it."
 ....BIX: richard        |  Proverbs 22:3 NIV