Emacs' sendmail.el and sendmail -f problem

[Urban Boquist]

Hi,

I was just about to report an emacs bug when I did a web search and
found that it had already been reported. I'm including the post to
gnu.emacs.bug I found below. I didn't see any followups though, so I
would be grateful if someone responsible could comment on if this will
be fixed, or if not motivate why.

Thanks,

        -- Urban

URL: http://www.geocrawler.com/archives/3/337/2000/5/0/3790390/
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FROM: Jay Rogers
DATE: 05/24/2000 18:20:20
SUBJECT:  Sendmail and authentication warnings
 
In GNU Emacs 20.6.1 (i386-*-linux-gnu, X toolkit)
 of Sun Mar 12 2000 on fluffy
configured using `configure  `i386-*-linux-gnu` --with-x-toolkit=yes --with-pop
--prefix=/usr/local --datadir=/usr/local/lib --libexecdir=/usr/local/lib
--sharedstatedir=/usr/local/lib`

Using compose-mode to send mail causes newer versions of sendmail
to generate an "X-Authentication-Warning" header in the mail
message.  It also may generate a "Authentication-Warning" syslog
message.

These messages give the false impression that the sender is
trying to hide their true identity.

These warnings are caused because sendmail.el invokes the
sendmail program using the -f command line option.  Using the -f
option is wrong because:

   .  sendmail.el has already placed a "From" header into the
      mail message.

   .  According to the sendmail manpage, "the -f option can only
      be used by ``trusted`` users (normally root, daemon, and
      network)"

The fix is simple - just don`t invoke sendmail with the -f
option.



*** sendmail.el.old     Wed May 24 20:13:35 2000
--- sendmail.el Wed May 24 20:13:54 2000
***************
*** 892,899 ****
                              ;; Always specify who from,
                              ;; since some systems have broken sendmails.
                              ;; unless user has said no.
!                             (if (memq mail-from-style `(angles parens nil))
!                                 (list "-f" user-mail-address))
  ;;;                         ;; Don`t say "from root" if running under su.
  ;;;                         (and (equal (user-real-login-name) "root")
  ;;;                              (list "-f" (user-login-name)))
--- 892,899 ----
                              ;; Always specify who from,
                              ;; since some systems have broken sendmails.
                              ;; unless user has said no.
! ;;;                         (if (memq mail-from-style `(angles parens nil))
! ;;;                             (list "-f" user-mail-address))
  ;;;                         ;; Don`t say "from root" if running under su.
  ;;;                         (and (equal (user-real-login-name) "root")
  ;;;                              (list "-f" (user-login-name)))


                        
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