Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Message-ID: <MjwjmE200WBw8qyZM3@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 15:18:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Gardiner Myers <jgm+@CMU.EDU>
To: drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Subject: mail relay
Beak: Is

RFC 1123 section 5.2.6 states:

>         (2)  An SMTP mail "relay" forwards a message within an SMTP
>              mail environment as the result of an explicit source route
>              (as defined in section 3.6 of RFC-821).  The SMTP relay
>              function uses the "@...:" form of source route from RFC-
>              822 (see Section 5.2.19 below).

this text does not adequately describe the function needed by minimal
SMTP clients--those which need to inject or gateway messages into the
Internet, but which do not implement queues or MX record processing.
Such clients usually connect to a single configured SMTP server and
deliver all mail there, relying on that server to accept, queue, and
deliver the mail to arbitrary addresses.

The wording above would appear to require such clients to use
explicit source routes in the RCPT commands, in violation of the
SHOULD NOT directive later in the same section.

-- 
_.John G. Myers		Internet: jgm+@CMU.EDU
			LoseNet:  ...!seismo!ihnp4!wiscvm.wisc.edu!give!up