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Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 12:27:03 +0100 (MET)
From: Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
To: ietf-drums <drums@cs.utk.edu>
Subject: Drums proposal: Format of Message-ID-s
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.951229122532.5351F-100000@ester.dsv.su.se>
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Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

RFC 822 specifies:

     4.6.1.  MESSAGE-ID / RESENT-MESSAGE-ID

             This field contains a unique identifier  (the  local-part
        address  unit)  which  refers to THIS version of THIS message.
        The uniqueness of the message identifier is guaranteed by  the
        host  which  generates  it.  This identifier is intended to be
        machine readable and not necessarily meaningful to humans.   A
        message  identifier pertains to exactly one instantiation of a
        particular message; subsequent revisions to the message should
        each receive new message identifiers.

Note that RFC 822 does not specify which host name to use in
Message-ID-s, only that it must guarantee the uniqueness of
the Message-ID. This is different from RFC 1036, which
specifies in section 2.1.5:

    ... full_domain_name is the full name of the host at which the
    message entered the network, including a domain that host is in, and
    unique is any string of printing ASCII characters, not including "<"
    (left angle bracket), ">" (right angle bracket), or "@" (at sign).

The text in RFC 822 is actually not ambiguous, but many
implementors have interpreted RFC 822 to require that the
host name in the Message-ID be that of the host entering the
message, as is required in RFC 1036.

To avoid future confusion on this, I suggest that this is
clarified in the drums document. Two alternative
clarifications, depending on what you want:

(a) Add the sentence "this host name should be the full name
of the host at which the message entered the network" as in
RFC 1036.

(b) Add the sentence "this host name may, but must not be the
name of the host at which the message entered the network" if
you prefer compatibility with RFC 822.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme