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Re: Yahoo Mail



Mithun,

Yahoo, at last a mail server written by someone who read the specs ;-)

RFC821 (NOT 822), by Jan Postel (may he Rest in Peace) states the format of
the MAIL command as:

            MAIL <SP> FROM:<reverse-path> <CRLF>

where <reverse-path> is:
            <reverse-path> ::= <path>
            <path> ::= "<" [ <a-d-l> ":" ] <mailbox> ">"

Notice that the "<" is MANDATORY.  Strictly speaking, even the space after
the ":" is illegal.

So you should write:
    mail from: <mithun.b@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Two points:
    MAIL need not be all-caps (Section 4.1.2)

         The commands consist of a command code followed by an argument
         field.  Command codes are four alphabetic characters.  Upper
         and lower case alphabetic characters are to be treated
         identically.  Thus, any of the following may represent the mail
         command:

            MAIL    Mail    mail    MaIl    mAIl

         This also applies to any symbols representing parameter values,
         such as "TO" or "to" for the forward-path.  Command codes and
         the argument fields are separated by one or more spaces.
         However, within the reverse-path and forward-path arguments
         case is important.  In particular, in some hosts the user
         "smith" is different from the user "Smith".

And, as he often said, "Be Conservative in what you send, be liberal in what
you recieve", which is why the format without the "<" works.

Dedicated to the memory of Jan Postel,

--
Sanjeev Gupta
Linux MVP Brainbench

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mithun Bhattacharya" <mithun.b@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Linux Delhi - Mailling List" <linux-delhi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
"linux india help" <linux-india-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 3:27 PM
Subject: [linux-delhi] Yahoo Mail


> My SMTP commands are a bit rusty but can anyone tell me whats wrong with
> what I am doing here ...
>
> telnet> open 64.157.4.89 25
> Trying 64.157.4.89...
> Connected to 64.157.4.89.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> 220 YSmtp mta581.mail.yahoo.com ESMTP service ready
> helo egurucool.com
> 250 mta581.mail.yahoo.com
> mail from: mithun.b@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 501 MAIL Syntax Error
> quit
> 221 mta581.mail.yahoo.com
> Connection closed by foreign host.
>
>
>
>
> Mithun
> ------------------------------------------------
> An alpha version of a web based tool to manage
> your subscription with this mailing list is at
> http://lists.linux-india.org/cgi-bin/mj_wwwusr
>