On Aug 15, 2005, at 10:22 AM, Joe Schaefer wrote:
"Jem Berkes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Well there's also another problem. RFC 2821 (SMTP) doesn't define a
particular message format for SMTP (in wide use there the RFC 822
and
MIME message formats). I don't think that mod_smtpd should assume
a RFC
822 or MIME message format since its strictly a SMTP module,
that's why
I agree with this
Now I'm confused; 2821 S-2.3.1 defines "SMTP content" as headers +
body.
What am I overlooking?
2821 s-2.3.1 says:
If the content conforms to other
contemporary standards, the headers form a collection of field/value
pairs structured as in the message format specification [32]; the
body, if structured, is defined according to MIME [12].
Personally I interpret this to mean that the content may not conform
to "other contemporary standards" although I do doubt the existence
of non-RFC 2822 header formats.
I still think header parsing should be in another module. Of course
this module is free to register itself as an mod_smtpd filter
and do
what it needs to do, but it shouldn't be part of the main
mod_smtpd.
If you put in into a separate module, that means there will be no
hooks
which can expect the headers to be in r->headers_in. So every hook
that
needs them will need to parse it themselves, which seems absolutely
redundant.
Furthermore it is a requirement (MUST) for a 2821 compliant server
to implement loop detection. That means at least one hook will
*always*
care about the Received: headers, for every smtp transaction. Why you
wouldn't want to provide an API for hook authors to use for inspecting
headers, seems like a very spartan choice, which IMO is counter to
the
spirit of httpd.
Well not exactly. A module that parses headers can register itself as
an input_filter for mod_smtpd. It can parse the headers and the
headers can be accessed by a get_smtpd_headers(request_rec*) function
or similar exported by the parsing module, and modules that rely on
this module will know about that API. This module can even be
included with the default mod_smptd package. Do you agree that this
is possible?
The module that implements loop detection could rely on that module
and also be included with the defautl mod_smtpd package.
Either way, lacking header parsing in mod_smtpd is being
impractically pedant since probably 99% of SMTP transfers involve
messages in the RFC 2822/MIME formats. Although I think that maybe
there will be a plugin that wants data from the DATA command
verbatim. I still feel this needs some thought.
-rian
