I've just seen a case where our software falls over slightly, and I'm not
sure what it 'should' do..
Here's a section from our server log:
14/7/2005 11:27:42.473 - <X-OriginalArrivalTime: 14 Jul 2005 10:26:27.0139
(UTC) FILETIME=[7DF44130:01C5885E]
14/7/2005 11:27:42.473 - <X-SPAM-STATUS: No,SpamAssassinReport=Spam
detection software, running on the system "MAILSERVER2", has scanned
14/7/2005 11:27:42.489 - < this message. For more information contact
the administrator of that system
14/7/2005 11:27:42.489 - < Content analysis details: (0.7 points,
5.0 required)
14/7/2005 11:27:42.504 - < pts rule name description
14/7/2005 11:27:42.504 - < ---- ----------------------
--------------------------------------------------
14/7/2005 11:27:42.520 - < 0.0 HTML_TAG_EXISTS_TBODY BODY: HTML has
"tbody" tag
14/7/2005 11:27:42.520 - < 0.1 HTML_TAG_BALANCE_HTML BODY: HTML has
unbalanced "html" tags
14/7/2005 11:27:42.536 - < -0.7 BAYES_10 BODY: Bayesian
spam probability is 10 to 20%
14/7/2005 11:27:42.536 - < [score: 0.1614]
14/7/2005 11:27:42.551 - < 1.2 HTML_20_30 BODY: Message
is 20% to 30% HTML
14/7/2005 11:27:42.551 - < 0.1 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML
included in message
14/7/2005 11:27:42.567 - < 0.0 UPPERCASE_25_50 message body is
25-50% uppercase
14/7/2005 11:27:42.567 - <
14/7/2005 11:27:42.582 - <
14/7/2005 11:27:42.614 - <
14/7/2005 11:27:42.629 - <Start of the message text
What you can't see is that on the second "14/7/2005 11:27:42.567"
timestamped line, there's a tab character (and nothing else) on the line.
Our software treats that line as a continuation of the 'X-SPAM-STATUS'
line, but Outlook Express treats it as the end of the message header. It
potentially might not be a problem - except that our software is adding
something to the end of the message header, and Outlook Express (and
possibly other email clients) are seeing our extra header as being added to
the start of the message text rather than at the end of the header.
Part of me says that we should make our software send a 25kV surge down the
line to fry the computer which was adding the superfluous tab character,
but I can't find anywhere in RFC 2822 which allows for this behaviour ;)
What would you do? Is our software wrong? Is the software adding the
'X-SPAM-STATUS' line wrong (ie is it allowed to have FWS at the end of a
line and put a CRLF before that final FWS)?
Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support(_at_)pscs(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/