No deltas via email anymore?

[Andre Albsmeier]

On Wed, 20-Jan-2010 at 13:03:52 +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> Hi,
> > From:		Andre Albsmeier <Andre.Albsmeier at siemens.com> 
> > 
> > The problem seems to lie on my side ;-( From what I found out so
> > far, those buggers who administer the mail servers here (if you
> > can call the M$-crap a server at all) switched their Exchange-
> > toys to a newer version which not only messes up the headers
> > but also wraps lines at pos 75. Now the deltas arrive like this:
> > 
> > CTM_MAIL BEGIN src-7.0895.gz 1 1
> > H4sIAGI5VksCA8VZ+28bNxL+2foreG5R2HnIfD8ctEASO70AqVs0PlyvdweBT3sRaVe3u0riHvq
> > /
> > 35ArPyT5IbcBzoZJaUkOZz4OZ75Zvz79YfLq+Pu3J4iOMepa/1whbQSimGBMiKFUGC5/RePR69M
> > f
> > 3rxHY9/PJl1v+0WHYAYfGsk50h4bE3RyRmEeXJSBGSqtY1GHEKlCSQdtVBJEU8yoEEQIzw1LQhj
> > L
> > 
> > Normally, they get automatically piped to ctm_rmail which can't
> > work with this and throws them away. Now that I've switch off
> > ctm_rmail, I can find the whole mess in my inbox...
> > 
> > Sorry for the noise, I really didn't realise what's going
> > here originally...
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > 	-Andre
> 
> 75 seems low, considering MS addicts write extremely long
> lines at times (I suppose that's why - sigh).
> 
> 	uuencode 	61
> 	fmt		65
> 	MIME base64	72
> 	punch cards	72
> 	MSexchange	75
> 	ctm_rmail	76

As I found out now, they do not simply wrap it but convert the
whole message into quoted-printable. That also adds the '='
character at the end of the line. Needless to say that they
alter a signed message :-(.

And they strip off the Sender: header as well...

> 
> I guess there would be no objection if you wrote patches for:
> 	- ctm_rmail to also support receipt of smaller lines.
> 	- ctm_smail to optionally generate shorter lines.

That would be an option. Let's see if time permits.

However, I adhere to strongly to the opinion, that
MTAs have no reason to touch message bodies that way.

> Then existing ctm recipients could first install a new ctm_rmail
> Then later senders could upgrade to a new ctm_smail.
> That would save others in future too.
> 
> But good luck if you first try the quicker & more satisfying
> route of giving those Microsoft addicts a good berating ;-)

I was able to find a person who at least knew what I am talking
about. He even stated that he was working in the Unix world
before and promised to forward the problem to the responsible
staff. We'll see...

	-Andre

> 
> Cheers,
> Julian
> -- 
> Julian Stacey: BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
> Mail plain text not quoted-printable, HTML or Base64 http://www.asciiribbon.org

-- 
Amateurs like Linux, but professionals prefer FreeBSD.