Empty AUTH=<> in SMTP from Mutt message causing refused mail

[Doug Lee]

Forgive me if I'm confused here, but...

On Mon, Sep 08, 2003 at 08:06:31PM -0400, Matthew Emmerton wrote:
> > Here's a sample of that, from Mutt.  I replaced the company name in
> > the banner with [companyName].
> >
> > 220 webshielde250.[companyName] WebShielde250/SMTP Ready.
> > EHLO kirk.dlee.org
> > 250-DSN
> > 250-AUTH LOGIN
> > 250-AUTH=LOGIN
> > 250 ESMTP OK
> > MAIL From:<dgl at dlee.org> AUTH=<>
> > 501 Syntax error - badly formatted address
> > quit
> > 221 Closing connection
> >
> > The only difference from Pine is the " AUTH=<>" at the end of "MAIL
> > From:" is not there, and it works...
> 
> Sendmail is barfing on the AUTH=<> clause.  Although allowed by the RFC
> (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2554.html), sendmail's refusal may well be
> valid since you haven't actually entered authenticated SMTP mode. (In this
> case, issuing a AUTH LOGIN before the MAIL FROM.)
> 
> The reason why your other MUAs work is beacuse they simply don't send the
> AUTH=<> token if they're not doing authenticated SMTP.

Mutt talks to my local (sendmail) SMTP without incident though, unless
I'm mistaken; it's the conversation between my local sendmail and the
WebShield system at the other end.  The "syntax error" message is
produced by the WebShield system.  I think it's my local sendmail
that's sending the AUTH=<> token.

In case it helps, here's a syslog of another attempt, with
user at company.com, mailrelay.company.com, and <relayIp> substitutions
for the final destination user/domain/relay/ip:
> 
Sep  8 20:26:03 <mail.info> kirk sendmail[90807]: h890Q2HR090807: from=dgl, size=313, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<20030909002601.GA90798 at kirk.dlee.org>, relay=dgl at localhost
Sep  8 20:26:03 <mail.info> kirk sm-mta[90808]: h890Q3hs090808: from=<dgl at kirk.dlee.org>, size=476, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<20030909002601.GA90798 at kirk.dlee.org>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=dgl at localhost.dlee.org [127.0.0.1]
Sep  8 20:26:03 <mail.info> kirk sendmail[90807]: h890Q2HR090807: to=user at company.com, ctladdr=dgl (10000/20), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=30313, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (h890Q3hs090808 Message accepted for delivery)
Sep  8 20:26:04 <mail.info> kirk sm-mta[90811]: h890Q3hs090808: to=<user at company.com>, ctladdr=<dgl at kirk.dlee.org> (10000/20), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=esmtp, pri=30476, relay=mailrelay.company.com. [<relayIp>], dsn=5.6.0, stat=Data format error
Sep  8 20:26:04 <mail.info> kirk sm-mta[90811]: h890Q3hs090808: h890Q4hs090811: DSN: Data format error
Sep  8 20:26:07 <mail.info> kirk sm-mta[90811]: h890Q4hs090811: to=<dgl at kirk.dlee.org>, delay=00:00:03, xdelay=00:00:03, mailer=local, pri=30000, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent

If I read this right, it shows a complete Mutt-->localSendmail
transaction, a failed localSendmail-->destination transaction, and a
successful localSendmail transmission of the error message back to me.

Comments welcome.
> --
> Matt Emmerton

-- 
Doug Lee           dgl at dlee.org        http://www.dlee.org
Bartimaeus Group   doug at bartsite.com   http://www.bartsite.com
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them
to choose from." -- Andrew Tanenbaum