[Bug 289264] Dragonfly dma parses To: & Bcc: differently than sendmail

From: <bugzilla-noreply_at_freebsd.org>
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2025 04:44:30 UTC
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=289264

            Bug ID: 289264
           Summary: Dragonfly dma parses To: & Bcc: differently than
                    sendmail
           Product: Base System
           Version: 14.3-RELEASE
          Hardware: Any
                OS: Any
            Status: New
          Severity: Affects Some People
          Priority: ---
         Component: standards
          Assignee: standards@FreeBSD.org
          Reporter: thogard@abnormal.com

dma doesn't like spaces in the To: or Bcc: headers of email unlike most other
MTAs.

My test program:
---
#works:
#To: user1@example.com,user2@example.net
#Fails on dma, works on real sendmail:
#To: user1@example.com user2@example.net
#Bcc: user1@example.com user2@example.net

echo test $$
cat <<EOF | sendmail -t
To: user1@example.com user2@example.net
Subject: test $$

This is a test.
EOF
---

The current rfcs state that a comma is the proper delimiter however a space has
the a defacto separator for addresses going way back to the uucp, mmdf and
bitnet days.  Some older programs will need to be fixed when moving to dma.

Some reasons not to fix this:
The Sendmail Book in section 25.12.4 (page 1111 of 3rd edition) claims 'The
field for the Bcc: header must contain one or more properly formed address. 
Where there is more than one, exach should be separated from the others by
commas.' and cites rfc2822.  rfc2822 3.6.3 states 'The field name, which is
either "To", "Cc", or "Bcc", followed by a comma-separated list of one or more
addresses. Even rfc733 implies the comma should be there.

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