new mail syntax standard published

[cbosgd!mark]

Three new RFC's have been published on the ARPANET. They deal with
the new mail standards. Their numbers are
RFC 819 Internet Syntax (18 pages)
RFC 821 SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) (68 pages)
RFC 822 Header Format (replaces RFC 733) (47 pages)
I am posting the short one, RFC 819, to net.sources. If there is
sufficient interest, I will post the others (although 821 probably
does not apply to our environment - it would apply to a local net
or a long-haul full duplex reliable net such as the arpanet) or
send them to interested people if there is a small number of such people.

There is one error in 819 you should be aware of. Several examples
use names like "alpha!beta!gamma!john.UUCP" which do not contain an
"@" sign. Since all internet addresses are of the form "user@host",
the dot should be changed to an at. I'm not making this change since
it's not in the document as published, but readers should be aware
of the error.

I hope to see a timetable for conversion shortly. My understanding
is that it is to be phased in gradually - first sites are supposed
to understand but not generate the new syntax, then sites are supposed
to understand both and generate the new, and eventually only care about
the new syntax. An estimate is two months at each phase.

Software to support the new syntax exists. If you are in Bell Labs or
otherwise licensed for UNIX 5.0 (presumably this means Bell System only)
I have a version of the 5.0 /bin/mail command that understands it and
generates new RFC 822 headers. (It's the same one that went out for
testing a month or so ago - no bugs were found.) If you are running
Berkeley UNIX, the Berkeley sendmail program supports this syntax.
(Sendmail isn't available to the general public yet but will be before
anyone seriously urges conversion.) Both pieces of software are, of
course, free. If you are running something else, some minor conversion
will probably be necessary, but no serious problems are expected unless
you have a home-grown mail system. I understand that the authors of MMDF
and MH plan to support the new syntax, but I have nothing to do with that.

At this point I urge all UUCP sites to understand the new syntax and
to plan for conversion, but not yet to undertake actual conversion.
The intent is that UUCP will use the simplification "us...@host.uucp",
at least initially.

Mark Horton