[sork] Re: Vacation From?

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Carl Boberg <carl at blackside.org>:

> In regular vacation.msg are you not supposed to put a From: field at the
> top?

You can, or not, depending on your needs/desires/policies/etc.  It is
optional.

> When my vacation sends a reply it is always with user at host.domain.com
> and not with user at domain.com as I would like since the From: field is
> not present.

This is something you would better fix in your mail server software,
so it translates *@host.domain.com to *@domain.com internally.  It really
isn't something the user should be expected to know/do, IMHO.
 
> It would be great if one could specify the From: field just as one can
> specify the Subject: filed today.

It could be done as a configurable option, without any real problem.  It isn't
done for several reasons:

1) I didn't want to give my users an easy way to forge the From: address
   and spoof emails.
2) Specifying the From: may not be enough (may also need Reply-To: and so on).
3) Figured people would fill in bogus addresses, make typos, etc. that would
   make the e-mail get filtered, be non-replyable, be bounced, etc.

However, if there was demand/desire, we could code this up as an option
that was disabled by default, and could be enabled for those who like
to live more dangerously.

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin
 
Why get even? Get odd!