warm fuzzy confirmation of mail delivery in sendmail.el

warm fuzzy confirmation of mail delivery in sendmail.el

[James Powell]

Is there any way to build upon sendmail's mail-archive-file-name,
which FCCs sent messages, to append SMTP mail delivery headers such as
Received:, Authentication-Results:, Received-SPF: and the like?

For example, when I send mail through a webmail application, the "Sent Messages" folder
in the webmail application has lines like this for each sent message:

Received: from pliny.pdx.edu (sb2-238b-tek850c.printers.pdx.edu [131.252.124.54])
(authenticated bits=0)
by sluizer.oit.pdx.edu (8.13.8/8.13.1) with ESMTP id q7TLZXZg015937
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NOT);

Those header lines are reassuring because otherwise I have to watch
very carefully to make sure I am really sending the messages and not
missing an SMTP error.

yours truly,
  James P.

-- 
James Powell
Portland State University
Public key: http://web.pdx.edu/~powellj/public_key.txt

Re: warm fuzzy confirmation of mail delivery in sendmail.el

[Florian v. Savigny]

Hi James,

  > For example, when I send mail through a webmail application, the
  > "Sent Messages" folder in the webmail application has lines like
  > this for each sent message:

  > Received: from pliny.pdx.edu (sb2-238b-tek850c.printers.pdx.edu [131.252.124.54])
  > (authenticated bits=0)
  > by sluizer.oit.pdx.edu (8.13.8/8.13.1) with ESMTP id q7TLZXZg015937
  > (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NOT);
  > 
  > Those header lines are reassuring because otherwise I have to watch
  > very carefully to make sure I am really sending the messages and not
  > missing an SMTP error.

My strong impression (no conviction) is that the file copy is written
before any sending is attempted, so no headers are there at that time
which don't come from you yourself. In other words, having a file copy
is no confirmation of anything, other than that you have tried to send
it.

But at least if you use smtpmail, you can simply log the conversation
with the mail server (I think by setting smtpmail-debug-info to some
non-nil value). It will then log everything in a buffer called
something like *trace of SMTP session with ...*, and that shows you if
everything went fine. Be aware, however: The buffer is erased and
filled anew for every new mail you send, so this is only helpful for
the last one.


-- 
                                               Florian von Savigny
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