On Monday 11 June 2001 11:25, you wrote:

On 09-Jun-01 Nash Hoogwater wrote:

...

Hi list,

I got some very strange mail a few minutes ago and a week ago also. Maybe someone can help me with this.

The mail doesn't contain a reply-adres, subject and almost no headers. The date is 1 january 1970 00:59:59. I have pasted the headers and text below. The text is also very strange as you can see.

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Content-Type: Status: R X-Status: N

1 3b13ce2000000001 2 3b13ce2000000002

----------------------------------------------------

Really a strange one... Please state your kernel version, MTA (e. g. sendmail, with version number) and SuSE-release of your box and wether you use it in a production/business environment (with a 'real' IP) or at home with dyn.IP and modem/isdn/dsl/cable/whatever.

OK, here is comes: I use SuSE 7.1 with 2.4.0-4GB kernel (original suse-kernel), MTA = postfix-20001212-4. I have a static ip-address (adsl). I use fetchmail(fetchmail-5.6.0-5) to pop3 one account, but this isn't the account that received this mail. The account that received the mail is one that I pop3 from KMail (KDE 2.1.1) from my workstation. Furthermore I use gotmail to get my mail from hotmail, it runs every 5 minutes and sends mail to my mailbox. (on the server/gateway). To get al the mail I pop3 the server/gateway from my workstation with KMail. On account of my configuration on KMail: I have a filter-rule that states that every mail from a whole domain (in To and CC) has to be transfered to a specific folder. So the problem is I don't know to which account/email-address the mail has been sent, but I'm pretty sure it is the account that I check manually (via KMail).

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Someone??? Any idea???

Normally, messages with headers like the ones which worry you are incomplete and would be rejected by any MTA following the rules for electronic mail as given in rfc822 and rfc1123. To be precise, they (the headers) would be completed with at least one received line (from your own host), date and Message-ID, together with other headers which might be assigned in your MTA's configuration. However, newer version of sendmail (V8) would not accept mails without a from: line in standard configuration ("need MAIL before RCPT").

That's why you should make sure that you have gotten the *whole* header and not just the body and parts of (optional) header lines; AFAIK, Status: and X-Status: are no mandatory header entries and therefore are treated like being part of the message body, as it would be with any subject: lines which are helpfull for the recipient but also not mandatory. Some mail programs do not show you the whole of the header. In this case it's best to directly cut and paste the problem mail out of the spool file.

I did just that: this is everything that is in the mail :-(.

My first guess would point in the direction of a slightly misconfigured MTA on your side, together with a remote script/bot directly sending mails by connecting to your host, port 25, or a strictly local problem on your host... Just a guess...

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Greetings,

Nash

--- Boris Lorenz System Security Admin *nix - *nux ---

On Monday 11 June 2001 12:58, you wrote:

...

...

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I got some very strange mail a few minutes ago and a week ago also. Maybe someone can help me with this.

The mail doesn't contain a reply-adres, subject and almost no headers. The date is 1 january 1970 00:59:59. I have pasted the headers and text below. The text is also very strange as you can see.

-------------------------------------------------

Content-Type: Status: R X-Status: N

1 3b13ce2000000001 2 3b13ce2000000002

----------------------------------------------------

that I pop3 from KMail (KDE 2.1.1) from my workstation. Furthermore I use

Hi,

My Version of KMail (1.1.99, KDE 2.0) sometimes crashes and after that there are one or more mails in my inbox, like the one you have there. Perhaps it's the same with your KMail. Had it crashed before you got these mails?

Matthias Hartmann

Hi Matthias, That's it!! I remember that after receiving that mail, I didn't receive any mail and when I did a manual "check mail" it crashed. Now I know it is a Kmail problem. I think I will contact them, if it is a known problem and otherwise "if they can please fix it" :-). Cheers, Nash

On Monday 11 June 2001 17:16, you wrote:

On 11-Jun-01 Nash Hoogwater wrote:

...

On Monday 11 June 2001 11:25, you wrote:

...

On 09-Jun-01 Nash Hoogwater wrote:

...

Hi list,

I got some very strange mail a few minutes ago and a week ago also. Maybe someone can help me with this.

The mail doesn't contain a reply-adres, subject and almost no headers. The date is 1 january 1970 00:59:59. I have pasted the headers and text below. The text is also very strange as you can see.

-------------------------------------------------

Content-Type: Status: R X-Status: N

1 3b13ce2000000001 2 3b13ce2000000002

----------------------------------------------------

Really a strange one... Please state your kernel version, MTA (e. g. sendmail, with version number) and SuSE-release of your box and wether you use it in a production/business environment (with a 'real' IP) or at home with dyn.IP and modem/isdn/dsl/cable/whatever.

OK, here is comes: I use SuSE 7.1 with 2.4.0-4GB kernel (original suse-kernel), MTA = postfix-20001212-4. I have a static ip-address (adsl). I use fetchmail(fetchmail-5.6.0-5) to pop3 one account, but this isn't the account that received this mail. The account that received the mail is one that I pop3 from KMail (KDE 2.1.1) from my workstation. Furthermore I use gotmail to get my mail from hotmail, it runs every 5 minutes and sends mail to my mailbox. (on the server/gateway). To get al the mail I pop3 the server/gateway from my workstation with KMail.

[...]

Just to clarify the whole thing: You have one or more account(s) which you poll via fetchmail and some you poll directly via KMail on your workstation.

That's correct.

I've heard from certain stability problems with KMail and some more bugs. Perhaps KMail is responsible for this. This also would solve the riddle why your mailer accepts these "beheaded" mails, as KMail directly creates them in the spool without really sending them.

Think so too, I also concluded after Matthias Hartmann's response. I have reported the bug to bugs.kde.org, so I'm very curious if it is solved or not. Something that is not totally clear to me is that KMail doesn't want to send the mail because it places the mail in another (usermade) folder: just like it has received it.

What bugs me is the date of the mail. 01/01/1970 is the beginning of Unix time, and I have seen lots of programs with y2k problems using this time signature... ...which seems hardly possible. Have you updated KMail recently?

I'm using the KMail (version 1.2) that came with KDE 2.1.1.

[...]

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Greetings,

Nash

--- Boris Lorenz System Security Admin *nix - *nux ---

Cheers, Nash