On Mon, 5 Apr 2004 13:35:24 -0600, Chad Robinson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>The encoding is not the problem, it's that when a message with an attachment
>is distributed by Listserv, the attachment for some reason gets embedded,
>inserted, whatever, into the body of the message, rather than passing
>through as an attached file.

If the structure of the email is getting 'broken' so that the (normally
invisible) MIME headers become a visible part of the message body, then the
usual culprit is a badly configured anti-virus email scanner or some other
mail system gateway program (SMTP proxy).  LISTSERV itself understands MIME
well enough not to do this, unless the mail arrives at LISTSERV already
'broken' in which case LISTSERV leaves the mail "as-is" and does not attempt
top fix it.

Verifying this is not easy.
 -Prepare your test message for sending, but don't send it yet.
 -STOP LISTSERV, but leave LSMTP running (so it can receive incoming mail)
 -Send your test message.
 -Verify receipt of your test message by LSMTP, then stop LSMTP also.
 -The message will be written as a file xyz.JOB in the ~\LISTSERV\SPOOL dir
  but the message is not in readable form. You will need to use the supplied
  jobview.exe file to convert the file to text form:
    jobview xyz.JOB > xyz.txt
 -Now you can examine the xyz.txt file for mal-formation.

 -Restart LISTSERV (leave LSMTP stopped)
  LISTSERV will process the file xyz.JOB and you will have 1 or more output
  files in the spool named 12345.MAIL  These are in plain text format and can
  be inspected directly in Notepad or similar (but copy the file to 12345.txt
  so it is not deleted when LSMTP is restarted.)
 -Inspect and compare the output file from LISTSERV (12345.txt) with the input
  file to LISTSERV (xyz.txt) There should not be any difference or "breakage"
  of the MIME structure.  (Certain RFC822 Header lines such as To:, Subject:,
  Reply-To:, Sender:, etc. are normally changed by LISTSERV but these are not
  part of the MIME structure.
 -Restart LSMTP so LISTSERV and LSMTP can resume normal service.

If you find that LISTSERV is indeed "breaking" the email, then assemble all of
your evidence (original message, xyz.JOB, xyz.TXT, 12345.MAIL, 12345.txt,
results of the SHOW VERSION and SHOW LICENSE commands whcich will identify
your installation), ZIP it together and send to  [log in to unmask] as a bug
report.

If you find that (as I suspect) the message is already 'broken' when it
arrives at LISTSERV, then you have a problem elsewhere in your mail system
that needs attention.

LSMTP is not involved except to pass through whatever it gets from outside to
LISTSERV or from LISTSERV to where ever.  LSMTP is not capable of damaging
such emails by itself.