>Has anyone else run into this problem which one would-be subscriber sent
>to me this morning?  Our list uses CONFIRM but when he tried to subscribe
>he received nothing (or so he thought) until he received the notice that
>since he had failed to confirm within the specified period his
>subscription request had been cancelled.   He then wrote to me and I asked
>him to try once more to subscribe and to copy the subscription request to
>me.  He did so, and it looked perfectly in order.  That was yesterday.
>This morning I received the following.
>
>   The message to which his confirmation request was attached was not from
>one of our subscribers nor was it from someone at his own node.

This thread has been dead for a little while, but I got some new
information recently that may cast some light on this.

Basically the problem is that elm (and possibly other mail-readers) use
"From <address>" as a delimiter between successive mail messages.  In the
quoted messages, you'll notice that the first line of the second message is:

>From  Thu Feb 19 17:42:11 1998

ie, "From", then two spaces, then the date and time.  Elm (and possibly
other mailers) doesn't recognize this as the beginning of a new message and
hence groups it with the previous one in the mail spool.

This is the point at which I very quickly get out of my depth.  However, I
think there's a relationship between what's after that "From" and the SMTP
"Mail-From" information.  There are times when it's valid (and even
required) for the "Mail-From" to be blank; typically you have that when
it's undesirable for bounces to go to the originating address.

However, I don't think that "From  Thu Feb 19 17:42:11 1998" is valid
syntax.  (I am unable to quote any RFC's to back me up on this--can anyone
else confirm or deny?)

The one site I've seen have this problem was a site using qmail as its MTA.
The guy who set it up mentioned to me that qmail doesn't use blank
"Mail-From"s as it uses other methods to foil mail loops caused by bounces
generating bounces.  This makes me wonder if perhaps qmail has trouble
dealing with the blank "Mail-From"s generated by LISTSERV.

Of course if your site isn't using qmail then qmail can't be the source of
the problem.  But you asked why the 'confirm' message appeared as being
appended to another message, and the answer is that it's because of the
double-blank after "From" in the first line of the mail message.

-jwgh

>X-Sender: [log in to unmask]
>X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.1 (32)
>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 17:23:11 -0500
>To: [log in to unmask]
>From: Carolyn Smith <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Away for the day
>
>I will not be in my office on Friday February 20 .    I will return to my
>office for normal working hours Monday February 23 at 7:30 a.m.
>
>Please direct any emergency moving request to ex 4458.
>
>Thank you, and I hope each of you have a nice, safe weekend.
>
>See you on Monday.
>
>Carolyn
>
>From  Thu Feb 19 17:42:11 1998
>Return-Path: <Mailer-Daemon>
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>From: "L-Soft list server at University at Buffalo (1.8c)"
>              <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      Command confirmation request (11DD86)
>To: XXXXX XXXXX <[log in to unmask]>
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>Your command:
>[. . .]

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