Re: Invalid messageenvelope information.

[Nicholas_Briggs.PARC@xerox.com]

See RFC1123, section 5.2.18, in particular the last point.  Putting a dot on
the domain does not indicate to the DNS system in general that the name is
"rooted" (the dots aren't part of the DNS query itself) -- it's a hint to
certain programs, such as nslookup, that they should not bother to append the
local domain to a query if the first attempt with the name as is fails.  An
address such as "dhelrod@rivendell.com" IS a fully qualified domain name (no
trailing period required).


      5.2.18  Common Address Formatting Errors: RFC-822 Section 6.1

         Errors in formatting or parsing 822 addresses are unfortunately
         common.  This section mentions only the most common errors.  A
         User Agent MUST accept all valid RFC-822 address formats, and
         MUST NOT generate illegal address syntax.

         o    A common error is to leave out the semicolon after a group
              identifier.

         o    Some systems fail to fully-qualify domain names in
              messages they generate.  The right-hand side of an "@"
              sign in a header address field MUST be a fully-qualified
              domain name.

              For example, some systems fail to fully-qualify the From:
              address; this prevents a "reply" command in the user
              interface from automatically constructing a return
              address.

              DISCUSSION:
                   Although RFC-822 allows the local use of abbreviated
                   domain names within a domain, the application of
                   RFC-822 in Internet mail does not allow this.  The
                   intent is that an Internet host must not send an SMTP
                   message header containing an abbreviated domain name
                   in an address field.  This allows the address fields
                   of the header to be passed without alteration across
                   the Internet, as required in Section 5.2.6.

         o    Some systems mis-parse multiple-hop explicit source routes
              such as:

                  @relay1,@relay2,@relay3:user@domain.


         o    Some systems over-qualify domain names by adding a
              trailing dot to some or all domain names in addresses or
              message-ids.  This violates RFC-822 syntax.