Denial of MIME (UUCP)

Hello.

How could I prevent MIME on a slow (2400 baud) UUCP
link?  I would like to be able to simply
reject any message that contains MIME data BEFORE
it is transferred.  Rejecting it after it has
been transferred is not an option.  The objective
here is to prevent the TRANSFER of large messages
(as a single pissing {*filter*}s pic will busy out
the line for an hour). 

Is this possible with sendmail?  I haven't seen any
mention of it anywhere.


cda

: Hello.

: How could I prevent MIME on a slow (2400 baud) UUCP
: link?  I would like to be able to simply
: reject any message that contains MIME data BEFORE
: it is transferred.  Rejecting it after it has
: been transferred is not an option.  The objective
: here is to prevent the TRANSFER of large messages
: (as a single pissing {*filter*}s pic will busy out
: the line for an hour). 

: Is this possible with sendmail?  I haven't seen any
: mention of it anywhere.

Not sure off hand how, but I thought I would point out that the size has
nothing to do with mime.

If the header has a MIME-Version: then the message is mime, and many short
100% text messages are sent as mime simply so you can correctly categorize
the data.  Doing so adds about two lines to the message, and I don't see
that that is the problem.

I would look at size options.

In article < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >  XXXX@XXXXX.COM 
(C. Armour) writes:

As already pointed out, MIME has nothing to do with size (I frequently
send one/two-liner MIME mail, since MIME is needed to properly announce
the charset/encoding I use "natively" - it's just a few headers).

With that out of the way, unlike SMTP, UUCP is totally "batch-oriented"
- files get transferred, and only after they've safely arrived does the
receiving UUCP system get around to figure out that they're actually
e-mail at all - and there is no opportunity for the receiving end to
reject things based on properties of what is about to be sent.

So, this has to be done at the sending side, which can refuse to send
e-mails over a certain size. Sendmail has a config parameter for this
(from cf/README):

UUCP_MAILER_MAX		[100000] The maximum size message accepted for
			transmission by the UUCP mailers.

- but of course that setting is "global" on the sender side, i.e.
applies to all destinations reached via UUCP. Might still work for you,
if you are the only UUCP destination and/or the others accept a limit
too. Otherwise it's possible to define a special UUCP mailer with a
different limit and use that. Either way assuming that the sender runs
sendmail at all, of course. There may also be some possibilities for
configuring the UUCP system at the sending end to achieve the
restriction.

--Per Hedeland
 XXXX@XXXXX.COM 

 XXXX@XXXXX.COM  (Malcolm Dew-Jones) writes:





That's good advice, however ALL attachments are MIME-encoded
so blocking MIME would be an effective solution to the
problem, albeit a brute force one.  Losing the short
MIME-encoded text-messages is something I'm prepared to
live with... it would not affect the daily operation
of the installation.

What to do?  What to do?!?  :-)

Thanks for the suggestions.


cda

 XXXX@XXXXX.COM  (Per Hedeland) writes:




Yeah... the only thing to do is to completely block MIME
altogether.  Rats.  


cda

In article < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >
 XXXX@XXXXX.COM  (C. Armour) writes:

Maybe try reading the rest of my post - blocking MIME isn't what you
want to do, and in any case it too has to be done at the sender side.

--Per Hedeland
 XXXX@XXXXX.COM 

 XXXX@XXXXX.COM  (Per Hedeland) writes:


Yeah, I guess the problem is intractable.  What a kick
in the teeth!


cda