Re: header error

[Haines Brown]

> >> ,----[ C-h v user-mail-address RET ]
> >> | `user-mail-address' is a variable declared in Lisp.
> >> |   -- loaded from "sendmail"
> >> | 
> >> | Value: "asjo@koldfront.dk"
> 
> > This was not much help:
> 
> >   user-mail-address's value is 
> >   "brownh@hartford-hwp.com"
> 
> Uhm, you cut the documentation that might be of help - the lines
> describing from what variables user-mail-adress is generated (if you
> do not set it yourself later).

I have these two lines in ~/.gnus:

  (setq user-mail-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")
  (setq mail-host-address "brownh@hartford-hwp.com")

I also have: 

  (setq user-full-name "Haines Brown")

Here's my message header:

  Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.gnus
  Subject: Re: header error
  References: <87fyupwhss.fsf@teufel.hartford-hwp.com> 
    <87wto1qs25.fsf@koldfront.dk> 
    <87hdf5e2gf.fsf@teufel.hartford-hwp.com> 
    <877jg1ndib.fsf@koldfront.dk> 
 
This message will out OK without the From line because all that's
needed, apparently, is the envelope From line.  

The user-mail-address has a default value that I'm overwriting, and I
wonder where it gets it's value.

As for mail-host-address, it uses (system-name) (but I don't know how
to display the current value of a variable in emacs). In any case, the
basic file /etc/emacs/site.start.d/00debian-vars.el suggests that the
default sets mailname to the value of /etc/mailname, which in turn is
"hartford-hwp.com".

I am very uncertain how I should have defined /etc/mailname, but here
I've changed it to "brownh@hartford-hwp.com", but it didn't help. I'm
also very uncertain as to how to define /etc/hostname, and I used the
value "teufel.hartford-hwp.com". Some places I read seemed to say I
should use the FQDN, rather than local hostname ("teufel"). I've asked
around on both of these issues, but never got a reply. I'd love to
hear some wise advice here. In any case, I don't see that it would
cause the header From: line to be missing entirely.

Perhaps because of this configuration, I get odd returns from the
hostname command:

  $ hostname -a
  localhost.localdomain teufel.hartford-hwp.com
  
  $ hostname - d 
  [nothing is returned for the domain name]

  $ hostname -f
  localhost 

  $ hostname -s
  localhost

Something very odd is going on.

-- 
 
       Haines Brown
       KB1GRM