This may or may not be a INN 2.8.0 issue, but noticed after upgrading and
starting to inject older articles that I'm seeing errors about Syntax errors
in Message-IDs but I have the following set in etc/inn.conf:

syntaxchecks: [ laxmid ]

I see in the manpage for inn.conf:

When laxmid is set, Message-IDs containing ".." in the left
part are accepted, as well as Message-IDs with two "@".

I assume that because Message-IDs like the one below do not fall into those
parameters, it is still rejected, but this there a way to accept these?

<3f71e4a7_3@aeinews.> - 435 Syntax error in message-ID

Jesse Rehmer wrote:

> This may or may not be a INN 2.8.0 issue, but noticed after upgrading and
> starting to inject older articles that I'm seeing errors about Syntax errors
> in Message-IDs but I have the following set in etc/inn.conf:

> syntaxchecks: [ laxmid ]

> I see in the manpage for inn.conf:

> When laxmid is set, Message-IDs containing ".." in the left
> part are accepted, as well as Message-IDs with two "@".

> I assume that because Message-IDs like the one below do not fall into those
> parameters, it is still rejected, but this there a way to accept these?

> <3f71e4a7_3@aeinews.> - 435 Syntax error in message-ID

I found when adding older (1980s) articles to an inn2 server, it was necessary
to modify some headers else they were rejected. I found that trying to get inn2
to accept them was not the answer, modifying the article header was.

How old are these 'older articles' you are injecting?

You can see my results in a web interface here: http://www.novalink.us or in
inn2 here: news.novalink.us:119

--
Retro Guy

On Jul 16, 2023 at 10:25:17 AM CDT, "Retro Guy" <Retro Guy> wrote:

> Jesse Rehmer wrote:
>
>> This may or may not be a INN 2.8.0 issue, but noticed after upgrading and
>> starting to inject older articles that I'm seeing errors about Syntax errors
>> in Message-IDs but I have the following set in etc/inn.conf:
>
>> syntaxchecks: [ laxmid ]
>
>> I see in the manpage for inn.conf:
>
>> When laxmid is set, Message-IDs containing ".." in the left
>> part are accepted, as well as Message-IDs with two "@".
>
>> I assume that because Message-IDs like the one below do not fall into those
>> parameters, it is still rejected, but this there a way to accept these?
>
>> <3f71e4a7_3@aeinews.> - 435 Syntax error in message-ID
>
> I found when adding older (1980s) articles to an inn2 server, it was necessary
> to modify some headers else they were rejected. I found that trying to get inn2
> to accept them was not the answer, modifying the article header was.
>
> How old are these 'older articles' you are injecting?
>
> You can see my results in a web interface here: http://www.novalink.us or in
> inn2 here: news.novalink.us:119

2003-ish and forward.

Jesse Rehmer wrote:

> On Jul 16, 2023 at 10:25:17 AM CDT, "Retro Guy" <Retro Guy> wrote:

>> Jesse Rehmer wrote:
>>
>>> This may or may not be a INN 2.8.0 issue, but noticed after upgrading and
>>> starting to inject older articles that I'm seeing errors about Syntax errors
>>> in Message-IDs but I have the following set in etc/inn.conf:
>>
>>> syntaxchecks: [ laxmid ]
>>
>>> I see in the manpage for inn.conf:
>>
>>> When laxmid is set, Message-IDs containing ".." in the left
>>> part are accepted, as well as Message-IDs with two "@".
>>
>>> I assume that because Message-IDs like the one below do not fall into those
>>> parameters, it is still rejected, but this there a way to accept these?
>>
>>> <3f71e4a7_3@aeinews.> - 435 Syntax error in message-ID
>>
>> I found when adding older (1980s) articles to an inn2 server, it was necessary
>> to modify some headers else they were rejected. I found that trying to get inn2
>> to accept them was not the answer, modifying the article header was.
>>
>> How old are these 'older articles' you are injecting?
>>
>> You can see my results in a web interface here: http://www.novalink.us or in
>> inn2 here: news.novalink.us:119

> 2003-ish and forward.

Hmm, that shouldn't be too old. In any case, if inn2 doesn't accept them due to
an incompatible header, I believe modifying the header is the solution.

I'm sure others here probably have more informed suggestions than I do, but it
is what I found in my trials.

--
Retro Guy

Hi,
Jesse Rehmer a écrit :
> On Jul 16, 2023 at 10:25:17 AM CDT, "Retro Guy" <Retro Guy> wrote:

>> How old are these 'older articles' you are injecting?
>>
>> You can see my results in a web interface here: http://www.novalink.us or in

One day I will look at rocksolid...
I'm using the old NewsPortal (updated for PHP8 and 7) wich is simplier (no
database).

>> inn2 here: news.novalink.us:119

> 2003-ish and forward.

I'm not sure what ish means.

Maybe because there was no Injection-Date or Injection-Info?

--
Stéphane
Sorry for my bad English

Hi Jesse,

> syntaxchecks: [ laxmid ]
>
> I see in the manpage for inn.conf:
>
> When laxmid is set, Message-IDs containing ".." in the left
> part are accepted, as well as Message-IDs with two "@".
>
> I assume that because Message-IDs like the one below do not fall into those
> parameters, it is still rejected, but this there a way to accept these?
>
> <3f71e4a7_3@aeinews.> - 435 Syntax error in message-ID

Over these past years, I have often seen questions about syntax checks.
Maybe laxmid should allow more Message-IDs than only the ones with ".."
and two "@"?

Strictly speaking, a dot (".") must be followed by another non-special
chars, so <a.@b> and <a@b.> are invalid per RFC.

I suggest to change the behaviour of laxmid so that innd accepts even
more Message-IDs. For instance in the common dot-atom-text syntax, just
checking we have "<", at least one non-special char, "@", at least one
non-special char, and ">".
no-fold-literal is kept untouched but dot-atom-text is changed.

The syntax per RFC is:

msg-id = "<" msg-id-core ">"
msg-id-core = id-left "@" id-right
id-left = dot-atom-text
id-right = dot-atom-text / no-fold-literal

dot-atom-text = 1*atext *("." 1*atext)
no-fold-literal = "[" *mdtext "]"

mdtext = %d33-61 / ; The rest of the US-ASCII
%d63-90 / ; characters not including
%d94-126 ; ">", "[", "]", or "\"

atext = ALPHA / DIGIT / ; Printable US-ASCII
"!" / "#" / ; characters not including
"$" / "%" / ; specials. Used for atoms.
"&" / "'" /
"*" / "+" /
"-" / "/" /
"=" / "?" /
"^" / "_" /
"`" / "{" /
"|" / "}" /
"~"

laxmid would accept for innd:

dot-atom-text = 1*(atext / "." / "@")

At least, I think it would cope with all Message-IDs in the wild. (Are
there ones without any "@" at all?)

As for nnrpd, laxmid would go on having the current behaviour of
allowing ".." and two "@" as this was a request in 2017 from a news
admin with users having broken posting agents sending such Message-IDs.
No need for now to allow the injection of even more broken Message-IDs.

Any thoughts about that change?

--
Julien ÉLIE

« – Dis, je crois avoir entendu parler gothique par là !
– Tu as des visions, Pamplemus ! » (Astérix)

Hi Retro Guy,

> I found when adding older (1980s) articles to an inn2 server, it was
> necessary to modify some headers else they were rejected. I found that trying to
> get inn2 to accept them was not the answer, modifying the article header was.

Do you remember which header fields were concerned?
What were the syntax errors? (the colon-space syntax? other problems?)

Maybe a laxcolonspace parameter could be added like laxmid to allow that
syntax for *optional* header fields, as we recently discussed.
But of course it would be useful if your examples do not have an invalid
syntax in header fields like Path, Date, Newsgroups, Message-ID... Do
you remember which ones were concerned?

--
Julien ÉLIE

« If you lie to the compiler, it will get its revenge. » (Henry Spencer)