Gratuitous CRLF in Subject: line - why is it there, and is it legal?

Solution 1:

Well, if I understand RFC 822, they are legal in certain cases, I think it's an artifact from the days of small screens with 24x80 resolutions..

These sections seem to be fairly clear Subjects can be folded, and folding is a CRLF plus LWSP(linear white space) character.. it's possible they've been supeseded, Wietse (on the postfix lists) knows his RFCs inside out if you want a definitive answer.

3.1.1.  LONG HEADER FIELDS

    Each header field can be viewed as a single, logical  line  of
    ASCII  characters,  comprising  a field-name and a field-body.
    For convenience, the field-body  portion  of  this  conceptual
    entity  can be split into a multiple-line representation; this
    is called "folding".  The general rule is that wherever  there
    may  be  linear-white-space  (NOT  simply  LWSP-chars), a CRLF
    immediately followed by AT LEAST one LWSP-char may instead  be
    inserted.  Thus, the single line

        To:  "Joe & J. Harvey" <ddd @Org>, JJV @ BBN

    can be represented as:

        To:  "Joe & J. Harvey" <ddd @ Org>,
                JJV@BBN

    and

        To:  "Joe & J. Harvey"
                        <ddd@ Org>, JJV
         @BBN

    and

        To:  "Joe &
         J. Harvey" <ddd @ Org>, JJV @ BBN

         The process of moving  from  this  folded   multiple-line
    representation  of a header field to its single line represen-
    tation is called "unfolding".  Unfolding  is  accomplished  by
    regarding   CRLF   immediately  followed  by  a  LWSP-char  as
    equivalent to the LWSP-char.

    Note:  While the standard  permits  folding  wherever  linear-
           white-space is permitted, it is recommended that struc-
           tured fields, such as those containing addresses, limit
           folding  to higher-level syntactic breaks.  For address
           fields, it  is  recommended  that  such  folding  occur
           between addresses, after the separating comma.

3.1.2.  STRUCTURE OF HEADER FIELDS

    Once a field has been unfolded, it may be viewed as being com-
    posed of a field-name followed by a colon (":"), followed by a
    field-body, and  terminated  by  a  carriage-return/line-feed.
    The  field-name must be composed of printable ASCII characters
    (i.e., characters that  have  values  between  33.  and  126.,
    decimal, except colon).  The field-body may be composed of any
    ASCII characters, except CR or LF.  (While CR and/or LF may be
    present  in the actual text, they are removed by the action of
    unfolding the field.)

    Certain field-bodies of headers may be  interpreted  according
    to  an  internal  syntax  that some systems may wish to parse.
    These  fields  are  called  "structured   fields".    Examples
    include  fields containing dates and addresses.  Other fields,
    such as "Subject"  and  "Comments",  are  regarded  simply  as
    strings of text.

    Note:  Any field which has a field-body  that  is  defined  as
           other  than  simply <text> is to be treated as a struc-
           tured field.

           Field-names, unstructured field bodies  and  structured
           field bodies each are scanned by their own, independent
           "lexical" analyzers.

 3.1.3.  UNSTRUCTURED FIELD BODIES

    For some fields, such as "Subject" and "Comments",  no  struc-
    turing  is assumed, and they are treated simply as <text>s, as
    in the message body.  Rules of folding apply to these  fields,
    so  that  such  field  bodies  which occupy several lines must
    therefore have the second and successive lines indented by  at
    least one LWSP-char.

Edit by the questioner: I hope NickW will forgive me for adding a note to the effect that RFC822 has been obsoleted by RFC2822, but the new RFC says pretty much the same thing in its section 2.2.3, and explicitly confirms that such folding should be removed before any further processing is done:

Each header field is logically a single line of characters comprising the field name, the colon, and the field body. For convenience however, and to deal with the 998/78 character limitations per line, the field body portion of a header field can be split into a multiple line representation; this is called "folding". The general rule is that wherever this standard allows for folding white space (not simply WSP characters), a CRLF may be inserted before any WSP. For example, the header field:

       Subject: This is a test

can be represented as:

       Subject: This
        is a test

Note: Though structured field bodies are defined in such a way that folding can take place between many of the lexical tokens (and even within some of the lexical tokens), folding SHOULD be limited to
placing the CRLF at higher-level syntactic breaks. For instance, if a field body is defined as comma-separated values, it is recommended that folding occur after the comma separating the structured items in preference to other places where the field could be folded, even if it is allowed elsewhere.

The process of moving from this folded multiple-line representation of a header field to its single line representation is called "unfolding". Unfolding is accomplished by simply removing any CRLF that is immediately followed by WSP. Each header field should be treated in its unfolded form for further syntactic and semantic evaluation.

This is not to detract from the fact that NickW unerringly pointed me at pretty much exactly what I needed to know, only to help this answer stay relevant for anyone who might stumble across it in the future.

Solution 2:

Sendmail server (SendMail) imposes SMTP line length limits but it is much higher (990 bytes or more for smtp mailers).

SendMail != SendEmail

As I understand Nagios uses by default SendEmail client to send emails. It seems that email client you make Nagios use imposes such "harsh" limits on length of email header/subject line.

Check and report email client configured in commands.cfg configuration file.
(notify-host-by-email and notify-service-by-email settings).