keithr@sco.COM (Keith Reynolds) (12/09/88)
Interestingly, karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) had this to say about "Mail header wishlist": } } That would be unnecessary if mailing lists would all make sure that, } when distributing out to the list's recipients, an Errors-To: } listname-request@listname-host-machine header were included. Then } bounces would go to the admin only, and nowhere else. } "Errors-To:"? I've just gotten back to this group after a long time of not having time to read it, and this was the second posting that hadn't expired, so I imagine this was proposed as an additional header to add to the next mail RFC, whenever that comes out. My question: is this necessary? My copy of RFC822 says (section 4.4.4): The "Sender" field mailbox should be sent notices of any problems in transport or delivery of the original messages. If there is no "Sender" field, then the "From" field mailbox should be used. The "Sender field mailbox should NEVER be used automatically, in a recipient's reply message. So, if the mailing list would put the "request" address in the "Sender" field, compliant mailers should send bounces to that, without any standards or software changes (assuming sendmail/mmdf and other major transports actually obey this). The second quoted paragraph indicates that replies wouldn't (or shouldn't) use this field, so doing this wouldn't affect the ability to reply to messages sent out by the list processor. -- Keith Reynolds, Systems Administrator, The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. {uunet,ucbvax!ucscc,decvax!microsoft,spl1,sun}!sco!keithr keithr@sco.COM, @ucscc.UCSC.EDU:keithr@sco.COM, keithr%sco.COM@ucscc.UCSC.EDU "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained." -- The Tao of Programming
karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (12/13/88)
"Errors-To:"? ... So, if the mailing list would put the "request" address in the "Sender" field... Yes, it was pointed out to me (several times!) that Errors-To: is a sendmail-ism; that'll teach me to put something to use which I see `documented' somewhere other than in an RFC. My local generalized mailing list management scheme has been altered to accommodate the use of *both* Errors-To: (to make sendmails happy) and Sender:. --Karl