[comp.mail.sendmail] Robust mail redistribution

schwartz@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Dwight Schwartz) (10/11/90)

In article <1990Oct10.234421.8677@nntp-server.caltech.edu> doug@seismo.gps.caltech.edu () writes:
>
>What is the proper way to set up a robust mailing list for redistribution of
>mail to multiple people? 
 ---- stuff deleted ----
>My other thought was to create a dummy user "rptnotice" and add the users
>currently in the aliases file in its .forward file.  Will this work, and are
>there better ways of dealing with this situation?

	This second idea works on my Silicon Graphics 4D25 Personal Iris running
Irix 3.2.1, i.e., I have created an imaginary user and added approximately 60 
names (user@FQDN) to this user's .forward file.  I can then send mail to this 
user from anywhere and it get's forwarded to all valid user@host entries in the 
.forward file.  I receive all bounces at the site of message origination 
(not the 'dummy account').  
	A few things about which to be careful:
1) Never send any mail from within the dummy user's account.  If it bounces,
everyone in your mailing list will get a copy of the bounce.
2) Be careful about doing things from that account which might spawn a mail
message from the system.  They too, will (or should) go out to all on the list.
This includes editing a file (if the editing session bombs, etc) and using lp
(and maybe other utilities) with the option enabled which tells the system to 
notify you via mail when your job (or whatever) is finished printing (or 
whatever).
_________________________________ _____________________ _______________________
Dwight A. Schwartz -__-_ UIUC Department of Chemistry   schwartz@b.scs.uiuc.edu
Box 10-1 Noyes Lab. 505 S. Mathews Ave. Urbana, IL 61801 schwartz@uiucscs.bitnet

lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot) (10/11/90)

When dealing with large mailing lists, the big stickler is how to
handle errors, because with large mailing lists there will *ALWAYS* be
problems with somebody's host somewhere.  The goal is to redirect away
from the author any error on which he cannot act.

This is best accomplished by resetting the return-path in the ENVELOPE
(see RFC 822 and RFC 1123) to be that of mailing-list-request, an
address where all the bounces should go.

With sendmail, you would achieve this end by using the aliases file
in the following way:

real-mailing-list-file: :include: /usr/local/mlists/mailing-list
mailing-list-request: you
mailing-list:
	"|/usr/lib/sendmail -fmailing-list-request real-mailing-list-file"

The only people who will see bounces other than you will be those
people on your host who mail off to the list.  This is because
sendmail's security mechanism will not allow local ``untrusted'' users
to set the return-path.

N.B. when you set the return-path, you are *NOT* setting the ``From:''
RFC822 header.  It is important to leave the user's headers alone when
exploding a mailing list.

-- 
Eliot Lear
[lear@turbo.bio.net]