Someone wrote to bit.admin on Netnews that files from Listserv with text
such as the following should not be gatewayed into Netnews.
 
   remote execution        [uucp job rtiAYVz3 (4/24-19:48:25)]
           rmail sas.com!snoklf
   exited with status 1
 
I wrote back asking what algorithm he suggested I use (as there obviously
is none).  Here is his response.  Comments?
 
 
The fault here is probably with the list, not the gateway.  Properly
configured mailing list do not spew transmission errors back to the
sender of the original message; rather, these failure notices get
reflected back to the owner of the list, who (presumably) can deal
with them sensibly.
 
Here's a message from Louis Mamakos on the subject, giving instructions
on how to do things properly (in sendmail terms).  I don't know
how to configure a bitnet mailer to do the same, but that's probably
not impossible.
 
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: [log in to unmask] (D. Crompton)
Subject: Re: Returned Mail???
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 90 09:40:46 EST
From: "Louis A. Mamakos" <[log in to unmask]>
 
Yes, I've been getting a few nasygrams back for each message that I send
to the list.  I shudder to think how many are being bounced to
[log in to unmask] that Brian has to deal with.
 
I run the NTP mailing list and I've been getting a little nasty lately about
broken addresses on that list.  Especially annoying are people that
redistribute the list locally, but don't hack the SMTP MAIL FROM:<> command
to supply a reasonable address for advisories to be returned to.
 
FYI on your UNIX/sendmail box, if you are going to redistribute a mailing
list locally, do something like this in /etc/aliases (or /usr/lib/aliases):
 
        mailing-list-inbound:"|/usr/lib/sendmail -fmlist-relay mlist-outbound"
        mlist-relay: postmaster
        mlist-outbound: foo, bar@baz, curly, moe, larry
        owner-mailing-list-inbound: mlist-relay
        owner-mlist-outbound: mlist-relay
 
This will cause most errors in the redistribution to be returned to "postmaster"
or whomever you've stuck with being on mlist-relay.  You don't want to return
errors to the original sender or worst of all, to the mailing list itself!
 
A lession to keep in mind before we build elaborate auto-forwarding mailing
list creatures over packet radio system where bandwidth is at a premium
right now.  And no, the solution to THIS problem is not faster modems!
 
louie