On Thu, 23 May 2002 15:35:51 CDT, Feather Lacy <[log in to unmask]>  said:

> Given that, we would still like to set the RFC821 "from"  for
> administrative mail from listserv to reference a real e-mail address, like
> we set the Postmaster.
>
> Is that possible in LISTSERV?

No, and for a very good reason.  Listserv intentionally uses the null MAIL FROM
so there *is* no bounce message coming back for certain classes of mail.

Otherwise, the following can happen:

1) Your Listserv sends out mail with MAIL FROM:<[log in to unmask]>
2) The other end can't deliver, so it bounces back - and since THEY don't
believe in MAIL FROM:<> either, they set it to <[log in to unmask]>

3) If [log in to unmask] bounces (due to quota, temporary problem, ANY
reason, bounce to <[log in to unmask]>

4) They bounce to [log in to unmask]

You see a pattern starting here?

It's *particularly* nasty if your.domain and their.domain are the
same - in other words, if you ever get a double-bounce, your mail server
will then go into a hard loop forwarding the bounce messages back to your
failing address, similar to the loop you get if mail to Postmaster bounces,
and you have your MTA send a copy of all bounces to Postmaster... ;)

Trust me, you DONT want to do it.  Even when Listserv uses MAIL FROM:<>,
a lot of bounces come back *ANYHOW*.  I've appended an example of what
often comes back anyhow - I see 20-30 of these a *DAY*, and it would easily
be 20 times that if <> didn't suppress most bounces...

/Valdis

--- start example bounce
Subject: Postmaster notify: see transcript for details
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 19:45:15 -0400
To: [log in to unmask]


   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<[log in to unmask]>
    (reason: 550 User Does Not Exist.)

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mail.absoft.fr.:
>>> RCPT To:<[log in to unmask]>
<<< 550 User Does Not Exist.
550 5.1.1 <[log in to unmask]>... User unknown

Subject: Message ("Your message dated Thu, 23 May 2002 16:13:49...")
From: "L-Soft list server at LISTSERV.VT.EDU (1.8d)" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 19:45:07 -0400
To: [log in to unmask]

Your message dated Thu, 23 May 2002 16:13:49 -1900 with subject "Pay nothing
for your conference calls!" has been submitted to the moderator of the AIR-L
list:
--- end example message ---