Date:          Sun, 14 Feb 1999 22:37:36 -0500
From:          Marianne Brophy <[log in to unmask]>

Subscription requests from MS Internet Mail and Outlook Express often are
rejected because of the incomplete Reply-To: field in the header.  But I
just got one whose Reply-To: field is incomplete (no userid) and has
a different node address than the From: field.

The list the person wants to join requires the OK Reply/Cookie.  I'm
wondering if a subscription request will work as long as the person has
a userid@node in the Reply-To: field, even if it's not the same as the
From: address?  And they send the OK Reply from the From: address?
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I dont know which one Listserv uses to form the subscription e-mail address if
the subscriber does not fill in their address as part of their subscription but
I suspect it would more than likely be the From: field.

if that is the case then as long as that from field does not change then they
should be okay sending in anything to either lists or listservers, I just dont
know if listserv is okay about replying to an address that is not listed as a
subscriber so they might find their mail being addressed according to their
From: field and not their Reply-To: field..... whether it reaches them or not
is then up to their mail server and whatever aliasing policy they have....

This does sound similar to problems here with various mailers which allow
people to configure their default reply-to address and their from: field in the
mailer software itself. (This is outside of any aliasing that may take place on
the mail server itself.)

The discrepancies occur when these fields are set differently from each other
and I have found here that it does effect their ability to send messages to the
list. They often can still receive and they can subscribe as well, just they
can never send anything and I think this would also apply to the OK confirm
mechanism.

about the only thing I can suggest is that she/he tries to return the OK
confirm with their mail as it is set up.

If their addressing in the reply-to: field is incorrect they will not receive
the message and it will bounce back at listserv with a delivery error, that is
from their mail server side. You would need to check with whomever monitors
the maillogs for your system or handles the root mail (or equivalent) to see if
there was a bounce back.....

If the message gets through to them and they reply, then the message should hit
listserv and be recorded in the log, and it will show if there is going to be a
problem because of the different addresses in the reply-to and from fields.
They will more than likely get the "You are not subscribed to the list."
response if there are any problems.


Debra

[if you are using SendMail, you can send a command via SendMail that
tests out an external address by bouncing it off another server...... it shows
you all the responses from EHLO to "." and QUIT when the other server drops
connection. You can easily pick up if an e-mail address is valid or not from
this test... unfortunately I dont know the equivalent for other mail
applications on systems other than UNIX, but someone on the list might... ]