Mark R. Williamson <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> Peter's method doesn't result in a fully-automated LISTSERV renewal probe,
> rather it is a mechanically-assisted manual probe.  The error messages will
> come back to you, the sender and presumed list owner, not the list or the
> server.  It will be up to you to act on the error messages, just like in
> the bad old days when we all sent these one or a few at a time when we
> suspected a problem was related to some near-miss subscription(s).
 
  Yes, but...
 
  Suppose someone is subscribed to the list as [log in to unmask] Now they've
changed jobs and are now [log in to unmask], but set mail forwarding on
their [log in to unmask] account so all mail sent there goes to otheruser@new-
host.com. Now they've left newhost.com and their account there was deleted.
 
  Mail LISTSERV sends out for this list comes back with a bounce that says
"[log in to unmask] - no such user". When REVIEWing the list, this address
doesn't appear, because it's the result of forwarding that LISTSERV doesn't
know anything about.
 
  The DISTRIBUTE method that was suggested instead of probes will suffer from
the same problem, as there isn't any way to identify which list subscriber
the bounce pertains to, right?
 
  With probes, LISTSERV puts the subscriber address (with things like @'s and
.'s escaped) in the From: address, so when it gets a probe bounce, it knows
exactly which subscriber the bounce is for. That's much more useful. That's
also why wildcard owner-* aliases are needed for probes to work (and hence
my Sendmail patch to implement same).
 
  Now, what I'd like is a way to tell LISTSERV to probe a list, without having
to set short renewal periods (which are inappropriate for announcement-only
lists and some other cases).
 
  Is this clearer now?
 
        Terry Kennedy             Operations Manager, Academic Computing
        [log in to unmask]      St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
        +1 201 915 9381 (voice)   +1 201 435-3662 (FAX)