On Wed, 17 Mar 1999 16:26:44 -0500, Glenn A. Malling
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>[log in to unmask] said:
>
>> When there is a permanent mail delivery failure (ie no user, no
>> domain, etc) for a user confirmation mail (ie asking them to confirm a
>> subscription, for example -- this seems to be the only type), the
>> message is bounced to the POSTMASTER of the RELAY (sendmail) machine.
>
>That's because you have sendmail configured to forward double bounces
>to the local postmaster.

But this is not a "double bounce". Its a single bounce. The relay machine
can't deliver the mail, so it should send a message to the sender, which is
[log in to unmask] (not the real domain name).


>The SMTP statement MAIL FROM:<> means "don't send me an error message
>if you can not deliver this."  Some believe that its use is restricted
>to error messages but a careful reading of RFC821 will show that that
>is not true.  Its use in sending an error message is given as an
>example of where it could be used.  Some have taken that single example
>as an exclusionary statement, I don't think it is.

So, you are sure that confirmation request emails are sent with a null From
header? I have not confirmed this.

I don't really care what the RFC says -- I just don't want to get the
bounces. If I were not using the mail relay, these permanent failure notices
would go to the user specified in the POSTMASTER field in go.user -- but
this doesn't happen when using the relay and this doesn't seem to make any
sense to me. If listserv sends mail to a non-existent user, the failure
notice mail should go back to listserv-defined POSTMASTER, not to the
postmaster of the relay.. (that is to say, this is the behavior I want and
would expect, even if its not the way its configured to work by default).

 -Gabe