[Mailman-Users] REPLY-TO oddity

[Rick Robino]

You don't have to alias one host name to another. Modern MTA's will
handle aliases just fine (it's up to the resolver anyway), as long as
an alias eventually leads to and answer from a real A record. I don't
see the point here of an alias though, except that maillist.x.y.z is
more intuitive for the user. I am assuming that x is not a subdomain,
but it shouldn't really matter as long as you have your dots right ;-)
I suppose you need the x...?

MX targets, on the other hand, is what is really going to tell other
MTA's where to go - it's nice to have the target name canonical, to
save extra lookups. From there, if you want messages sent to and from
the mailling list to be rewritten a certain way you're best bet (IMHO)
is to do that with your MTA on the MX host for the domain
maillist.x.y.z.  This is likely the "default" for the parent zone, if
you are using BIND and have a common setup. It can be specific to a
host (domain). You could also use an MUA wrapper, including doing that
right in the python code, but it's so much easier in Sendmail. Here is
what I would recommend:

;in zone file for y.z.

@	IN	SOA	<soa junk...>
	IN	MX	10 mailhost.x.y.z

mailhost	IN	A	10.0.0.1
x		IN	A	10.0.0.2
maillist.x	IN	A	10.0.0.2
(or if zone x.y.z, maillist	IN	A	10.0.0.2, whatever)

That handles where the incoming mail goes and the validity of your
"alias" while avoiding aliases. So, you have to change two RR's when
you change this server IP - who cares? I'm imagining that the machine
that has the list aliases is your MX host itself and not just a
relayed-to leaf. It would also make life easier if that had the MTA of
choice that mailman uses. No matter, as long as whatever the MTA
mailman uses to send out mail has a ruleset in there to rewrite your
headers the way you want.

With Sendmail there are a whole host of ways to do this - put the
homegrown ones in S98, and check in test mode. I'm partial to userdb or
virtusers which very simply rewriting the From:, but there are a
hundred ways to skin this cat. I'm sure qmail, postfix, smail, etc all
have similarly well-documented ways.

My $0.02, HTH. Sorry for the length.

--Rick

> On Thu, Apr 08, 1999 at 06:40:00PM -0400, Marc L. Allen wrote:
> Hmmm.... changing it with an A record probably won't help, since the
> name of my host is really x.y.z and not maillist.x.y.z.  Besides, why
> can't Mailman set the REPLY-TO: to the address of the mail list. 
> Afterall, it does know what that is, doesn't it?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Marc
> 
> 
> Ryan McLean wrote:
> > 
> > CNAME's and mail server do NOT mix :)  I suggest you remove the CNAME and
> > replace it with a real A record.  Most MTA's deny CNAME's and go with the
> > resolved hostname.
> > 
> >  - Ryan
> > 
> > /*
> >  * Ryan McLean - Network/System Administrator
> >  * Starshadow Communications
> >  * Calgary, Alberta, Canada - Cleveland, Ohio USA
> >  * http://www.starshadow.com
> >  */
> > 
> > On Thu, 8 Apr 1999, Marc L. Allen wrote:
> > 
> > > I'm using 1.0B10 and I've noticed the following:
> > >
> > > I've created a CNAME in my DNS to point maillist.x.y.z to machine
> > > x.y.z.  I've also setup Mailman to use maillist.x.y.z as it's address
> > > and URL.
> > >
> > > When I set a list up to have replies go to the list, the REPLY-TO: field
> > > of the message is list at x.y.z instead of the expected list at maillist.x.y.z
> > >
> > > Any quick fixes?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Marc
> > >
> > > --
> > > ************************************************************************
> > > * Marc L. Allen                         *                              *
> > > * Principal Architect                   * "If we had told you it was   *
> > > * Information Technology Manager        * impossible, you'd never have *
> > > *                                       * gone off and done it."       *
> > > * Tokheim Technology Center             *                              *
> > > * (757) 366-4185                        *    -- The Phantom Tollbooth  *
> > > * allen at chesapeake.tokheim.com          *                              *
> > > ************************************************************************
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------
> > > Mailman-Users maillist  -  Mailman-Users at python.org
> > > http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
> > >
> > 
> > ------------------------------------------------------
> > Mailman-Users maillist  -  Mailman-Users at python.org
> > http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users
> 


-- 
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Rick Robino                                         mailto:rrobino at gstis.net
Manager, Internet Operations, GST/Whole Earth		http://www.gstis.net
Portland:     v. (503) 416-1517     f. (503) 416-1555      p. (503) 703-0728