[Mailman-Users] Bounce issues with Yahoo

[Harold Paulson]

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Brad,

> 	I've been specializing in Internet e-mail for over a decade, I was  
> the comp.mail.sendmail FAQ maintainer for years, I was heavily  
> involved in the postfix community from back when it was still being  
> called VMailer, and I have yet to run into any MTAs that can do this.

My bad.  I failed to check the archives:

   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2006-February/ 
049346.html
   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2005-July/045672.html
   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2004-February/ 
034534.html
   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2003-July/029947.html

...for your resume first, and was suggesting a solution I thought was  
both useful, and more...correct.  I did meet Eric Allman once.  He  
seemed nice.


> 	Please provide evidence for your claims.

You will have to forgive me because I have only been on the `net for  
a minute or two, and never worked for AOL, but don't you sort of  
water this down below and - at the perilous risk of putting words in  
your mouth - agree that this is entirely possible, but, maybe a  
little work?


>>>  	The policy you are proposing is null and void, because the  
>>> software
>>>  in question is not physically capable of acting in the manner  
>>> you suggest.
>>
>>  You have the sender and the recipient right at the beginning of the
>>  SMTP transaction.  Check a map to see if it's deliverable.  Mailman
>>  already maintains such a map.  You just need some glue.
>
> 	That would be nice, but Mailman does not, in fact, maintain such a  
> map.  It has a procedure that it goes through to determine if the  
> user is a subscriber or should otherwise be moderated or the  
> message should be rejected, but there is no easy "map" for this  
> process.

Ok, maybe it's not an MTA-ready map, but Mailman looks up the sender  
in it's subscriber database when it gets a message to a members only  
list, right?  That code exists?  And could be adapted, in a fairly  
straight-forward manor to do exactly the same thing a few seconds  
earlier, before your message hits disk?

Probably my misunderstanding.


>>  Surely other MTAs give admins a way to make decisions during SMTP  
>> as well?
>
> 	Sure, anyone can write an SMTP or LMTP-like engine that internally  
> goes through the processes that the MLM would normally go through,  
> and be able to provide that information to the MTA through a proxy  
> service, but the MTA would also have to be configured to hold the  
> sender open while checking the proxy -- again, most MTAs are not  
> configured to do this, and for lots of good reasons the MTA authors  
> suggest in the strongest possible terms that you not make the  
> mistake of configuring their software in this way.

Seems like you are imagining a lot of unnecessary plumbing.

When you have the sender address during SMTP
   If it's going to a known Mailman list address
     If the sender address can't be found in the list subscriber db
       Say no thanks...(or say please try again later)

Mailman will do all of this a second or two later anyway, right?


>>  I think the right solution is to reject junk, instead of accept- 
>> and-bounce.
>>  I think accept-and-bounce is a blight on the internet, that  
>> lowers the
>>  quality and reputation of email.  I think it is a waste of  
>> resources.
>
> 	Fine.  Then write the Python code to do all the magic work and  
> contribute that back to the Mailman community, and get that  
> incorporated into an upcoming release.

Well you know of course I was trying to goad you into writing it.  I  
don't know Python, or have a problem with backscatter.  :)

	- H





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