[Mailman-Users] Mailman Address Format

[Barry Finkel]

"Carlos Williams" <carloswill at gmail.com> wrote:

>I was wondering why when something is sent to a mailman alias address
>is the actual email address manipulated to show a different non
>existing address.
>
>For example, I create a mailman group "everyone" so now people can
>email <everyone at example.com> and when the users get an email from that
>group, they see the following header info:
>
>Return Path = <everyone-bounces at example.com>
>X-Original-To = <everyone at example.com>
>Delivered-To = <everyone at example.com>
>
>So when people see this, they attempt to send back to
>everyone-bounces at example.com and of course the email is rejected
>because that address does not exist. I as an email administrator
>understand how to read the header but most common users don't and
>almost always send to the wrong address. They become frustrated and
>annoyed with Mailman and want this fixed. I explain to them to not
>copy and paste the email address but rather to simply reply to all or
>reply to sender.
>
>Why does mailman do this? I don't understand the "bounce" parameter
>and or why it does not show its from "everyone at example.com".
>
>Thanks for any clarification or info on how to resolve this.

The address is set so that bounced mail will be sent back to the
-bounces address ,and Mailman can process the bounce according to the
bounce parameters configured for the list.

In the aliases file there should be a -bounces address for each list.
Here is what I have in the

     /var/lib/mailman/data/aliases

file on Ubuntu:

# STANZA START: mailman 
# CREATED: Fri Mar  9 14:35:32 2007
mailman:             "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman post mailman"
mailman-admin:       "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman admin mailman"
mailman-bounces:     "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman bounces mailman"
mailman-confirm:     "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman confirm mailman"
mailman-join:        "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman join mailman"
mailman-leave:       "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman leave mailman"
mailman-owner:       "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman owner mailman"
mailman-request:     "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman request mailman"
mailman-subscribe:   "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman subscribe mailman"
mailman-unsubscribe: "|/var/lib/mailman/mail/mailman unsubscribe mailman"
# STANZA END: mailman

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry S. Finkel
Computing and Information Systems Division
Argonne National Laboratory          Phone:    +1 (630) 252-7277
9700 South Cass Avenue               Facsimile:+1 (630) 252-4601
Building 222, Room D209              Internet: BSFinkel at anl.gov
Argonne, IL   60439-4828             IBMMAIL:  I1004994