[Mailman-Users] Mailman - a few questions

[Mark Sapiro]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

>Bill Catambay writes:
>
> > My ISP is using Mailman 2.1.11.  Is that the latest?  I'm guessing 
> > no, since it is currently NOT recognizing the envelope sender.  This 
> > sounds like one that I'll need to contact my ISP for.
>
>No, it is not the latest, 2.1.12 is.
>
>Unfortunately, it looks like things don't work as you need them to,
>definitely not in 2.1.11, and probably not in 2.1.12.  As far as I can
>tell from the 2.1.11 code, the envelope sender *is* recognized in the
>moderation module, but only as one of several possible candidates for
>the *author* of the message.  And the From header will be preferred to
>envelope sender for that.


It's somewhat confusing and complicated, but it hasn't changed in a
long time. The way it works is that a post is considered to be from a
member if a member address is found in any of (by default, see
SENDER_HEADERS) the From: header, the envelope sender, the Reply-To:
header if any and the Sender: header if any.

If this test determines the post is from a member, the member's
'moderate' flag is checked and the post is handled accordingly. If
more than one member address is in the above set, it's the first found
in the above order that is used. This decision as to which moderate
flag to use is the only place where the ordering of the search for a
member address is significant

If the post is not from a member, then a possibly different address is
checked against *_these_nonmembers. This address is the first address
found in a search that depends on the setting of USE_ENVELOPE_SENDER.
If USE_ENVELOPE_SENDER is false (the default) the search order is
From: header, Sender: header, envelope sender. If USE_ENVELOPE_SENDER
is true, the search order is Sender: header, From: header, envelope
sender. Thus, the name USE_ENVELOPE_SENDER is really a misnomer, but
note that this only possibly affects the address used for
*_these_nonmembers checks.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan