[mlmmj] Allowing empty enevelope senders

[mlmmj] Allowing empty enevelope senders

[Thomas Jarosch]

Hi,

we have one mlmmj list that gets back email bounces
from a newsletter. Such bounce emails are usually sent
using an empty envelope sender address "<>".

Currently mlmmj discards all emails with an empty envelope sender
address and this is not configurable (see mlmmj-process.c, line ~704)

I've found a good description why an empty envelope is a valid thing 
according to RFC 821, page 15:
http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/nullenvelope.txt

Should we make this configurable or disable the code altogether?
If we make it configurable: Should we invert the default value?

Best regards,
Thomas

Re: [mlmmj] Allowing empty enevelope senders

[A. Schulze]

Thomas Jarosch:

> we have one mlmmj list that gets back email bounces
> from a newsletter. Such bounce emails are usually sent
> using an empty envelope sender address "<>".
that may happen

> Currently mlmmj discards all emails with an empty envelope sender
> address and this is not configurable (see mlmmj-process.c, line ~704)
show logs of your evidence please

> I've found a good description why an empty envelope is a valid thing
> according to RFC 821, page 15:
> http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/nullenvelope.txt
RFC821 is 32 years old and updated many times. In terms of <> it's  
still not wrong
but be careful with your references.

> Should we make this configurable or disable the code altogether?
> If we make it configurable: Should we invert the default value?
first make sure you solve the right problem

Andreas

Re: [mlmmj] Allowing empty enevelope senders

[Ben Schmidt]

On 8/07/14 6:59 PM, Thomas Jarosch wrote:
> I've found a good description why an empty envelope is a valid thing
> according to RFC 821, page 15:
> http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/nullenvelope.txt

That link correctly identifies empty envelope senders as used for bounce
messages.

Furthermore, as you've identified, the mails are being discarded by
Mlmmj, not the mail server. The mail server accepts them, meeting the
requirements of the RFC and the document above. Mlmmj discards them,
because they should not be delivered to the mailing list.

If they are getting to that point in Mlmmj, it probably means VERP is
not working/misconfigured, because bounce messages should come back to
listname+bounces and get handled by mlmmj-bounce so bouncing users are
automatically unsubscribed (which helps prevent your mail server getting
blacklisted, among other things).

Ben.

Re: Re: [mlmmj] Allowing empty enevelope senders

[Thomas Jarosch]

Hi Ben,

On Thursday, 10. July 2014 17:54:01 Ben Schmidt wrote:
> On 8/07/14 6:59 PM, Thomas Jarosch wrote:
> > I've found a good description why an empty envelope is a valid thing
> > according to RFC 821, page 15:
> > http://marc.merlins.org/netrants/nullenvelope.txt
> 
> That link correctly identifies empty envelope senders as used for bounce
> messages.
> 
> Furthermore, as you've identified, the mails are being discarded by
> Mlmmj, not the mail server. The mail server accepts them, meeting the
> requirements of the RFC and the document above. Mlmmj discards them,
> because they should not be delivered to the mailing list.
> 
> If they are getting to that point in Mlmmj, it probably means VERP is
> not working/misconfigured, because bounce messages should come back to
> listname+bounces and get handled by mlmmj-bounce so bouncing users are
> automatically unsubscribed (which helps prevent your mail server getting
> blacklisted, among other things).

the problem here is a bit more complex: The mlmmj managed mailinglist
gets the replies from a separate newsletter that is not managed by mlmmj.
So the return path of that newsletter is set to an address
that is managed by mlmmj :)

Would you be ok with if I develop a patch to make
the "discard of empty envelope address" configurable?
Default is to keep the current behavior.

Thomas

Re: [mlmmj] Allowing empty enevelope senders

[Ben Schmidt]

> the problem here is a bit more complex: The mlmmj managed mailinglist
> gets the replies from a separate newsletter that is not managed by mlmmj.
> So the return path of that newsletter is set to an address
> that is managed by mlmmj :)
>
> Would you be ok with if I develop a patch to make
> the "discard of empty envelope address" configurable?
> Default is to keep the current behavior.

I'm not convinced yet. Why would you want these bounce messages
delivered to the mailing list? It seems to me that such a feature is
just asking for trouble on the whole.

Ben.

Re: Re: [mlmmj] Allowing empty enevelope senders

[Thomas Jarosch]

On Friday, 11. July 2014 06:55:39 Ben Schmidt wrote:
> > the problem here is a bit more complex: The mlmmj managed mailinglist
> > gets the replies from a separate newsletter that is not managed by
> > mlmmj.
> > So the return path of that newsletter is set to an address
> > that is managed by mlmmj :)
> > 
> > Would you be ok with if I develop a patch to make
> > the "discard of empty envelope address" configurable?
> > Default is to keep the current behavior.
> 
> I'm not convinced yet. Why would you want these bounce messages
> delivered to the mailing list? It seems to me that such a feature is
> just asking for trouble on the whole.

the list is read by a bunch of poor human souls that have to unsubscribe
the bounced recipients manually from the newsletter system.

But as this is asking probably for more trouble, we've now
moved the recipients of the mlmmj list to a pure postfix based "list".
That seems to do the job.

Thanks for your time.

Cheers,
Thomas

Re: [mlmmj] Allowing empty enevelope senders

[Ben Schmidt]

On 11/07/14 5:40 PM, Thomas Jarosch wrote:
> On Friday, 11. July 2014 06:55:39 Ben Schmidt wrote:
>>> the problem here is a bit more complex: The mlmmj managed mailinglist
>>> gets the replies from a separate newsletter that is not managed by
>>> mlmmj.
>>> So the return path of that newsletter is set to an address
>>> that is managed by mlmmj :)
>>>
>>> Would you be ok with if I develop a patch to make
>>> the "discard of empty envelope address" configurable?
>>> Default is to keep the current behavior.
>>
>> I'm not convinced yet. Why would you want these bounce messages
>> delivered to the mailing list? It seems to me that such a feature is
>> just asking for trouble on the whole.
>
> the list is read by a bunch of poor human souls that have to unsubscribe
> the bounced recipients manually from the newsletter system.
>
> But as this is asking probably for more trouble, we've now
> moved the recipients of the mlmmj list to a pure postfix based "list".
> That seems to do the job.

That seems like the right solution to me. It seems unlikely to me you
need a full-featured MLM in this scenario, as you shouldn't need
automatic bounce handling, subscription management, archives, etc. for
your 'bunch of poor human souls'.

Cheers,

Ben.