a policy question about setting up mailman
as a followup to a previous post of mine asking about setting a host name when configuring mailman, i have a question not about actual setup, but about *how* i should set it up.
to review, let's say i work at yoyodyne.com, at which there are lots of internal systems, including one called internal.yoyodyne.com. it's a fairly stable system, so i want to use it to host one or more mailing lists, starting with just internal users but with the option to expand to allow external users access to the same lists.
the first issue: "internal" is not visible to the outside world, certainly not by that name. in any case, for both internal and external users, i don't want *anyone* to have to use or see the name "internal", i want to base all mailman usage on the host name "lists.yoyodyne.com". (at the very least, this gives me the option of moving the lists to another host some day transparently). so "lists" is just going to be a hostname alias for the "internal" system.
the above is easy -- the sys admin at yoyodyne can add the appropriate entry in the DNS tables to route incoming mail addressed to "lists" to the "internal" machine. so far, so good.
but here's the rub. all email addresses of people at yoyodyne are of the form fred@yoyodyne.com -- no specific host name is used as part of the address, all mail just goes to the central mail server and is fetched from there. but what does this do to my mailman configuration?
i can see that, when i'm configuring mailman, i'd set my DEFAULT_URL_HOST to "lists.yoyodyne.com", since that's how i want everyone to see the alleged mail host. but what about DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST?
if i set that to "lists.yoyodyne.com", that sort of violates the longtime usage of not putting a specific hostname on the domain name when mailing to an account at yoyodyne (as in, mailman@lists.yoyodyne.com).
but if i leave the hostname off, to get mailman@yoyodyne.com, i run the risk of someone else at yoyodyne saying, "hey, mailing lists! cool! i think i'll set some up as well", and clashing with my already-existing mailman@yoyodyne.com address, even if they use a different URL. sort of, pooched if i do, pooched if i don't.
so what's the general solution? or am i describing a situation that's a bit weird that most people wouldn't run into? a pointer to a URL would be just ducky.
rday
At 12:36 PM -0500 2004/02/27, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
i can see that, when i'm configuring mailman, i'd set my DEFAULT_URL_HOST to "lists.yoyodyne.com", since that's how i want everyone to see the alleged mail host. but what about DEFAULT_EMAIL_HOST?
if i set that to "lists.yoyodyne.com", that sort of violates the longtime usage of not putting a specific hostname on the domain name when mailing to an account at yoyodyne (as in, mailman@lists.yoyodyne.com).
Unless you can control all of the aliases that are created on the
central mail servers, so that mailman@example.com and listname@example.com get mapped to their appropriate mailman@lists.example.com and listname@lists.example.com, then you may have no other choice.
Keep in mind that mailman creates something like a dozen
different aliases for each list, one for each of the various functions (so there is a listname-subscribe@lists.example.com, listname-unsubscribe@lists.exaple.com, etc...).
but if i leave the hostname off, to get mailman@yoyodyne.com, i run the risk of someone else at yoyodyne saying, "hey, mailing lists! cool! i think i'll set some up as well", and clashing with my already-existing mailman@yoyodyne.com address, even if they use a different URL. sort of, pooched if i do, pooched if i don't.
Yup.
so what's the general solution? or am i describing a situation that's a bit weird that most people wouldn't run into? a pointer to a URL would be just ducky.
How much control do you have over those central servers? If you
don't have any control over them, then the only solution will be to use the virtual hostname.
-- Brad Knowles, brad.knowles@skynet.be
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.
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participants (2)
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Brad Knowles
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Robert P. J. Day