John Jackson wrote:

I have: (2) domain names for the same host, of the form:

namexxx.department.domain.tld (has an A and MX record) nameyyy.department.domain.tld (has a CNAME and MX record)

First off, you can't mix CNAMEs and MX records. That is prohibited by the RFCs, and most nameservers will refuse to load the entire zone if there is a single error like this.

Moreover, with regards to mail, things don't work as you would expect with CNAMEs. Host names get re-written and all.

With regards to mail, you really, really need to stick to just pure A and MX records. You can have some TXT or other info records, but for the basic types of records, stick to just A and MX.

What I originally hoped for was to host some Mailman lists on my server and still have a handful of user accounts on the server be able to receive email directly. Both the lists and the local users would have the same email address after the @, like so:

 listone@namexxx.department.domain.tld
 listtwo@namexxx.department.domain.tld

 userone@namexxx.department.domain.tld
 usertwo@namexxx.department.domain.tld

You can do that, but I don't think you can do it with postfix-to-mailman-2.1.py. Take a look at the installation instructions at <http://www.list.org/mailman-install/>, especially the postfix-specific stuff at <http://www.list.org/mailman-install/node12.html>.

My 'pain' is coming from frustration and confusion trying to learn Postfix and Mailman well enough to figure out whether I can do any of this or not.

Both Mailman and postfix have online documentation (see <http://www.list.org/docs.html/> and <http://www.postfix.org/documentation.html>, respectively), as well as FAQs (see <http://wiki.list.org/display/DOC/Frequently+Asked+Questions> and <http://www.postfix.org/docs.html>, respectively).

We also have an overall wiki page at <http://wiki.list.org/>, and a documents section underneath that (see <http://wiki.list.org/display/DOC/Home>).

Both groups also have mailing lists to support their software (see <http://www.list.org/lists.html> and <http://www.postfix.org/lists.html>, respectively). You can find out how to search our archives via the instructions in FAQ 1.18 at <http://wiki.list.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4030520>, and there are links to the searchable archives of the postfix-* mailing lists at that same URL listed above.

I've been mucking around in the configs of both and trying to follow examples and suggestions in the documentation and from information found by sifting through them Internets with Google ;)

These are the primary places to search, and we try to provide good links to other documents that we find online that have helpful information.

However, when you're dealing with two different pieces of software and trying to figure out how you can interface them, it can be difficult to get enough documentation in single place. I find that I learn mostly by trial-and-error, with various documents sitting in front of me.

Do any of you have a take on it you would be kind enough to share with me? Thanks very much, for any/all help or advice, comments, etc.

I think the problem is that there is too much documentation, and it's hard to know where to start. I believe the term is "information overload".

Anyway, if you've got any questions that are not answered by the various sources listed above, please feel free to come back and tell us what you've searched for and what you've found so far, and what your problems are. We'll try to provide whatever help we can.

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