Barry Finkel wrote:

...

...

There was a posting to a number of lists here yesterday

 To: comp_info+cats+noc@example.com

all of the lists are linked; some of the lists are subscribed to others. I took that address and added it to

 acceptable_aliases

And Mark Sapiro replied:

...

What did you add to acceptable_aliases? And for which list(s)?

A post addressed to comp_info+cats+noc@example.com will presumably be delivered to the comp_info list. In order for it not to be held by that list, you need either

comp_info+cats+noc@example.com

or a regexp like

^comp_info(\+[^@]*)?@example.com

in the acceptable_aliases of the comp_info list. Then if other lists are members of the comp_info list, you need the same thing in acceptabale_aliases of those other lists to prevent the post from being held there.

and I replied:

For each of the five lists for which there was a posting held for moderation I entered

comp_info+cats+noc@example.com

in the acceptable_aliases box on the admin web page via cut-and-paste.

The mailling list that, I assume, is part of the distribution list for this comp_info_cats+noc list is

out@example.com

That address is an accceptable_alias for the Mailman list

out@lists.example.com

and to that list is subscribed

itad@example.com
opstr@lists.example.com

In addition

itad@example.com

is an accceptable_alias for the Mailman list

itad@lists.example.com

and to that itad list is subscribed three other Mailman lists:

ad@lists.anl.gov
cs@lists.anl.gov
us@lists.anl.gov

For each of these six lists (out, itad, opstr, ad, cs, us) I had added

comp_info+cats+noc@example.com

to accceptable_aliases.

The only thing "strange" about the string I added to acceptable_aliases is the two "+" characters. I did not know if the plus characters were causing problems.

I ran another test:

1. I set up an e-mail alias

    a+b@anl.gov

   that points to an existing test list on my test Mailman 2.1.9 system.

2. Via that test list admin web page, I added

    a+b@anl.gov

   to the acceptable_aliases list. This address is the only entry in the list.

3. I sent test mail to

    a+b@anl.gov

   and the mail was sent to the moderator (i.e., me) due to "implicit destination"

I have not looked at the code, and I am not an expert in regular expressions. I surmise that Mailman is treating the address as a regular expression, which matches

 ab@anl.gov
 aab@anl.gov
 aaab@anl.gov
 aaaab@anl.gov
 ...

but does not match

 a+b@anl.gov

I then changed the acceptable_aliases to

 a\+b@anl.gov

and test mail was distributed.

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@anl.gov Argonne, IL 60439-4828 IBMMAIL: I1004994