[Mailman-Users] Wishlist and maybe problem solution

Richard Barrett r.barrett at openinfo.co.uk
Wed Jun 4 12:57:36 CEST 2003


At 08:58 04/06/2003, Richard Barrett wrote:
>At 08:17 04/06/2003, Gerfried Fuchs wrote:
>>On Tue, Jun 03, 2003 at 05:05:44PM +0100, Richard Barrett wrote:
>> > At 16:25 03/06/2003, Gerfried Fuchs wrote:
>> > >|From: [listname-bounce at hostname.domain] on behalf of 
>> [real.sender at domain]
>> >
>> > I think you will also find some versions of MS Outlook display this
>> > conflation of several headers in the "From" field of their GUI (see
>> > http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw-mm.py?req=show&file=faq02.003.htp).
>>
>>  Yes, that's exactly what it's about, right.
>>
>> > The purpose of this behaviour is presumably to alert the end user to
>> > the possibility of something "nefarious" because of the (entirely
>> > valid) discrepancy between different headers on a message.
>>
>>  Between the envelope-from (Sender-Header) and the From: header.
>>
>> > This behaviour cannot be controlled by Mailman because it is the
>> > programmed into the MUA's GUI code.
>>
>>  Of course it can, because the Sender-Header must not be the -bounces
>>address like I said, it can be the usual mailing-list address instead.
>>The »Return-Path« header is the only one that must be set to the
>>-bounces address, to not loose the bounce-handling of mailman.
>>
>>  Thanks for your input, though. I guess I'll have to dig myself.
>>Alfie
>
>If you want to try making your suggested change then (for MM 2.1.2) look 
>to line 342 of Mailman/Handlers/SMTPDirect.py in function bulkdeliver() 
>and change:
>
>     msg['Sender'] = envsender
>
>to read:
>
>     msg['Sender'] = mlist.GetListEmail()
>
>Do not forget that indentation is syntactically significant in Python!
>
>This change should lead to the SMTP envelope having the bounce alias on it 
>while the Sender is just the list alias. Do not blame me if inappropriate 
>stuff starts getting posted to the list because of the change and do let 
>us know how you get on with the change.

A general enquiry to Mailman experts.

I've tried the patch I suggested above on my test system and it doesn't 
appear to break anything.

MTA's such as Outlook show "From: [listname at hostname.domain] on behalf of 
[real.sender at poster.domain]" which removes the objected to -bounces suffix 
in the displayed "From" field.

Bounce processing works OK

What are the objections to this revision of the Sender header? Is it just 
the risk of a geriatric MTA returning mail to the Sender address, and hence 
sending to the list with unpleasant consequences, when it should be 
returning to the SMTP envelope sender?

Thought or comments please


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Richard Barrett                                      http://www.openinfo.co.uk





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