[Mailman-Users] password reminders, subscribers with listname at xyz.com?

[John W. Baxter]

On 6/1/06 7:51 AM, "Dewhirst, Rob" <dewey at ku.edu> wrote:

> I have a mailing list set up to send monthly password reminders.
> 
> Today, two of these reminder messages ended up in the Administrative
> requests for the list as being posted to the list from non-members.
> 
> Coincidentally, the subscriber's email addresses are
> nameofproblematiclist at xyz.com.  Their email address usernames are the
> same as the name of the problematic list sending out the password
> reminders, but their complete email address is in another domain.
> 
> I am running Mailman 2.1.8 on RHEL4 with Exim.
> 
> Any ideas? I suppose I could post headers if this is not clear.

Exim is seeing just the local part of the addresses when it processes
aliases.

I don't know how RedHat is packaging Mailman--assuming that's how you
installed Mailman.

I see that our installation would have the same problem, now that I look at
our Exim configuration on the Mailman machine:

mailman_router:
  driver = accept
  require_files = MAILMAN_HOME/lists/$local_part/config.pck
  local_part_suffix_optional
  local_part_suffix = -bounces : -bounces+* : \
                      -confirm+* : -join : -leave : \
                      -owner : -request : -admin
  transport = mailman_transport

In other words, if the local part of an address matches a list name, exim
will treat the address as something to send to the list.

Now that you've pointed out the problem, it would appear that the school
solution for Exim configuration for lists is flawed.  (And has worked at
many sites for many years.)

I think there should probably be something like
  domains = +mailman_domains
as a condition in the router.

Where that list would be defined in the early part of the configuration as
something like
  domainlist mailman_domains = mailman.example.com : lists.example.com
as needed (the above would be right for us were we example.com).  An Exim
macro could also be used, as was done with MAILMAN_HOME in the above.

The above is top-of-the-head, and untested.

I wonder whether the published solution ought to be changed.  Note that if
one is doing virtual domains--in the limited way Mailman does it now, it
would be better to fill the mailman_domains list by reading a file, which
could be managed by whatever software establishes lists in domains.

When Mailman begins allowing "real" virtual hosting, the Exim solution will
need to be changed, perhaps using a series of routers imported from a file
managed by the management software (Exim does handle import statements in
its configuration file--a feature which the stock Debian configuration for
Exim exercises heavily).