Re: After list change

["Peter C. Norton" <spacey@inch.com>]

[This is going to bore those of you that don't do much/any sysadmin or
mail server adming work]

It's called a VERP - a Variable Envelope Return Path.  It encapsulates
the information needed by a list manager to know what the source of a
bounced message is, what message from what list it relates to (specificly
important is the distinction re: what email address the message was sent
to, as opposed to what email address bounced it - i.e. if it's been
forwarded from the envelope from should remain constant between mail
servers).

The advantages are too numerous to list.  See 
http://www.pobox.com/~djb/proto/verp.txt for some background.  This is
supported by qmail, and I believe that postfix will be incorperating
support into the sending pipeline at some point.  Postfix should already
support it on the receiving end.

Answers to questions follow:

On Wed, Jun 30, 1999 at 09:57:41PM +0200, Roland Orre wrote:
> Does your guile mail header look as funny as mine after the list change?
> 
> I'm especially concerned about the first line which usually contains
> the senders address (if it isn't spam of course), even though the address
> can be anything.

If you sent email to that address, you'd find that it is deliverable, and
does receive email.  
 
> Is it some useful information in this line? 
> "guile-return-22-orre=nada.kth.se@sourceware.cygnus.com"
> Is the number 22 (first on new list was 2) referring to me specifically
> or the whole list?

The number 22 refers to the message number in the list archives, if it's
archived, which is the default.  If a few messages to you bounced, then
the list management software would send a probe to your email address
telling you which messages you missed, and then there are other commands
that you can use to have those messages re-sent to you.

Of course, if that bounced you'd be unsubscribed.
 
> 	Best regards
> 	Roland
> 
> > From guile-return-22-orre=nada.kth.se@sourceware.cygnus.com Wed Jun 30 21:25:33 
> > 1999
> > Mailing-List: contact guile-help@sourceware.cygnus.com; run by ezmlm
> > Delivered-To: mailing list guile@sourceware.cygnus.com
> > Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 21:20:53 +0200
> > From: Branko Cibej <branko.cibej@hermes.si>
> > X-Accept-Language: sl,en-GB,en
> > MIME-Version: 1.0
> > CC: guile@sourceware.cygnus.com
> > Subject: Re: Change in the guile mailing list setup
> > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

-- 
Peter C. Norton                      Time comes into it. / Say it.  Say it.
spacey@pobox.com                   | The Universe is made of stories,  
http://spacey.static.inch.com      | not of atoms. 
                                   |
                                     Muriel Rukeyser "The Speed of Darkness"