Re: Mail reflector

Peter Benie (peterb@chiark.greenend.org.uk)
Wed, 5 Mar 97 12:04 GMT


Richard Gooch writes ("Re: Mail reflector"):
> Werner Fink writes:
> >
> > Some one reflects mails of <linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu>.
> > ... could one break this mail loop?
>
> I've lost count of the number of problems that have occurred because
> of mail<->news gateways. Is this latest reguritation of week-old
> messages because of another misconfigured gateway?
> Another irritation is the spam we are getting.
> This is getting really annoying. So much so that I'm prompted into
> making the following (harsh) suggestions:
>
> Drop messages sent to the list if they are not from subscribers on the
> list.

That stops rather too many gateways. The problems you describe are due
specifically to mail<->news (ie. bidirectional) gateways. I'm using a
mail->news (unidirectional) gateway so my address won't match any
subscriber's address. I'm not causing your problems however (since the
software isn't there that could cause a mail loop) so why should I be
banned from the list? Besides, if you try and enforce a rule like the
one that you suggest, the chances are that start getting gateways that
rewrite From lines to be the subscriber's address. This is a recipe
for disaster.

> I know that some people are attached to reading through news, but
> surely it can't be that hard to get it via email?

It may be against a site's local policy to allow people to subscribe
to mailing lists. (I'm, thinking particularly of Universities that
don't want to donate the disk space for 1000 subscribers to high
volume lists.)

Peter