Marc, This looping problem was solved pretty recently (so you might want to try the code from CVS). James as a mail server (as opposed to a mail client) should have been bouncing messages to the address in the Return-Path, not the Reply-To. The second problem was GenericListserv was setting the listserv address as the return-path. So then delivery message errors were getting sent back to the listserv, and boom, what you describe. It's possible you've described an alternate way this is happening, but I believe it is the same thing.
Moreover, I (or someone) needs to make the listserv able to support VEP, which means the return path email address would include details about who the message is intended for. Then if there is a bounce, the listserv can determine who couldn't receive the message based on the address that received the bounce. The listserv software the Jakarta site uses (including this listserv) uses this concept, and you can look at the source of this message to see what the return-path address looks like. For example, [EMAIL PROTECTED] might send it a message to me with a return path of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Then if the jakarta.apache.org gets a bounce message for this address (because the message to me got bounced), then it can back that out from the email address. -- Serge Knystautas Loki Technologies - Unstoppable Websites http://www.lokitech.com/ Marc Chamberlin wrote: > Serge - Thanks for your previous reply and I can accept it... ;-) Now though I have >another scenario for you and the group, and I > am again not sure I have solved it correctly. Being the guy in charge of our James >email server, I initially thought I should make > the Postmaster's address be my own email address, so I would be made aware of any >problems that were occurring, and give users a > live email address to contact if they got an error from James. This has turned out >to be not such a good idea, (I think) because I > also have added my email address to a number of the mail lists that we are >supporting. The trouble arises when an invalid email > address gets added to the mail list also, either by some spammer/bot, by a user >terminating their email address and not removing it > from the list, or by yours truly when I inadvertently make a typo when entering the >email address directly into our MySQL database. > (oops ;-) ) The net result is that James gets into a battle with itself, when >someone attempts to send a mail to the mail list. > This is because it results in a bounce from the invalid address, James picks it up >and notifies the sender, which in this case is > the mail list, which in turns sends the bounce message back out to all the users of >the list, and we go into an infinite cycle... > Eventually James will crash... > > I am not totally sure as to why this notification is occurring because I have left >the sections in config.xml commented out to > notify the sender that there was an error or that their message was dropped into >the bit bucket as spam... > > Anywise, the solution I have come up with is to not use my own email address for the >Postmaster, but to use a separate email > address - [EMAIL PROTECTED] and to add the "Postmaster" as a valid user of my >email server... This way I can also pick up > messages to the postmaster via my client email reader. Since the Postmaster address >will never be added to any of the mail lists, > then when the James server attempts to send a message to a mail list, from the >Postmaster telling it that one of the emails that it > sent bounced, the mail list rejects the email since it only accepts mail from >members of the list that it is managing... > > If you have followed all that, (it is a bit convoluted!) then my question is, is >this the right approach? It seems to me that this > solution will work only so long as the mail list is closed and only members of the >list can send an email through it... For an open > email list which accepts messages from anyone, this will not work and if an invalid >email address gets entered into the lists member > set, then James will crash. So my suspicions is that there must be another correct >way to prevent James from getting into an > infinite cycle this way.... Would you be so kind again as to enlighten me? ;-) I am >probably missing something obvious.... > > Marc.... > > FYI - I am using the supplied AvalonListServ and AvalonListServManager classes to >handle my mailing lists. The parameters for > membersonly and replytolist are set to true. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
