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Postfix Archives: Re: Newbie question: .forward, luser_relay an

Re: Newbie question: .forward, luser_relay and postmaster

Jim Seymour (jseymourjimsun.LinxNet.com)
Sun, 28 Nov 1999 11:52:11 -0500 (EST)

In message <19991128161418.A21436spin.it>,
dated Sun, 28 Nov 1999 16:14:18 +0100,
furio ercolessi <furiospin.it> wrote regarding the subject
"Newbie question: .forward, luser_relay and postmaster":
>
> On Sun, Nov 28, 1999 at 09:20:06AM -0500, Jim Seymour wrote:
[Does Postfix insist on a "postmaster" alias?]
> >
> > I read it as unconditional: "[The postmaster] alias is required..." Tho
> > I suppose it's open to interpretation as to *why* it's required to
> > exist--so that "people can report" or because Postfix *insists* on it.
>
> RFC822 insists on it:
>
> 6.3. RESERVED ADDRESS
>
[snip]
>
> This standard specifies a single, reserved mailbox address
> (local-part) which is to be valid at each site. Mail sent to
> that address is to be routed to a person responsible for the
> site's mail system or to a person with responsibility for general
> site operation. The name of the reserved local-part address is:
>
> Postmaster
>
> so that "> so that "Postmasterdomain" is required to be valid.

Yes. But that is not the question pending. The RFC says nothing about
*how* the requirement be satisfied--only that it *be* satisfied.

The question at hand is whether Postfix itself *requires* that a
"postmaster" alias be present in one-or-another aliases file. It looks
like the answer is "yes." I did a bit of grepping-about and found
this:

    .../local/alias.c:

        /* deliver_alias() has wired-in knowledge about a few reserved
        /* recipient names.
        /*
        /* When no alias is found for the local postmaster or
        /* mailer-daemon a warning is issued and the message
        /* is discarded.

(Pulled that out of the 19991126 tarball.) So it would appear that
Postfix also *requires* the existence of a "mailer-daemon" alias as
well.

One might reasonably assume that $luser_relay is not consulted until
after all alias expansions. (Seems logical to me, anyway.) Thus,
Postfix is seeing the lack of a postmaster alias before it knows that
the issue has been provided-for. Providing my analysis is correct: I
don't see a problem with this behaviour. The name "luser_relay"
implies "what to do when somebody emails to a non-existent user." But
by the RFC, "postmaster" is never supposed to be non-existent. Wietse
has seen fit to include "mailer-daemon" in this special category of
"users." This also makes sense to me.

Regards,
Jim 

-- 
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