[43651] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Postmaster 'best practices' query
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Mon Oct 22 10:57:18 2001
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>
To: wb8foz@nrk.com
Cc: nanog@merit.edu (nanog list)
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Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 10:53:50 -0400
Message-Id: <20011022145350.3D64E7B55@berkshire.research.att.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
In message <200110221433.KAA27123@sigma.nrk.com>, David Lesher writes:
>
>A query to help educate me. Feel free to flame away;
>the week is young.
>
>Every site should accept/respond to "postmaster" -- T/F?
>
>Or is it "Every site running mail"....
>Or every box running mail?
>
>IOW: Which of the following are required vice recommended vice
>best practives, etc.
>
>a) postmaster@example.com
>b) postmaster@mail.example.com
>c) postmaster@wizzbang.example.com
>d) postmaster@pop.example.com
>e) postmaster@cisco.example.com
>
>and most important to me: where to I go to justify the
>decisions on same?
RFC 2142 standardize the name 'postmaster' (which is originally from
RFC 822). 2142 says
For well known names that are not related to specific protocols, only
the organization's top level domain name are required to be valid.
For example, if an Internet service provider's domain name is
COMPANY.COM, then the <ABUSE@COMPANY.COM> address must be valid and
supported, even though the customers whose activity generates
complaints use hosts with more specific domain names like
SHELL1.COMPANY.COM. Note, however, that it is valid and encouraged
to support mailbox names for sub-domains, as appropriate.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
Full text of "Firewalls" book now at http://www.wilyhacker.com
