[43663] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Postmaster 'best practices' query
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brett Frankenberger)
Mon Oct 22 13:56:35 2001
Message-Id: <200110221702.MAA03817@rbfux.rbfnet.com>
To: wb8foz@nrk.com
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 12:02:09 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Brett Frankenberger" <rbf@rbfnet.com>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu (nanog list)
In-Reply-To: <200110221433.KAA27123@sigma.nrk.com> from "David Lesher" at Oct 22, 2001 10:33:56 AM
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> 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?
2821 (section 4.5.1) says that "postmaster" (with no domain" must be
accepted as:
(a) a local name (with no domain specified, as in: RCPT TO:<Postmaster>"
(b) A mailbox at every domain for which the mail server accepts mail.
That means that the answer to your five questions are are:
a) postmaster@example.com is required if any mail addressed to
@example.com is accepted.
b) postmaster@mail.exam is required if any mail addressed to
@mail.example.com is accepted.
c), d), e) follow the example above.
Had you also included:
f) postmaster
The answer would be "yes, that is required".
RFC2821 would be a good place to go to justify decisions on same.
(Well, to justify a decision to implement
postmaster@any.domain.for.which.mail.is.accepted, and to implement
"postmaster". It wouldn't really help you justify a decision to not
implement that. OTOH, if someone is arguing that the the mere
existance of xyz.com implies that postmaster@xyz.com must exist, then I
would note that neither RFC2821 nor any other RFC of which I am aware
imposes such a requirement. As long as @xyz.com isn't being used for
any mail, there is no requirement for postmaster@xyz.com to exist.)
-- Brett
