On 2/5/2010 12:01 PM, Chris Lewis wrote:
Steve Atkins wrote:
Of those, the only thing that's actually associated with the inbound
mailbox is the incoming mail server.
As you suggest, key it to "feedback(_at_)feedback(_dot_)<incoming server name>".
This covers 3 specific choices, each of which ought to get a bit of discussion.
1. Mailbox name
There is an official list of required/standard email addresses:
<http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2142.txt>
We should make this exercise be an extension to that. Offhand, 'feedback'
strikes me as too generic, for what is actually a pretty specific function.
The existing, relevant reserved mailbox string is 'abuse'. Should this new one
be related to it?
2. Sub-domain
Why have a sub-domain? And to the extent one is needed, why not use the
developing convention of an underscore name, such as _report.<domain>?
The address to be used is really an 'attribute' of the main domain, and the
underscore convention has developed as a way of defining additional attributes
for a domain name. In addition, the naming convention does not run the risk of
colliding with an existing use of sub-domains.
3. Domain.
Clients currently have two domains to draw from, posting domain and pickup
domain. Choosing incoming probably /is/ best, because that's the place that
handed the user the problem message and therefore it's the place that ought to
provide the information about where to report problems.
The charm of using an MX record to configure this is that the MUA can
do an MX lookup to know whether to show or hide the button. That's
pretty clean, and if I were coding an MUA I'd be happy to do it that
way, but it's not necessarily a _trivial_ thing to add to a codebase,
especially via plugin, so it's worth considering.
From the perspective of code base, checking for an A record for
"feedback.<incoming server name>" would be simpler. The MTA doesn't need
to use DNS to deliver, and you really don't want the MUA to be
establishing direct connections anyway. Fixed route to whereever in the
MTA.
Just to check: The choice between using an A or an MX is an optimization,
rather than strategic, yes? That is, either is sufficient to the task, so a
debate is about better?
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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