At 00:33 07-12-98 -0600, Matthew G. Saroff wrote:
It only works with unix mail systems. If pobox isn't running unix, then
plus addressing won't work.
You should probably qualify this by noting the version of the unix mail
agent(s) in question. For instance, sendmail supports plussed addressing
-- with 8.7.x and later, and if the v8 config file is actually being used
(versus the appropriate version of sendmail being used with and older
config file).
Specific plussed addresses can be placed in the aliases file (by an admin),
which then take precedence over the non-plussed default (although the
action for a plussed address which does not have an explicit alias is to
deliver it to the nonplussed root form).
If you telnet to port 25 of mx1.pobox.com, you're greeted with the following:
220 growl.pobox.com ESMTP pobox-VMailer
They don't support VRFY (repond with "252 Send mail to find out"), so you
can't easily check what addresses are parsed as valid without involving
sending a live message.
Chances are, they're running the NT version of VMailer. You'll have little
luck with a rich mail feature set there.
Pobox is a mail mirror. PCA.net is my isp, which runs Linux, but
still seems not to work. I get a "user not found".
I think the more appropriate term here is mail forwarder. Mirror would
imply that they fetch a copy of mail from your other address, and "mirror"
access to it.
Have you tried addressing plussed mail directly to your pca.net address?
This should have ZERO effect on whether pobox will support them, but would
be good to know anyway.
With pobox.com you could _probably_ subscribe a second account with them
(dunno their fees or policies, as I don't use their services), and set that
up as "msaroff+procmail(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com" or whatever, and they very well
may
accept the second account, performing a separate mail forwarding on it.
Certainly not as easy as doing a simple on-demand plussing of an address,
but if they don't charge you for the additional address, it may be workable.
A letter to the administrators of pobox.com (or the authors of VMailer)
requesting plussed features might not pan out, but would probably be a
worthwhile endeavor, considering the relatively minour investment of time
on your part to make the request.
As for checking for plussed addresses in procmail scripts (once you ARE
receiving the messages), just escape the plus:
msaroff\+procmail(_at_)pobox\(_dot_)com
---
Please DO NOT carbon me on list replies. I'll get my copy from the list.
Sean B. Straw / Professional Software Engineering
Post Box 2395 / San Rafael, CA 94912-2395