PMDF System Manager's Guide

This section lists options affecting notification messages and the PMDF periodic return job. See also the BOUNCE_BLOCK_LIMIT and CONTENT_RETURN_BLOCK_LIMIT options, discussed in Section 7.3.5.

ACCESS_ERRORS (integer 0 or 1)

PMDF provides facilities to restrict access to channels on the basis of the NETMBX privilege or rightslist identifiers on OpenVMS, or on the basis of group ids on UNIX. If ACCESS_ERRORS is set to 0 (the default), when an address causes an access failure PMDF will report it as an "illegal host or domain" error. This is the same error that would occur if the address was simply illegal. Although confusing, this usage nevertheless provides an important element of security in circumstances where information about restricted channels should not be revealed. Setting ACCESS_ERRORS to 1 will override this default and provide a more descriptive error.

DISABLE_DELIVERY_RECEIPT (integer 0 or 1)

Setting DISABLE_DELIVERY_RECEIPT to 1 disables the generation of all successful delivery receipts. The default is 0.

HISTORY_TO_RETURN (1-200)

The HISTORY_TO_RETURN option controls how many delivery attempt history records are included in returned messages. The delivery history provides some indication of how many delivery attempts were made and in some cases indicates the reason the delivery attempts failed. The default value for this option is 20.

LINES_TO_RETURN (integer)

The LINES_TO_RETURN option controls how many lines of message content PMDF includes when generating a notification message for which it is appropriate to return only a sample of the contents. The default is 20. If the value 0 is specified, only headers are included.

Note that this option is irrelevant when generating a NOTARY bounce message, where either the full content or merely headers are included, according to the choice specified during the initial submission of the message. So in practice, this option is mostly only relevant to the warning messages the PMDF return job sends about messages awaiting further delivery retries in the PMDF queue area.

RETURN_ADDRESS (string)

The RETURN_ADDRESS option sets the return address for the local Postmaster. The local Postmaster's address is postmaster@localhost by default, but it can be overriden with the address of your choice. Care should be taken in the selection of this address --- an illegal selection can cause rapid message looping and pile-ups of huge numbers of spurious error messages.

RETURN_DELIVERY_HISTORY (0 or 1)

This flag controls whether or not a history of delivery attempts is included in returned messages. The delivery history provides some indication of how many delivery attempts were made and in some cases indicates the reason the delivery attempts failed. A value of 1 enables the inclusion of this information and is the default. A value of 0 disables return of delivery history information. The HISTORY_TO_RETURN option controls how much history information is actually returned.

RETURN_DELTA (+01:00:00 or +00:30:00; OpenVMS only)

On OpenVMS systems, the RETURN_DELTA option controls when the message return system runs. When RETURN_UNITS is set to 0, RETURN_DELTA should be set to the time after midnight when the daily job should start. The default is 30 minutes after midnight. When RETURN_UNITS is set to 1, RETURN_DELTA should be set to the interval between runs. In this case the default is one hour. In either case the value is given as a standard VMS delta time.

RETURN_ENVELOPE (integer)

The RETURN_ENVELOPE option takes a single integer value, which is interpreted as a set of bit flags. Bit 0 (value = 1) controls whether or not return notifications generated by PMDF are written with a blank envelope address or with the address of the local postmaster. Setting the bit forces the use of the local postmaster address, clearing the bit forces the use of a blank address. Note that the use of a blank address is mandated by RFC 1123. However, some systems do not handle blank envelope From: addresses properly and can require the use of this option. Bit 1 (value = 2) controls whether or not PMDF replaces all blank envelope addresses with the address of the local postmaster. Again, this is used to accomodate incompliant systems that don't conform to RFC 821, RFC 822, or RFC 1123. Note also that the returnenvelope channel keyword can be used to impose this sort of control on a per-channel basis.

RETURN_PERSONAL (string)

The RETURN_PERSONAL option specifies the personal name to use when PMDF generates postmaster messages, e.g., bounce messages. By default, PMDF uses the string "PMDF e-Mail Interconnect".

RETURN_UNITS (0 or 1)

The time units used by the message return system is controlled with this option; that is, this option controls the interpretation of the values specified for the notices keyword. A value of 0 selects units of days; a value of 1 selects units of hours. By default, units of days are used. On OpenVMS, if hours are selected, 1, then, after the next time the message return job is submitted, the message return job will begin running every hour. On UNIX systems, the scheduling of the execution of the message return job is performed by changing the crontab entry controlling when it runs; see the appropriate edition of the PMDF Installation Guide for information on that crontab entry. If you choose to set RETURN_UNITS=1, see also the discussion in Section 1.4.4.1.

USE_ERRORS_TO (0 or 1)

The USE_ERRORS_TO option controls whether or not PMDF makes use of the information contained in Errors-to: header lines when returning messages. Setting this option to 1 directs PMDF to make use of this header line. A value of 0, the default, disables use of this header line. Note that this default represents a change from the default in previous versions of PMDF.

USE_WARNINGS_TO (0 or 1)

The USE_WARNINGS_TO option controls whether or not PMDF makes use of the information contained in Warnings-to: header lines when returning messages. Setting this option to 1 directs PMDF to make use of these header lines. The default is 0, which disables use of this header line. Note that this default represents a changes from the default in previous versions of PMDF.