PMDF System Manager's Guide

With one exception, the positional parameters in a mailing list specification provide alternate addresses to which certain sorts of list related activity should be directed (e.g., an address to which errors should be sent rather than back to the list itself).

The positional parameters are so named for a reason: their position in the comma separated list distinguishes which parameter is being specified. When more than one parameter (positional or otherwise) is specified, they must be separated by commas. If you want to specify a positional parameter but omit other positional parameters which come first, then specify asterisks, *, for the omitted parameters. For example, in the following

test-list: <pmdf_table:test.dis, *, *, \ postmaster@example.com

the errors-return-address and reply-to-address parameters have been omitted.

See Table 4-1 for a description of controls on the effect of positional parameters, such as specifying whether a header is to be added only if not originally present, or added unconditionally, and whether the header supplements or substitutes for an originally present header.

Without further ado, the positional parameters are:

error-return-address

error-return-address specifies an address to replace the message's regular envelope From: address as well as an address to be inserted into the header as an Errors-to: address. This address is optional; if no error-return-address is specified no replacements or additions will be made. Note that the address can be specified with an asterisk as a subaddress, as follows:

postmaster+*@example.com

With this format, the envelope To: address is encoded as a subaddress (replacing the asterisk) within the newly formed envelope From: address. This means that every address on the mailing list gets a different envelope From: address. For example, let's say that jane@myvax.example.com is on the mailing list. Her envelope From: address would look like:

postmaster+jane+40myvax+2eexample+2ecom@example.com

reply-to-address

The reply-to-address parameter specifies an address to be inserted into the header on a Reply-to: header line.

errors-to-address

The errors-to-address parameter specifies an address to be placed on the Errors-to: header line, if this address should be different from the error-return-address that's used as the envelope From: address.

warnings-to-address

The warnings-to-address parameter specifies an address to be placed on the Warnings-to: header line. This header line is not generated if this address is not specified.

comments

The comments parameter specifies a string to be placed in a Comments: header line. This header line will add to any Comments: header lines already present in the message being posted to the list.