Re: RBL report..

[Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au>]

On Sun, Mar 26, 2000 at 08:56:26PM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 26, 2000 at 02:41:09AM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote:
> > The domain's technical contact.
> 
> Ideally, yes. In practice, I'd say that's no more likely to work
> than postmaster@domain. 

a lot less likely. sending to postmaster@domain is the right thing to do
as a postmaster account or alias is required by the relevant RFCs.

"postmaster@domain" is the only address which is *required*. all of
the other common ones (hostmaster, webmaster, abuse, etc) are either
strongly recommended or just common practice/convention.

from section 6.3 of RFC-822:

     6.3.  RESERVED ADDRESS

          It often is necessary to send mail to a site, without  know-
     ing  any  of its valid addresses.  For example, there may be mail
     system dysfunctions, or a user may wish to find  out  a  person's
     correct address, at that site.

          This standard specifies a single, reserved  mailbox  address
     (local-part)  which  is  to  be valid at each site.  Mail sent to
     that address is to be routed to  a  person  responsible  for  the
     site's mail system or to a person with responsibility for general
     site operation.  The name of the reserved local-part address is:

                                Postmaster

     so that "Postmaster@domain" is required to be valid.

     Note:  This reserved local-part must be  matched  without  sensi-
            tivity to alphabetic case, so that "POSTMASTER", "postmas-
            ter", and even "poStmASteR" is to be accepted.


this requirement is also mentioned in at least RFC-1123 ("Requirements
for Internet Hosts -- Application and Support"), RFC-1648 ("Postmaster
Convention for X.400 Operations"), and RFC-2142 ("MAILBOX NAMES FOR
COMMON SERVICES, ROLES AND FUNCTIONS").

craig

--
craig sanders