Re: Advice on mailing list software -- special requirements

[rhkramer@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, October 24, 2018 02:07:46 PM Reco wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 24, 2018 at 01:47:27PM -0400, rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Now that is kind of hard to do.  All the mailing list servers that I've
> > > worked with require a rather intimate interconnection with the MTA that
> > > processes mail.
> > 
> > As stated somewhere, we're almost certainly going to accept the offer to
> > host the mail list for us.
> > 
> > But, just for my education / edification, I didn't see mention of an MTA
> > for courier-pop -- have you used it and does it require that same
> > intimate connection to an MTA?
> 
> courier-pop is not a Mail Transfer Agent. It cannot send or receive
> e-mail, it's a POP3 server.
> courier-mta, as all other MTAs, supposedly requires a very specific
> configuration to be suitable for a maillist.
> 
> > And the only dependency listed for quickml is ruby, so I'm guessing that
> > might not require that intimate connection.
> 
> The thing comes with the very primitive MTA indeed.
> I only judge by the quick look at the sources, but this 'QuickML MTA'
> seem to lack even basic sanity checks such as HELO/EHLO parsing, PTR
> checks or RCPT validity check. And it may, or may not be an open relay.
> In short - it gives an impression of a spammer wet dream.
> 
> > (And, talking to myself, I saw several others that mentioned procmail,
> > and I didn't immediately consider that an MTA because I have used it in
> > the past but only for its mail filtering function.  (Or am I thinking of
> > a different package?))
> 
> Likewise, procmail is not an MTA, it's a Mail Delivery Agent - MDA.
> The purpose of a procmail is to classify and deliver e-mail, not to send
> or receive it.

Ahh, a useful clue -- so the mail lists that list procmail as a dependency 
(and no MTA) might meet my desires of being able to run a mail list without 
setting up an MTA on my own machine.

So, I may look a little at those, even though I'm about 95% certain that we're 
going to let someone else host the mail list.