[ntp:questions] forwarding

Per Hedeland per at hedeland.org
Mon Mar 21 07:24:30 UTC 2005


In article <mailman.38.1111363593.588.questions at lists.ntp.isc.org> Brad
Knowles <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org> writes:
>At 7:53 PM +0000 2005-03-20, Per Hedeland wrote:
>
>>  OK - but surely you have the cooperation of those that do control the
>>  news server, and they are configuring it specifically for this
>>  gatewaying.
>
>	We do have access to the news server, just like any other news 
>client on the local network.

I would consider this method of access to be quite inappropriate for a
properly working news<->mail gateway. And as a news server admin, I
would resent someone setting up such a gateway to/from my news server
without my consent and cooperation, and probably block their access. On
the other hand, I wouldn't have a problem doing the minimal/standard
config needed on the news server side if asked for it.

>>               A mailing list gateway should be treated as a "feed" on the
>>  news server side, for both directions, because that's what it is - and
>>  such a configuration properly done is also all that is really needed on
>>  the news server side.
>
>	That might be the preferred configuration, but I can assure you 
>that this sort of thing is not going to be universally available, and 
>so Mailman cannot assume that this is the only method that will be 
>used.

But I'm not interested in changing mailman or its assumptions - I'm
interested in getting the particular gateway used for this group working
in a manner that doesn't do damage to the group. You are the one
insisting that the mechanism provided by mailman must be used, despite
its clearly demonstrated deficiencies.

>  Client-side methods have to be assumed first, since they can 
>be pretty much guaranteed to be universally accessible.

Well, see above - I can only speak for myself, but I suspect I'm not
alone in such an attitude - client access is intended for individuals
reading and posting using a newsreader program, not for gatewaying of
potentially unlimited quantities of traffic.

But I'll grant you that *if* the developers of a mailing list package
see the need to incorporate some kind of news gateway, it's reasonable
to make this assumption, because undoubtedly some user will assume that
client access works. So the choice would be between not including this
functionality at all, or including something that is a deficient
compromise. I would probably have made a different choice than the
mailman developers, but of course they're free to make theirs - after
all, no-one is forced to use that particular part of the functionality.

>	If you want to provide code to implement a minimal news server in 
>Python and incorporate all the necessary mail-to-news gateway 
>features, I'm sure that the Mailman developers would be interested in 
>seeing what you've got.  At the very least, it would be an 
>interesting addition to the system.

That would be highly redundant - that news server would still need to
communicate with a "real" one using the transfer/feed interfaces, i.e.
the admin of the "real" one would need to do essentially the same config
as for connecting directly to the mailing list - the net result just
being more complexity and risk of malfunction.

--Per Hedeland
per at hedeland.org



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