Hi Everyone,
It has been pointed out to me by Mike Frey at JEOL and more recently by
Clemens Anklin at Bruker that because of the mail header format messages
coming from the AMMRL server through the list are being blocked. The
problem, as pointed out to me by Mike, Clemens and David Owen at Bruker
is the forwarded messages have two different "From:" lines in the header
that most mail transport software will interpret as spam. Looking at the
error messages on the server revealed that this has become a wide spread
problem for a lot of list members.
David did some investigating for me and determined that the host system,
webserver2.chem.hawaii.edu, does not have a SPF record so eliminating
one of the "From:" lines will hopefully solve the problem.
Our forwarding system is from the stone ages of email and the internet
and has worked but now needs to be changed. I have changed the
forwarding script to replace the "From:" in the original message with
"Reply-To:". This change results in the message's origin clearly
identified as the U of Hawaii server but allows the sender to be
contacted with suggestions and replies.
What does this mean to the AMMRL group and the use of the list for
posting questions and information?
* As a user you will continue to send your message to ammrl_at_ammrl.org
as in the past. To help me sort out real messages from the spam that
account receives every day _*I would really appreciate it if the
subject was preceded by "AMMRL:"*_ (without the quotes). You don't
know how helpful this is in identifying real messages from within
the sea of spam.
* The message will be manually processed but now the header will look
like this:
> Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2021 15:09:07 -1000
> To:ammrl_at_ammrl.org
> Subject: Test #2
> User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.4 7/29/08
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> Message-Id:<20210721010907.2D3C8278A0_at_webserver2.chem.hawaii.edu>
> Reply-To:walt_at_webserver2.chem.hawaii.edu (Walt Niemczura)
> From:ammrlrev_at_webserver2.chem.hawaii.edu (AMMRL List)
* Note that the sender is now identified as "AMMRL List". Replies to
this message will go to the sender (AMMRL List) and the originator
(in this case me). I will NOT be forwarding any of these replies
(like "Subject: Re: Test #2") to the list. The originator is still
expected to summarize the responses and forward those back to the
list for everyone's benefit.
* Make sure that you provide enough information within your email so
that you can be identified by list members. Almost everyone does but
I just thought I'd make this a point.
* If you have added any filters to your mail client that extracts out
AMMRL messages you might need to modify them.
* Generating the archives is a slightly tricky matter but I have a
fix. This is done with a PERL script also from the stone ages and I
dare not edit too much of the hieroglyphics that is PERL. At some
point I will replace this with a Python version that will be easier
to maintain. . However, messages with the old format won't process
correctly and new messages with the old script are fairly useless.
Therefore I plan to finish up July, 2021 and implement the change
starting August 1st.
* Right now I can't tell but one question will be the search function
on archived messages. I can't see how this change will make a
difference but I will test that once we get going next month.
One change is that you will now probably start seeing your message
returned to your inbox. My clients discard messages from me to me but
now the messages will be from a different source. This is good in that
you will have confirmation that your message was posted.
Just a reminder. The list is NOT automated. Each and every message sent
out is reviewed for relevance and to remove spam. I am the human who
does this every morning at 0700 HST (1700 UTC) when I'm at home.
Otherwise it gets done from where I am in the world at about the same
time. If you send a message do not expect to see it immediately.
To summarize:
Messages starting August 1st will come from AMMRL List.
Sending messages remains the same.
Archives should be the same and searchable.
Once the change has occurred please let me know if you experience any
problems and/or notice anything funny. Be very detailed in this. I can't
do much with "It doesn't work" (a phrase we all hear so many times). If
you stop getting messages we'll need to investigate.
I hope this doesn't cause too much trouble. However, several dozen
members are not getting postings and we need to see if we can fix that.
Walt
Received on Tue Jul 27 2021 - 17:10:49 MST