[Toolserver-l] Changes to mail forwarding

[River Tarnell]

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Hi,

During the next maintenance window (March 7th), we will make some 
changes to how mail forwarding works.  This will not affect most users, 
but you should read this mail anyway, especially if you make use of 
.forward files.  A summary of the changes you might need to make are at 
the end of this mail.

At present, all mail to user at toolserver.org is sent to your LDAP alias; 
if you don't have an address set in LDAP, mail is sent to nightshade and 
processed locally (which might include using .forward files).  Locally 
generated mail, e.g. cron, is handled by .forward; users with email 
addresses set in LDAP have "username at toolserver.org" in $HOME/.forward 
so it's forwarded properly.

After this change, mail to user at toolserver.org and mail to
user at ANYMACHINE.toolserver.org will be handled as follows:

* If $HOME/.forward exists, mail will be delivered to the address in 
  that file;
* If not, mail will be delivered to the user's LDAP email address, if 
  any if set;
* If none is set, mail will be delivered locally on either clematis or 
  hawthorn (*not* nightshade).

In addition, mail to user+foo at toolserver.org and 
user+foo at ANYMACHINE.toolserver.org will be accepted, where "foo" can be 
any string.  This will be handled in the same way, except that 
$HOME/.forward+foo will be checked instead of $HOME/.forward.  This 
allows you to process mail differently depending on the address (see 
below for an example).

In summary, you should make these changes after the maintenance:

* If you do not do anything "special" with your mail, and you have an 
  LDAP mail address set, and your .forward file contains 
  "username at toolserver.org", then you do not need to do anything.  We 
  will delete your .forward file during the maintenance, since it's no 
  longer necessary.  This applies to the vast majority of users.

* If you have an LDAP email address set, and your .forward file contains 
  a different address, you should delete your .forward file after the 
  maintenance.  We will not do this for you.

* If you do not have an LDAP email address set, and you have a .forward 
  file containing an email address, you do not have to do anything.  
  However, you *should* run 'setmail' to set an LDAP email address, then
  delete your .forward file.

* If you do not have an LDAP email address set, and you do not have a 
  .forward file, then currently your mail will be delivered locally on 
  nightshade.  After the maintenance, your mail will be delivered 
  locally on either hawthorn or clematis.  We do not support this 
  configuration, and you should set an email address in LDAP so your mail 
  is forwarded.  However, if you insist on having mail delivered locally,
  you can continue to do so.

* If you currently rely on accepting mail to 
  user+foo at machine.toolserver.org and use .forward+foo to funnel this 
  mail to a program, then you do not have to do anything.  However, you 
  *should* instead send mail to user+foo at toolserver.org, which does not 
  rely on a particular machine being up.  Note that if you do this, the 
  incoming mail will be processed on either clematis or hawthorn.

The explanation of these changes is more complicated than the actual 
changes.  The result should be that mail processing is much simpler and 
more obvious to users.

	- river.
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