NANOG List Update - Moving Forward

Wed Jul 13 03:46:31 UTC 2011

----- Original Message -----
> 
> On Jul 12, 2011, at 12:23 PM, Brielle Bruns wrote:
> 
> > Looks like parts of the received like are still there, though
> > butchered and mashed in (most likely in a non-RFC compliant
> > manner) with the one added by 'bulk_maler v1.13' (great name for
> > the mailer, btw, sets off my spammy sense something fierce).
> 
> You seem to be new here.
> 
> bulk_mailer was something used back in the day to workaround
> limitations in sendmail for those people operating majordomo (and
> those using smail etc).  it broke the chunks into something that
> sendmail would then allocate multiple processes to.  most other mail
> subsystems can handle the multiple-rcpts in different manners.
> 
> while it may 'feel' spammy to you, it's certainly not.
> 
> a simple google of "majordomo and bulk_mailer" should give you a good
> idea of what's going on.
> 
> there were a lot of other mail systems that served to help integrate
> and interoperate back in the day, including qmailer, smail, etc that
> all attempted to replace sendmail, including providing the uucp
> interaction necessary for those behind dialup.
> 
> either way, please try to keep the feedback off-list for now as we
> undergo this transition.  It's hard to move a large list like this
> without trouble.  I've been party to many such list moves in the
> past and they usually have all sorts of trouble.
> 
> admins at nanog.org is the right place for your feedback right now.
> 
> - Jared
> 

  Feeling a bit of Déjà vu as I deployed bulk_mailer for the NANOG
list back in November of 1996.   It used sendmail+bulk_mailer
for delivery until March of 1999 when we transitioned to Postfix.
It was transitioned again in April 2008 to Exim and Mailman.
Unfortunately, my memory is a bit hazy on whether there were any
specific issues with bulk_mailer that caused the switch to Postfix.
My main concern with the bulk_mailer code is that it hasn't
been touched in over a decade -- ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/moore/bulk_mailer

  I've have some concerns with AMS based on my experience
with the IETF mailing list.  It has had ongoing issues with
out-of-sequence delivery.  Based on the Received headers, it's
seems pretty clear the re-ordering is occurring internal to the
AMS servers.  It appears they may be trying something different
with the NANOG list as the IETF list does not employ bulk_mailer.

 -Larry