Postmaster 'best practices' query

Mon Oct 22 14:53:50 UTC 2001

In message <200110221433.KAA27123 at sigma.nrk.com>, David Lesher writes:
>
>A query to help educate me. Feel free to flame away;
>the week is young.
>
>Every site should accept/respond to "postmaster" -- T/F?
>
>Or is it "Every site running mail"....
>Or every box running mail?
>
>IOW: Which of the following are required vice recommended vice
>best practives, etc.
>
>a)	postmaster at example.com
>b)	postmaster at mail.example.com
>c)	postmaster at wizzbang.example.com
>d)	postmaster at pop.example.com
>e)	postmaster at cisco.example.com
>
>and most important to me: where to I go to justify the
>decisions on same?

RFC 2142 standardize the name 'postmaster' (which is originally from 
RFC 822).  2142 says

   For well known names that are not related to specific protocols, only
   the organization's top level domain name are required to be valid.
   For example, if an Internet service provider's domain name is
   COMPANY.COM, then the <ABUSE at COMPANY.COM> address must be valid and
   supported, even though the customers whose activity generates
   complaints use hosts with more specific domain names like
   SHELL1.COMPANY.COM.  Note, however, that it is valid and encouraged
   to support mailbox names for sub-domains, as appropriate.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
		Full text of "Firewalls" book now at http://www.wilyhacker.com