bounce(1)

NAME
bounce, bounce-remind - handle majordomo list subscribers whose mail is undeliverable

SYNOPSIS
bounce [-d] [-f config-file ] [-majordomo server-address ] [-unsub] majordomo-list user-address

bounce [-d] [-f config-file ] [-majordomo server-address ] -expire [-maxage days ] bounce-address-file

bounce-remind

AVAILABILITY
Provided with distributions of Majordomo.

DESCRIPTION
bounce and bounce-remind are perl scripts which help list owners handle subscribers whose mail is bouncing. Mail is "bounced" in this context when it is undeliverable because hosts or addresses are unreachable or because of other mail errors.

Mail is also "bounced" by the resend script for various administrative reasons; these bounces are described in approve(1).

When a list owner observes that an email address consistently causes mail errors, the owner may use bounce to remove the address from the list and place the address on a special bounces mailing list.

bounce-remind, which should be run nightly by cron(4M), sends a message to each of the user addresses on the bounces list, on the chance that the mail error has been corrected. The message informs the addressee that their mail has been undeliverable and that they have been removed from one or more majordomo lists. It also instructs them how to unsubscribe from the bounces list and re-subscribe to the list of their choice.

bounce can also be used to expire addresses off the bounces list after a predetermined number of days.

If bounce is invoked under a name that contains ``unsub'' it will simply unsubscribe the offending address from the majordomo list; it will not place the address on the bounces list.

OPTIONS
These options relate to bounce; bounce-remind takes no arguments or options.

-d  Debug; print what would be done, but don't do it.

-f config-file
    Use the specified configuration file. The default is ~/.majordomo, and the format for this file is described in the CONFIGURATION section of the approve(1) man page. This file provides the list-owner's password for each list and the address of the corresponding Majordomo server.

-majordomo server-address
    Use this server-address for majordomo rather than the address from the configuration file.

-unsub
    Unsubscribes the offending address from the majordomo list, without entering that address on the bounces list. This is equivalent to invoking bounce under a name containing ``unsub''.

-expire
    Expire entries from the specified bounces list.

-maxage days
    Expire entries older than days. The default is coded into the bounce script as $default_maxage days. It is set to 21 days in the majordomo distribution.

OPERANDS

majordomo-list
    The list from which the offending user-address should be removed.

user-address
    The address to which mail is currently undeliverable.

bounce-address-file
    The name of the file that contains the bounces list.

CONFIGURATION
If bounce is going to be used only to unsubscribe users, a link can be created whose name contains ``unsub'' so that users could be unsubscribed simply by typing

    unsub firewalls-digest fury@world.std.com

for example.

In any case, a configuration file must exist and must contain the names of the owner's lists, along with their respective passwords and the email address of the associated Majordomo server. The format of this file is given in the CONFIGURATION section of the approve(1) man page. The default name for this file is ~/.majordomo, and the same file can serve for both the approve and bounce scripts.

The bounces list, if it is used, must be created. It is like any other Majordomo list excepting that the priority of this list should be set to junk and its owner and sender should be nobody. Of course, the ``nobody'' mail alias must exist; it is should be set to /dev/null. That is,

    nobody: /dev/null

This will spare the human list owner as well as the postmaster from having to deal with mail bouncing from the bounces list.

A cron(1M) job should be set up to run bounce-remind every night. bounce-remind must run on the same server as the bounces list; it mails a message to everyone on the list advising them that they have been removed from one or more Majordomo lists and instructs them how to get off the bounces list and back on the list of their choice.

bounce can only expire addresses if it has a copy of the bounces subscriber file, so this can either be run on the server occasionally by the Majordomo administrator or by a cron job. It can also be run remotely with a copy of the bounces file retrived by the use of the ``who bounces'' command to majordomo.

FILES
/etc/aliases
/etc/majordomo.cf

SEE ALSO
majordomo(8),approve(1)

AUTHOR
Majordomo and most of the ancillary perl code was written by Brent Chapman <brent@GreatCircle.COM>. Majordomo is available via anonymous FTP from FTP.GreatCircle.COM, in the directory pub/majordomo. This man page was written by Kevin Kelleher <fury@world.std.com>.