Newsgroups: bit.listserv.bitnews
Date:         Mon, 31 Aug 1992 16:08:05 EDT
From:         Jim Conklin <CONKLIN@BITNIC.BITNET>
Subject:      CREN adopts statement of postmaster duties
Comments: To: technews@BITNIC.BITNET, post-std@BITNIC.BITNET
Comments: cc: crenbdst@BITNIC.BITNET

    At its last meeting, the CREN Board of Directors adopted a
definition of the duties of postmasters of BITNET nodes operated by CREN
members.  This definition, which grew out of discussions at several
BITTECH meetings followed by review and further refinement by the CREN
Technical Advisory Committee, is now open for public discussion and
whatever further refinement which may result therefrom.  Subject to such
refinement, it completes the CREN postmast/er requirements originally
adopted at the Board meeting held October 14, 1991.

    The updated requirements document follows.  Discussion should take
place on the list POST-STD@BITNIC, created for that purpose.

    The document is available from LISTSERV@BITNIC as the file POSTMAST
STANDARD and may also be obtained in printed form from CREN Membership
Services, Suite 600, 1112 Sixteenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036.

                                                                    Jim
----------------------------------------------------------------------
                          CREN Requirements
                                 for
               POSTMAST/ER ID's and Postmaster Duties


* In order to be able to interact effectively with other BITNET nodes
and with the Internet and other interconnected networks, all BITNET
nodes must have a mechanism by which problems needing human
intervention can be brought easily and quickly to the attention of
the appropriate person for resolution.

* For this reason, all BITNET nodes are required to support delivery of
mail addressed to either POSTMASTER or POSTMAST (case insensitive),
to a human capable of taking whatever action may be necessary.  When
the receiving site does not have a mailer, the sending site will
truncate POSTMASTER to POSTMAST in the NJE header.  Support of the
POSTMAST ID alone thus satisfies this requirement for sites without a
mailer. (Note that such sites are not allowed to interchange mail
with Internet sites via the official CREN gateways).

* The postmaster is that person (or persons) designated to monitor mail
received by the (case-independent) POSTMAST and POSTMASTER ID's of a
node (host), referred to below as "Postmaster mail".

* The primary and essential component of the Postmaster's
responsibilities is to handle error conditions reported in Postmaster
mail.  Postmaster mail may be generated automatically by mailer
software on other hosts in response to error conditions, or it may be
human-initiated.

* The POSTMAST and POSTMASTER ID's must never generate automatic
responses to mail, since that can result in mail loops, error notices
to lists, or other undesirable behavior, depending on the error
condition responsible for the Postmaster mail.  This prohibition, of
course, includes automatic responses from ID's to which Postmaster
mail may be automatically forwarded or relayed.  To prevent such
responses, ID's which receive Postmaster mail must never be set up to
deliver automatic responses and must not be deleted without first
being removed from the automatic forwarding list for Postmaster mail.

* Reading mail to POSTMAST and POSTMASTER must be treated as a high
priority task, with problems handled as appropriate in a timely
manner.

* Information requests (e.g., "What's Jane Doe's e-mail address?") and
other Postmaster mail not reporting problems must not be allowed to
interfere with the primary responsibility of the Postmaster, which is
to remain current in reading Postmaster mail so as to respond to
error conditions in a timely manner.  Within this constraint, such
mail should be handled according to the policies of the site and
node.

* Note that POSTMAST and POSTMASTER ID's should never be used for
mailing to lists (mail from them won't be accepted for posting by
LISTSERV and possibly other servers, because of the possibility of
looping caused by distribution of mail from these ID's).  These ID's
are not even recommended for general network administration and
communication because of their special function in problem reporting.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU