Nut upsuser - Feb 2024 - Keeping the traffis on or off the list ?

I recently wrote to the list.  The distributed message had the following 
headers:
> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2024 19:22:59 +0100 (CET)
> From: Roger Price via Nut-upsuser <nut-upsuser at
alioth-lists.debian.net>
> Reply-To: Roger Price <roger at rogerprice.org>
> To: nut-upsuser Mailing List <nut-upsuser at lists.alioth.debian.org>
> Subject: ...
Note that the Reply-To goes back to the original poster, not the list.
Many mailing lists encourage the subscribers to "keep the list traffic on
the
list", rather than wandering off into private discussions.  The nut-upsuser
setup has exactly the opposite effect.

Is it the intention to send the subscibers into private conversation?  If not, 
and I suspect not, then the current Reply-To looks like a bug.

Any replies to the list please.  Roger

I'd bet the following is news to nobody.

Some of us Dislike setting Reply-To: at all.

If it exists, there's an expectation that it should be followed.  Some 
folks will want to reply to the sender, others to the list.  So no 
matter which way is chosen, one group will be disappointed.  An email 
client that makes it difficult for the user to override Reply-To: ... 
makes it ... difficult.

*Not* setting Reply-To: lets the recipient decide.

The downside there is that it means the recipient has to put a bit of 
thought in to where the reply should go.

But at least this way, at least some of us believe that the 
responsibility lands where it should.

On 2/17/2024 12:29 AM, Roger Price via Nut-upsuser
wrote:
> I recently wrote to the list.? The distributed message had the following 
> headers:
> 
>> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2024 19:22:59 +0100 (CET)
>> From: Roger Price via Nut-upsuser <nut-upsuser at
alioth-lists.debian.net>
>> Reply-To: Roger Price <roger at rogerprice.org>
>> To: nut-upsuser Mailing List <nut-upsuser at
lists.alioth.debian.org>
>> Subject: ...
> 
> Note that the Reply-To goes back to the original poster, not the list.
> Many mailing lists encourage the subscribers to "keep the list traffic
> on the list", rather than wandering off into private discussions.? The
> nut-upsuser setup has exactly the opposite effect.
> 
> Is it the intention to send the subscibers into private conversation?  
> If not, and I suspect not, then the current Reply-To looks like a bug.
> 
> Any replies to the list please.? Roger
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Nut-upsuser mailing list
> Nut-upsuser at alioth-lists.debian.net
> https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nut-upsuser
>

On 17.02.24 09:29, Roger Price via Nut-upsuser wrote:
>I recently wrote to the list.  The distributed message had the 
>following headers:
>
>>Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2024 19:22:59 +0100 (CET)
>>From: Roger Price via Nut-upsuser <nut-upsuser at
alioth-lists.debian.net>
>>Reply-To: Roger Price <roger at rogerprice.org>
>>To: nut-upsuser Mailing List <nut-upsuser at
lists.alioth.debian.org>
>>Subject: ...
>
>Note that the Reply-To goes back to the original poster, not the list.
>Many mailing lists encourage the subscribers to "keep the list traffic 
>on the list", rather than wandering off into private discussions.  The 
>nut-upsuser setup has exactly the opposite effect.
This is side effect of adding list signatures (which many lists do because 
many users are often unaware of a concept of mailing lists) and message 
authentication mechanisms like SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

Many domains use these mechanism to prevent others from spoofing their 
mail and many providers (e.g.  gmail) require using these mechanisms on 
domains to accept mail from them.

It's impossible to forward mail without changing envelope from: address, 
since it would fail SPF check.

With modifying some headers and body it's impossible to keep original DKIM 
signature working and that's how DKIM works - it guarantees that mail was 
send from original domain as-is. 

While mailing list server may DKIM-sign all passing mail, in order to pass 
DMARC check, the mail must have either valid DKIM signature from domain in 
header From:, or it must pass SPF check from the same domain.

Thus, mailing lists change From: address to their domain and sign mail with 
their domain DKIM key. The resulting mail will have @alioth-lists.debian.net 
in envelope from: (thus pass SPF) and header From: (thus pass DKIM).

The only way now is to keep original sender address in Reply-To: header.
>Is it the intention to send the subscibers into private conversation?  
>If not, and I suspect not, then the current Reply-To looks like a bug.
It's necessary change. Users are welcome to use mail clients supporting 
mailing lists, or use Reply-All function of their MUA.
>Any replies to the list please.  Roger
I agree here.

-- 
Matus UHLAR - fantomas, uhlar at fantomas.sk ; http://www.fantomas.sk/
Warning: I wish NOT to receive e-mail advertising to this address.
Varovanie: na tuto adresu chcem NEDOSTAVAT akukolvek reklamnu postu.
Honk if you love peace and quiet.

Reply-To: is about the *author*.  On a list, people should "reply all"
and include the list, generally, unless they intend to send a private
reply.  Having Reply-To set to the list violates standards and causes
the "reply" MUA action to send a reply to other than the author,
violating expectations.
> From: Roger Price via Nut-upsuser <nut-upsuser at
alioth-lists.debian.net>
There's more broken: the list changes the subject and adds a footer,
breaking DKIM, and to work around that changes From: to the list.  This
also means the reply MUA sends an intended-private reply to the list.
So all of that should be deconfigured, with the list passing messages
unmodified except for List-Foo headers.

The Reply-To: you are seeing is a workaround for forging From, which is
a workaround for modifying the message.  Really, the solution is to just
stop all of this.  NetBSD lists have zero of it and there is no trouble.

On Feb 17, 2024, at 3:29?AM, Roger Price wrote:
> 
> Note that the Reply-To goes back to the original poster, not the list.
> Many mailing lists encourage the subscribers to "keep the list traffic
on the list", rather than wandering off into private discussions.  The
nut-upsuser setup has exactly the opposite effect.
Thanks for bringing this upstream change to our attention.

For context, NUT has been using Mailman through the Alioth mailing list services
ever since the project used CVS and Subversion code hosting services from Alioth
as well. While it is handy to not have to maintain all of the infrastructure of
a mailing list server (especially in this age of complex requirements for
successful mail delivery), it also means that we do not have a ton of visibility
into the changes made upstream.

As Matus pointed out, the header-signing requirements are apparently forcing
mailing lists to put in default values for some headers. While I am not sure I
agree with the Mailman decision, this has made me aware of two settings that
seem to have crept in when we weren't looking:

- first_strip_reply_to (currently: no)

- reply_to_goes_to_list (currently: poster)

Documentation: https://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-admin/node11.html

I have not yet adjusted reply_to_goes_to_list on the Mailman end, but I set the
Reply-To header in my mail client in addition to putting the list in the To
field. In theory, the first_strip_reply_to setting should allow my Reply-To
header to pass through.

If that works, I am okay with changing reply_to_goes_to_list to actually point
to the list. IMHO, if subscribers really want replies to their messages to
include their address, they can go to the trouble of setting a Reply-To header
that includes both the list and their personal address.

On Feb 17, 2024, at 5:09?AM, Roger Price wrote:
> 
> Debian doesn't do it.  Why should we?

Debian (and NetBSD, to Greg's point) are larger projects that can afford to
make much more intentional choices about their infrastructure, such as mailing
lists. They can also directly monitor the fallout from decisions such as not
signing headers. If anyone is interested in taking on the project of maintaining
a separate mailing list server for NUT, please get in touch with the -owner
alias for this list. (If that sounds like an overreaction, but you would still
like to help manage the current mailing lists, we could also use a few more
moderators.)

[please use Reply-All as we get this all sorted out, thanks. No intentional
asides to me; I will instinctively add back the list address as I have been
doing manually for years when people email me directly about NUT issues.]

-- 
Charles Lepple
clepple at gmail

I sometimes get replies that are directed only to me.

Oftentimes it is a sender "error" to not have used Reply to All, so I
direct my response back to the list. Rarely it is about something the
senders deem confidential, where a pointed reply seems to make sense
(overriding would be bad).

Other than that, I think the mailing list service we get from alioth comes
"as is", not sure we can configure much about it. Can check, but not
really
inclined to - let humans decide how to best post and what is correct for
each case :)

Jim


On Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 9:32?AM Roger Price via Nut-upsuser <
nut-upsuser at alioth-lists.debian.net> wrote:
> I recently wrote to the list.  The distributed message had the following
> headers:
>
> > Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2024 19:22:59 +0100 (CET)
> > From: Roger Price via Nut-upsuser <nut-upsuser at
alioth-lists.debian.net>
> > Reply-To: Roger Price <roger at rogerprice.org>
> > To: nut-upsuser Mailing List <nut-upsuser at
lists.alioth.debian.org>
> > Subject: ...
>
> Note that the Reply-To goes back to the original poster, not the list.
> Many mailing lists encourage the subscribers to "keep the list traffic
on
> the
> list", rather than wandering off into private discussions.  The
> nut-upsuser
> setup has exactly the opposite effect.
>
> Is it the intention to send the subscibers into private conversation?  If
> not,
> and I suspect not, then the current Reply-To looks like a bug.
>
> Any replies to the list please.  Roger
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nut-upsuser mailing list
> Nut-upsuser at alioth-lists.debian.net
> https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nut-upsuser
>
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