🚀 go-pugleaf

Another thought from one of those fools who volunteered to work on CLOUT...

In conversation with the administrator of one of the various 'heavy' sites
that route a lot of Email traffic, the administrator recently commented
that he'd received a number of complaints about Email that *had* been
working, but wasn't now, and they thought it was CLOUT, but could he do
something about it?

This isn't unusual.  We're routing megabytes of mail--literally thousands
of messages--per week through dozens of machines, gateways between the
Internet, the internet, and a range of dissimilar networks such as Compuserve,
FIDONET, and even Novell networks; the potential for gateway problems are
myriad.  Many, *many* of the intermediate machines that end up being routed
through (because they show up in the net maps) are volunteer sites
administered by people who are still learning exactly what all those funny
addresses mean; and because the maps changes monthly, if you use a smart
mailer it's almost guaranteed that the path from machine 'A' to machine 'B'
will change periodically.

The key is to let us know when you've got a problem.  The first *I'd* heard
that there was a problem--at least, one out of the ordinary--was when this
administrator complained to me.  I *still* haven't heard from the people who
claim to have lost connectivity, even though he told them that they should
Email or call me.

I get some dozen or so notices that mail gets bounced or lost every week.
The vast majority of these are people misspelling the recipient's login ID;
many are targeted to sites that don't exist.  The majority of the others
result from the inability to contact of one of the machines in the path--either
the destination node, or an intermediate.  For all of these I receive copies
of the notification messages returned to the message originator, and I check
to see if they're anything related to either my CLOUT node, or the one at
the University of Chicago.  Unless they are, I usually take no action.  If
you receive a rejection you don't understand, please use the procedures
following to get an explanation--that's one of the reasons we're here.

In the more unusual case--a message disappears, you receive no
notification, and the recipient just doesn't receive it--the proper sequence
is to have your local admin look at the mail logs to see where it was
bound, and try to trace it through its path until we can find the break.
Admins are almost always happy to help you, if you explain why you think
the message either went through, or died on, their machine(s).  After all,
you're helping them solve a potential problem with their system, too.

How do you contact these people, then?  Usually, mail to 'postmaster' on
your own system will get to the administrator, as will mail to 'root'.
(Although the latter receives a *lot* of 'noise' in the way of status and
log messages, so your mail could be lost in the clutter.)

If it seems the message disappeared through a CLOUT machine, Email
to 'postmaster@clout.chi.il.us' telling us what's wrong and why you think
it's on our systems.  If you can identify the time, date, and message ID
of the errant missive, this helps us tremendously; this should be on your
local system's mail logs for at least a week or so after mailing.  If you
can't get Email to that address, for the next few weeks you can leave
a message at (312) 728-5254; it's an answering machine at my office that I
monitor on a regular basis.  I'll forward any information to the appropriate
administrators.  (Soon, we'll have a more sophisticated voice mail drop for
the CLOUT project; watch these groups for the notice.)

If you think it disappeared on some other machine, try to find its map entry
in the posted maps.  There's almost always a voice telephone and Email
contact you can ask to check for the problem.

In all cases, remember, we're all trying to help--don't bite our heads off.
EXPLAIN what you know; ASK about what you don't.  And above all, don't complain
behind our backs--call, mail, whatever, but let us work issues together!

Thanks for listening to the sermon; please leave donations in the
collection plate by the door...

Happy mailing,

		Dave Ihnat
		ignatz@homebru.chi.il.us (preferred return address)
		ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us