The quick-o, informal, unofficial, GURPSnet mailing list technical FAQ

This FAQ covers some of the technical bits and pieces of the GURPSnet-l mailing list. It's not the FAQ for the list itself, nor is it the FAQ for GURPS the game. Instead, we tackle the nuts and bolts of the list itself.

• What kind of software's driving the list?
• Are you filtering the mail?
• I unsubscribed! Why am I still getting mail?
• I don't want copies of stuff I send to the list
• Why does it take so long for me to get the mail I sent to the list?
• I get the digest--why are some messages completely unreadable?
• Why are there sometimes big gaps in the mail I get. It looks like I lost a bunch of mail!
• Why are there sometimes big gaps in the mail I get. It doesn't look like I lost any mail, though.
• Uh, oh. I just posted something embarrasing/off-topic/really stupid. Can it be stopped?
• How's all this list e-mail stuff work, anyway?

What kind of software's driving the list?

The current mailing list software's called majordomo, and we're at version 1.94.4.

Are you filtering the mail?

Heck, no! Do you realize how many posts go to the list each day? I think my head would explode if I tried that.

The mailing list does have some filters on it, and will forward any mail that hits a filter to the listowner for approval. The filters catch:

• Mail bigger than 10K
• Mail from people who aren't subscribed to the list or digest, or on the 'okay people' list
• Mail that looks like it might be a command to the list, instead of real mail. Only the first ten lines are checked, and the filters are pretty narrow.

I unsubscribed! Why am I still getting mail?

Ooohh, welcome to the wonderful world of e-mail! :-)

Once you've unsubscribed, no new mail will be sent to you. However, any mail already in the mail queue will still get delivered. So if list mail normally takes three hours to get to you, you'll get at least three hours of normal mail until the mail queue's empty. You may still see mail trickle in over the next few days as old stuff that was stuck in the queue gets flushed, or as people leave you on the Cc: list of some mail.

I don't want copies of stuff I send to the list

Not much we can do about it. The current version of Majordomo hands off each list message to everyone on the list at once, and there's no way for us to change that. There's a sendmail setting (which is the software that actually delivers the mail) to not deliver to the sender of a mail message, but it would affect how mail works for every user and every list at io.com. It's not gonna happen, sorry.

Why does it take so long for me to get the mail I sent to the list?

Because it took almost that long to deliver to all the other people on the list.

When Majordomo delivers mail to the list, it sends one message to everyone on the list. The software that does the actual delivery (sendmail for the gurpsnet list) then attempts a delivery to each person, one by one. The order is semi-indeterminate, but there might well be a hundred people before you on the delivery list. If it took even 20 seconds to deliver each message, well, that's over half an hour.

Now it's not normally nearly that bad. Sometimes, though, it can take five or ten  minutes to deliver to one person (especially if the 'Net is badly bogged down, or the host on the other end dies in the middle of delivery, or someone's DNS setup is really overloaded/broken/slow)

I get the digest--why are some messages completely unreadable?

Ah, the wonder of attachments. Someone probably sent a MIME-encoded message to the list. MIME mail has special headers in it to tell mail programs how to decode the mail. Unfortunately, Majordomo builds its own headers for digests, so that special info that would tell you how to decode the message is lost.

The current version of majordomo has no way to deal with this. Version 2.0 should, but it's still in alpha testing.

Why are there sometimes big gaps in the mail I get. It looks like I lost a bunch of mail!

Could have. There are a number of reasons

• Something somewhere could have been wrong, so the mailing list machine thought your host didn't exist and bounced the mail
• Your host might have bounced the mail for any number of reasons:
  • You were over-quota
  • The host was mis-configured
  • The host was so overloaded it was bouncing everyone's mail
  • Someone made a whoops and nuked the user list
• The Shub-Internet might have eaten it. ('Ware the shub-internet, my son! The routers that bite, the bridges that catch)
• You could have been unsubscribed. Probably because of bouncing mail, but it's possible one of the list admins did for other reasons, though you should have gotten mail as to why.
• The list machine might have died and taken mail with it.

Why are there sometimes big gaps in the mail I get. It doesn't look like I lost any mail, though.

Sometimes things back up on the 'Net.

• The list machine might be really bogged down, so all the list mail gets queued up for later delivery.
• Your mail machine might have been down.
• DNS might have been down, so we couldn't figure out where yourhost.com really lives.
• Someone before you in the delivery list might have a badly bogged down machine, so mail to them takes forever. You don't get your copy until after they do, so it just took a while
• Someone in Chicago put a backhoe through all the cabling linking the left and right half of the world, and everything backed up until it was fixed. (And this has happened)
• The Shub-Internet stirred, and your mail was cowering in fear.

Uh, oh. I just posted something embarrasing/off-topic/really stupid. Can it be stopped?

Nope, sorry. I wish it was possible, but once you hit send, it's on its way, and unless it hits the administrivia filters, you're doomed.

How's all this list e-mail stuff work, anyway?

Well, it's pretty simple. (It might not make sense, but it's simple)

1. You hit the send button/key in your mail program
2. Your mail program delivers the mail to your local mail server (which might be the machine you're on, if you've got a Unix account or something)
3. Your local mailserver makes an attempt to deliver the mail to your host's mail server, if it has one.
4. The final mail server on your end tries to deliver the mail to
   1. The list machine itself
   2. A backup for the list machine
   3. A secondary backup for the list machine
   4. A tertiary backup for the list machine

   The mail will try to go to a, but will hit b or c or d, depending on what's available. Once mail hits one of these machines, it'll travel up the list (from c to b, say) but never down. Attempts for redelivery always start at the top (i.e., the mail list machine is always tried)

5. Once it hits the list machine, Majordomo sends it out to all the list subscribers. If the list machine is badly bogged down (which happens) the mail actually goes into a queue to be dealt with later.
6. Each and every person on the list gets the mail delivered, in order. If you're #200, then there are up to 199 deliveries before you. Delivery is tried to, in order:
   1. Your ISP's mail machine
   2. Your ISP's mail hub
   3. Your ISP's secondary mail machine
   4. Your ISP's tertiary mail machine
   5. Back into the list machine's mail queue to be tried later
   6. My mailbox as a bounce message

   Once again, delivery is tried in order from A to F. (If it hits f, it's gone) Delivery will be attempted occasionally (usually every 15 minutes, more or less) if it doesn't go to A or E, but there are no promises--it might take three days to deliver to a tertiary machine and another day or two to get to you, especially if the Shub-Internet's active, or your ISP's having troubles somewhere along the line

Last update: 05-Apr-1998
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