[mlmmj] mlmmj: list subscriber email in both nomailsubs.d and subscribers.d

I have been using mlmmj on a CentOS server for several years now (to
great effect!), but recently came across an interesting scenario that
begs these questions:

What happens when a list subscriber's email appears in an ASCII text
file in the list's subscribers.d directory, as well as being contained
in a file in the list's nomailsubs.d directory? Which takes precedence?

One of our list subscribers was attempting to send a simple email to the
list (ie. not beyond the maxsize), but received a bounce-back message
containing "...was unable to be delivered to the list because you are
not a list subscriber".  I triple-checked to make sure their email
address was spelled correctly in the subscribers.d text file (it was),
but I haven't yet determined why they received this "not a list
subscriber" bounce. 

I did notice this subscriber's email address was also included in a
nomailsubs.d text file for the same email list.  Regardless of whether
this is or isn't related to why they received the bounce message, I'm
now wondering what mlmmj does in this situation - does it honor the
subscribers.d permission to receive email from the list, or does it
enforce the non-receipt policy defined by the address' existence in the
nomailsubs.d directory?

(Due to how our organization is structured, and the data automation
we've wrapped around the mlmmj deployment on our email server, its
possible and logical that a subscriber email address might end up in
both places.)

I would like to understand why this subscriber's email submission was
denied, but I would also like to know how mlmmj reacts when presented
with an email address in both the subscribers.d and nomailsubs.d directory.

Thanks for any feedback!

Philip Parshley
[email protected]

I have been using
mlmmj on a CentOS server for several years now (to great
effect!), but recently came across an interesting scenario that
begs these questions:

What happens when a list subscriber's email appears in an ASCII
text file in the list's subscribers.d directory, as well as
being contained in a file in the list's nomailsubs.d directory?
Which takes precedence?

One of our list subscribers was attempting to send a simple
email to the list (ie. not beyond the maxsize), but received a
bounce-back message containing "...was unable to be delivered to
the list because you are not a list subscriber". I
triple-checked to make sure their email address was spelled
correctly in the subscribers.d text file (it was), but I haven't
yet determined why they received this "not a list subscriber"
bounce.

I did notice this subscriber's email address was also included
in a nomailsubs.d text file for the same email list. Regardless
of whether this is or isn't related to why they received the
bounce message, I'm now wondering what mlmmj does in this
situation - does it honor the subscribers.d permission to
receive email from the list, or does it enforce the non-receipt
policy defined by the address' existence in the nomailsubs.d
directory?

(Due to how our organization is structured, and the data
automation we've wrapped around the mlmmj deployment on our
email server, its possible and logical that a subscriber email
address might end up in both places.)

I would like to understand why this subscriber's email
submission was denied, but I would also like to know how mlmmj
reacts when presented with an email address in both the
subscribers.d and nomailsubs.d directory.

Thanks for any feedback!

Philip Parshley

[email protected]