Domain or subdomain for abuse and postmaster emails?

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This is my first time using PHPList, and I am working through some of the tips here to help cover the basics for deliverability. Right off the bat I have a question, but first I need to explain my setup.

  • I have a special domain set up for my PHPList server, which I’ll call mailserver.com.
  • Each of my business enterprises is set up with its own subdomain of mailserver.com. For example, Jason’s Sprockets is set up as a PHPList installation at js.mailserver.com.
  • The “from” email is different for each subdomain - for Jason’s Sprockets, it might be info@jasonssprockets.com.

So, my question. The page I linked to says I need to have abuse@mydomain and postmaster@mydomain set up as valid emails. My question is, what is “mydomain” in this case? Is it mailserver.com, js.mailserver.com, or jasonssprockets.com?

This also applies, I guess, to reverse DNS (which I understand only dimly). Which domain do I need to be worrying about for that?

1 Like
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Not exactly a phpList issue as this can apply to any use of emailing, bulk or otherwise.

To the best of my knowledge, the abuse@ and postmaster@ need to be the same as the domain that is doing the actual sending.

So, using your example above, I would expect emails sent from info@ jasonssprockets.com to have email aliases set to abuse (@) jasonssprockets.com and postmaster (@) jasonssprockets.com

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Thanks for the reply. So to clarify what we mean by “from,” that would be the “message_envelope” address (the return-path)? Or the reply-to email specified in the list settings?

It seems to me that “the domain doing the actual sending” would be mailserver.com, where PHPList is installed. Am I wrong?

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When I’ve set these email addresses up, I seem to recall I used the same domain as I used to actually send the email, ie: the one shown in the Sender email in the resulting email.
I moved on to DKIM and SPF but this Wiki may help?

Who’s right? Whichever method works.

5

Of course you are right that this is a general issue for all types of email, but since it was a PHP list article in which I learned about it, I posted here.

After further thinking, it is hard for me to see how the proposed answer could be correct. I would take the example of Mailchimp, which sends out from its servers host of emails featuring the “from” address of the company responsible for the mailing. For example, I might send out a mailing through Mailchimp, and it would appear to be from jason@jasonssprockets.com. But having no control over my domain name, Mailchimp cannot set up the requisite abuse and postmaster emails, or ensure that they are there. Instead, they (presumably) have those emails set up at their own domain.

Does this make sense?

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I think this is key. I am fairly sure this is the responsibility of the client not the service provider. Not sure though…