Thanks again for the reply. They have given me some ideas to think about to make it all more streamlined. Please forgive me again for not making something clear enough in my previous reply.

Grant wrote:
1. Create the "main" list, austrai...@lists.domain.com as an umbrella list. 2. Create an individual mailing list address for each member we want to get e-mail. i.e. kenyamagu...@lists.domain.com, joetan...@lists.domain.com, etc. and have each individual mailing list have only one subscriber, namely the person we want getting our e-mails.

I don't think you will want to create a separate list for each subscriber, that would be way over kill.

The reason for giving each member a separate, individual mailing list is precisely how I was thinking of sending a mail to the "subscriber" "directly" all the while sanitzing the "designated poster's" address. I explain more below.


3. Subscribe each of the "individual" mailing lists to the umbrella list.

Yes.

4. Continue to rewrite the mail headers to show the "designated posters" messages as coming from the "reply-to" address.

I am already rewriting mail headers in Postfix so that ALL mail going out to the mail list, (austrai...@lists.domain.com) through Postfix(AFTER it has been processed by Mailman) shows as coming from reply-to-austrai...@domain.com As I mentioned before, using ONLY the built-in Mailman support for redirecting all replies to a specific address doesn't work for me because most of the people involved will be getting the messages on their cell phone. The cell phones here don't seem to understand the "Reply-to: " part of e-mail headers. Thus, I have to completely rewrite the headers. (Not smartphones. Japan has had cell-phone e-mail in common use for about 8-10 years now. Ask anyone in Japan for their e-mail address and they won't give you a computer-based one, but the one for their cell phone)

5. Configure Postfix to rewrite the from headers on the replies to the "reply-to" address so the "designated poster" automatically sees the associated "individual" mailing list for that list member. i.e. Postfix will rewrite kyamagu...@docomo.ne.jp --> kenyamagu...@lists.domain.com when kyamagu...@docomo.ne.jp replies to the "reply-to" address.

I'm thinking that Mailman may be able to do what you are wanting to do after all. That is /IF/ we are very careful with what we do.

I'm sorry that I wasn't clear with this step. What this step implies is that Postfix ALSO knows which subscriber is associated with which individual list. Postfix will check any mail coming in to the "reply-to" address and then rewrite the incoming message headers with the associated individual mailing list for that subscriber.
Example:
Mr. Ken Yamaguchi is a subscriber and he replies to the "reply-to" address. His cell-phone e-mail address will show up in the message's From portion when it hits the Postfix mail server. Before delivering the message on to the "designated poster" via the "reply-to" address, Postfix rewrites Mr. Ken Yamaguchi's message's From header to be that of the individual Mailman list address that was created specifically for him. Now, the message is ready to be sent off to the "designated poster" with the "updated/new" From address which is the Mailman list associated with just him- kenyamagu...@lists.domain.com


6. Once the "designated poster" gets the reply, she only has to hit her "reply" button to reply to the reply which should go to the "individual" mailing list.(e.g. kenyamagu...@lists.domain.com)

Ok...

Can the "designated poser" reply (from his/her ""public address) directly to the recipient that replied to the original post?

Yes, because of step 7 below, which is where I wasn't clear enough before and I apologize for.

7. Configure Postfix to then rewrite our "reply-to-the-reply" header to strip out our "designated poster's" address and replace it with the "reply-to" address we want all replies to go to. i.e. [From: designatedpostersaddr...@softbank.ne.jp] --> [From: reply-to-addr...@domain.com]

Ok.

Here is where Postfix has to pull its weight again. Now, after 5 above, our "designated poster" has a message from Mr. Ken Yamaguchi, but with a From: address that goes to his individual Mailman list, NOT his direct e-mail address. When our designated poster hits "REPLY" and sends a message, of course the message will initially contain our "designated poster's" real e-mail address. That is ok because once the message gets to Postfix, before passing the message on to Mailman, Postfix will rewrite the From: headers on THIS e-mail too to change it from the "designated poster's" email address to that of the "reply-to" address. Once the From is rewritten with the "updated/new" address(the "reply-to" address) Postfix hands the now sanitized message off to Mailman which will do what is necessary to get the message to Mr. Ken Yamaguchi. The "individual" mailing list address is key to this. It forces the returning messages from the "designated poster" to go through the server where it can be sanitized.

After thinking about this, since the "designated poster's" address gets sanitized in the beginning anyways, setting up the Postfix rewrite rule in step 4 carefully would also sanitize the "designated poster's" address at this step too without too much work. Either way I guess. Anways...

Now let me lay out what's in my head:
...
 - Create a "reply" list.

I like the idea of a "reply" list. I might see if that would work better than just an address.

5) The "reply" list will send the message on to all designated posters unmodified. This will allow the designated posters to see the real email address of the subscriber which they can reply to.

See above about this. Actually, what I was thinking was that Postfix WOULD modify the messages.

6) This is where my I'm stuck. How to have replies from the designated poster be sanitized and sent back to the subscriber that is replying. I wonder if a two way anonymizer would help here.

I hope that my explanation above is much clearer this time. Sorry about the confusion. You are right. This is the point that causes the problems. That is why I was thinking of having ALL messages go through the Mailman/Postfix server by using "individual" mailing list addresses for EACH subscriber. If I can make ALL messages go through the server, then I can rewrite what I need to to make sure the subscribers don't know the "designated posters'" addresses. As a side benefit, not necessary at all, this way the "designated posters" also won't see the subscribers' direct e-mail addresses.

What do people think? To me this seems like it will work, but I can't be sure until I try it out.

I will do some more thinking about ways to allow the original posters to reply to replies that come in to the "reply" list from subscribers while hiding the original posters address.

Thank you very much for taking the time to think and help me out about this. Even just having someone to bounce the ideas off of is a big help for me getting this all worked out. I appreciate it.

Charles

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