Why forwarding is a Bad Thing

[Brad Knowles]

At 12:42 PM +0000 3/23/01, Jim Reid wrote:

>                                          For example in most mail
>  systems, it is trivial to configure them to send all non-local mail
>  (for some definition of local) to a smart mail relay.

	True enough, but then you're hard-coding by name what your 
outbound mail relay(s) is/are.


	I understand your overall aversion to forwarding, and based on 
your previous equation of evilness to wildcard MX records I accept 
that I shouldn't be advocating it's use in any public forum.

	However, one thing I still don't understand is how doing that 
sort of thing is significantly different from hard-coding your 
outbound mail relay(s), and yet one is "evil" and the other is not.

>                                                        It's even
>  possible to provide and document company standard configurations for
>  those setups.

	Same with forwarding.

>                The smart mail relays would be operated by the
>  organisation's clueful mail people. ie The complexity and intelligence
>  about mail routing and relaying is handled by the systems and people
>  that have the resources and skills to do that job reliably.

	Right, same with forwarding.


	If you could help me to understand the fundamental difference 
here, that would really go a long ways towards solidifying in my own 
mind as to *why* forwarding is evil and should not be publicly 
advocated.

--
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

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