Certain email addresses are reserved for a specific use. Their primary function is to make it easy for the administrators of various servers when they need to contact the most responsible person for a particular service.
The following names are reserved for this use:
* postmaster@mydomain.com
* abuse@mydomain.com
postmaster
The most responsible person for these services are most likely a system administrator or webmaster. The postmaster is responsible for any and all email that is sent through a system connected via the Internet. The most common reason that the postmaster will be contacted is when there is either a misconfiguration of the mail-server, or it is generating unsolicited bulk email (usually through a virus or Trojan).
Several RFC (request for comment) require a postmaster@mydomain.com account:
- RFC822 6.3
- RFC1123 5.2.7
- RFC2821 4.5.1
abuse
Though not required by any RFC, it is common to have an abuse@mydomain.com so administrators, or anyone for that matter, may contact you if your email is being abused.
I have both of mine forwarded to a catchall email account.
One drawback of having “known” email addresses is spammers know the common ones (like postmaster, abuse, info, test, …) and will try and exploit them.
Doug
