7

I am in the process of conceiving this idea of a webApp when can be termed as a completely new take for providing Email Service to the consumers on Domains that I own. The idea is similar to what Yahoo does by providing me myname@yahoo.com email address or the same with gmail etc. Apart from the whole infrastructure the main concern I have is how to have a list of critical / important and security related email addresses that are not given out to the consumer.

For Example:

  • admin@example.com
  • administrator@example.com
  • webmaster@example.com
  • root@example.com

Is there any kind of exhaustive list of this kind available.

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9

Here is a list of addresses that you may want to treat as reserved:

  • abuse 1,4
  • admin 2,3,4
  • administrator 2,3,4
  • hostmaster 1,2,3,4
  • info 1,3
  • is 3
  • it 3
  • list 1
  • list-request 1
  • majordomo 4
  • marketing 1
  • mis 3
  • news 1
  • postmaster 1,2,3,4,5
  • root 3,4
  • sales 1
  • security 1
  • ssl-admin 4
  • ssladmin 3
  • ssladministrator 3
  • sslwebmaster 3
  • support 1
  • sysadmin 3
  • trouble 1
  • usenet 1
  • uucp 1
  • webmaster 1,2,3,4
  1. Listed in RFC 2142 as a mailbox name for a common purpose
  2. Used by Comodo to issue SSL certificates
  3. Incorrectly used by RapidSSL to issue SSL certificates
  4. Treated as a reserved group name by Google Groups
  5. Listed in RFC 822 -- Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages as a reserved address

This article suggests that you reserve all mailboxes that start with "admin", "administrator", "webmaster", "hostmaster", or "postmaster". If I were doing that, I would also add "ssl" to my starts with rule. Based on what RapidSSL did, it would make sense to implement an "ends with" rule as well.

RFC 822 also has the reminder that mailboxes are generally case insensitive. You should reserve lower-case, upper-case, and mixed-case versions:

Note: This reserved local-part must be matched without sensitivity to alphabetic case, so that "POSTMASTER", "postmaster", and even "poStmASteR" is to be accepted.

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2

This might be slightly related list, although its not for Gmail, but for Google Groups for G Suite:

https://support.google.com/a/answer/6093413?hl=en

Reserved group names:
We reserve certain names that cannot be used if you are creating a group using Google Groups or Google Groups for Business. However, you can use these names if you are creating a group using the Groups control in the Admin console.

abuse
admin
administrator
hostmaster
majordomo
postmaster
root
ssl-admin
webmaster

The names abuse and postmaster are reserved. You can, however, subscribe to them and receive all mail sent to these addresses.

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  • Thanks alot mate just the answer I needed. Just wondering, what majordomo stands for. Apart from the systesm names, I would also add the generic once like, sales, info, ceo , manager etc. But it is a long process. – Maharshi Raval Mar 23 '17 at 9:07
  • 1
    You are welcome :).. Just a long thought, do users have email addresses from single common english words also at Gmail? Like lion@, or aeroplane, or car. Am sure many of these can be instantly stopped if you enforce a minimum 7 letters username policy. Also, what about foul words? 7 word will stop dick@, but will not dickhead@ – DavChana Mar 23 '17 at 9:30
  • @MaharshiRaval majordomo = en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majordomo_(software) – Steve Mar 23 '17 at 10:22
  • 1
    @DavChana yupp.. that makes a lot of sense. Would look into it , thanks a lot for bringing it up. Appreciate your time. – Maharshi Raval Mar 30 '17 at 10:24

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