Postmaster

A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), the title of Postmaster General is commonly used. Responsibilities of a postmaster typically include management of a centralized mail distribution facility, establishment of letter carrier routes, supervision of letter carriers and clerks, and enforcement of the organization's rules and procedures.

In the United States, women have served as postmasters since the Revolutionary War and even earlier, under British rule. "Postmaster," regardless of the person's sex, has always been the official title for this position.

In Canada, many early places are named after the first postmaster.

Use in coaching

In the days of horse-drawn carriages, a postmaster was an individual from whom horses and/or riders (known as postilions or "post-boys") could be hired. The postmaster would reside in a "post house".

Earnings in the US

Postmaster (computing)

In computers and technology, postmaster is a term used to identify the administrator of a mail server. Nearly every domain should have the e-mail address postmaster@example.com where errors in e-mail processing are directed. Error e-mails automatically generated by mail servers’ MTAs usually appear to have been sent to the postmaster address.

Every domain that supports the SMTP protocol for electronic mail is required by RFC 5321 and, as early as 1982, by RFC 822, to have the postmaster address. The rfc-ignorant.org website used to maintain a list of domains that do not comply with the RFC based on this requirement, but was shut down in November 2012.

Quoting from the RFC:

Any system that includes an SMTP server supporting mail relaying or delivery MUST support the reserved mailbox "postmaster" as a case-insensitive local name. This postmaster address is not strictly necessary if the server always returns 554 on connection opening (as described in section 3.1). The requirement to accept mail for postmaster implies that RCPT commands which specify a mailbox for postmaster at any of the domains for which the SMTP server provides mail service, as well as the special case of "RCPT TO:<Postmaster>" (with no domain specification), MUST be supported.

Postmaster (disambiguation)

A postmaster is the head of an individual post office.

Postmaster may also refer to: