DO NOT REPLY [Bug 28174] New: - Optionally allow specifying an URL as the argument to directive ServerAdmin.

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http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28174

Optionally allow specifying an URL as the argument to directive ServerAdmin.

           Summary: Optionally allow specifying an URL as the argument to
                    directive ServerAdmin.
           Product: Apache httpd-2.0
           Version: 2.1-HEAD
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: Enhancement
          Priority: Other
         Component: Core
        AssignedTo: bugs@httpd.apache.org
        ReportedBy: Rolf.Sponsel@kstr.lth.se
                CC: Rolf.Sponsel@kstr.lth.se


The directive 'ServerAdmin' today allows you to specify an email address whereto
problems with the server should/could be emailed. This address is displayed in
various places, e.g. on server generated pages, such as error documents.

Considering the widely mis-use of email addresses, collected by harvesting the
internet in various ways, for e.g. mass-mailing, spamming, etc, I would like to
have the possibility to optionally specify an URL instead of an email address
that should be displayed instead. E.g. 'https://somedomain.name/contact',
instead of 'contact@somedomain.name', which for example could present a mail
form that the user could fill in. Thus there would be no need to expose an email
address for this purpose. Of course, such an URL should ideally point to another
server, because this server might present the errror response page (showing that
 "serveradmin" url due to not being able to process such a form. But that
decision should of course be left to the administrator to decide on.

I can, almost, achive this already with todays implementation (Apache 2.0.49) by
specifying an URL to the 'ServerAdmin' directive, but such an URL will
automatically get the 'mailto://' protocol prefix prepended, e.g. in customized
error responses.

Therefore I'd like to suggest the following implementation, and thereby
retaining backward compatibility; whenever a URL is given as the argument to the
'ServerAdmin' directive the argument should be presented to the user as
specified (or at least constitute the 'href' of a link presented to the user, i
think it's someting like webmaster, or so today). If the argument is NOT an URL
then it should be assumed it's an email address - just as today. In this way one
is allowed to explicitly specify 'mailto://admin@domain.name', as an alternative
to the implicit 'admin@domain.name' too (if one would prefere).

This feature could help to reduce the amount of unsolicited emails sent to the
otherwise exposed email address, and thereby hopefully allow the
administrator(?) to focus on the important issues/emails instead of wading
through all the junk. This kind of "redirection", instead of using email
addrsses, is becoming more an more popular for use in SSL server certificates too.

Best Regards,
Rolf Sponsel

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