Broken vacation rule [Scanned by Freecom.net]

[Jethro R Binks]

On Mon, 3 Apr 2006, Greg Matthews wrote:

> I've never implemented a vacation message because I've seen far too much 
> of this sort of thing. Is there any docu on implementing sensible vac 
> message that wont spam lists, wont respond more than once per sender etc 
> plus any other gotchas?

I wrote an extensive configuration for Exim.  Here are some parts of it, 
which may provide clues.  The trick is basically to severely limit the 
things to which an autoreply message will be sent.

## Vacation functionality attempts to follow best practice; in particular it
## heeds some parts of these:
## http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3834.html (Autoresponder rules)
## http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-sieve-vacation-06.txt
## http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2369.txt (List-* headers)
...
  condition = "${if or { \
    { match {$h_precedence:} {(?i)junk|bulk|list} } \
    { eq {$sender_address} {} } \
    { def:header_X-Cron-Env: } \
    { def:header_Auto-Submitted: } \
    { def:header_List-Help: } \
    { def:header_List-Unsubscribe: } \
    { def:header_List-Subscribe: } \
    { def:header_List-Owner: } \
    { def:header_List-Archive: } \
    { def:header_Autorespond: } \
    { def:header_X-Autoresponse: } \
    { def:header_X-eBay-MailTracker: } \
    { def:header_X-MaxCode-Template: } \
    { match {$h_X-FC-MachineGenerated:} {true} } \
    { match {$message_body} {\\N^Your \"cron\" job on\\N} } \
    { match {$h_Subject:} {\\N^Out of Office\\N} } \
    { match {$h_Subject:} {\\N^Auto-Reply:\\N} } \
    { match {$h_Subject:} {\\N^Autoresponse:\\N} } \
    { match {$h_From:} {\\N(via the vacation program)\\N } } \
    { match_address {$header_X-Local-Original-Recipient:} \
             {$header_To: $header_CC: $header_Bcc: \
              $header_Resent-To: $header_Resent-Cc: $header_Resent-Bcc:} \
    } \
                       } {no} {yes} \
               }"

You may also include a test for mail that you scored as spam, and not 
reply to that.

You should also ensure any autoresponder system only replies once per 
sender address, at least within a fixed time period (7 days perhaps).

The autoresponse itself should contain an "Auto-Submitted:" header field 
with the value "auto-replied".

Finally, you shouldn't respond to a message from certain addresses; here 
is a partial list of regular expressions I use:

^.*-request at .*
^owner-.*@.*
^.*-owner at .*
^.*-admin at .*
^bounce-.*@.*
^.*-outgoing at .*
^.*-relay at .*
^.*-bounces at .*
^mailer at .*
^postmaster at .*
^mailer-daemon at .*
^mailer_daemon at .*
^majordomo at .*
^majordom at .*
^mailman at .*
^nobody at .*
^reminder at .*
^listserv at .*
^daemon at .*
^server at .*
^root at .*
^noreply at .*
^bounce at .*
^news at .*
^httpd at .*
^www at .*
^nagios at .*
^sales at .*
^info at .*
^listmaster at .*
^mailmaster at .*
^squid at .*
^support at .*
^exim at .*
scomp at aol.net

with certain other local-only additions.

Jethro.


> 
> G
> 
> On Sun, 2006-03-26 at 16:43 -0500, Matt Kettler wrote:
> > And one wonders why so many people despise lists which insert a "Reply-To"
> > header that points back to the list..
> > 
> > Too many *CENSORED* out there that think "reply" is an appropriate 
> > behavior for a vacation rule.
> > 
> > Of course, if we're lucky someone will spamcop freecom.net's mailservers.
> > 
> > (Spamcop DOES accept reports for broken vacation rules, which this 
> > clearly is, and it was done by a systems admin who should know better. 
> > While I hate to see companies listed because some *CENSORED* in 
> > marketing crafted up his own vacation rule without following 
> > procedure, I don't have any sympathy for freecom if they get listed 
> > for this.)
> > 
> -- 
> Greg Matthews           01491 692445
> Head of UNIX/Linux, iTSS Wallingford

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Jethro R Binks
Computing Officer, IT Services
University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK