Broken vacation rule [Scanned by Freecom.net]

[Greg Matthews]

Hi Jethro...

thanks for the reply, I was really looking for a client-side solution. I
run our coroporate "mail relay" system which feeds into the corporate
mail system over which I have no control. The relay servers are not the
place to implement vacation messages so client-side is my only option.

However, your regex list looks quite useful. My local mailbox is served
by sendmail on solaris and I connect with an IMAP client. I have shell
(and root) access to the sendmail server.

G

On Mon, 2006-04-03 at 13:16 +0100, Jethro R Binks wrote:
> 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
> 
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Jethro R Binks
> Computing Officer, IT Services
> University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
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-- 
Greg Matthews           01491 692445
Head of UNIX/Linux, iTSS Wallingford


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