OT: Opinions wanted please

Alex Neuman alex at vidadigital.com.pa
Wed Dec 26 16:03:50 GMT 2012


These are the same types that believe in DSN messages.

I once had an argument with one of these types, about how "your
message was delivered" and "your message was read" messages are
completely bogus, useless and only serve to add complexity - and added
"if you still want me to honor DSN's, reply back with the word
"Giraffe" in the subject line.

Needless to say, he did not - he just replied "OK", which meant he did
*not*, in fact, read the whole message. He learned his lesson, and now
uses "actionable items" in order to make sure people actually read,
understood, and would act upon any messages requiring confirmation.

On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 9:31 AM, Steve Campbell <campbell at cnpapers.com> wrote:
> Alex,
>
> Thanks. I do in fact use such a system as what you describe for the simple
> out-of-office functions. The scripts that Jeff provided seems like a good fit
> for the out-of-office-forever that's needed. I try to avoid OOO any time I can
> by telling people the down sides of OOO, and they usually go along with my
> suggestions. It's the never-happy users that insist on using OOO, and they're
> also the ones that complain about the added spam they receive once OOO is
> cancelled. Since it's usually our sales reps that request OOO, I suggest they
> create a list of clients in their Address Books to notify everyone of their
> vacancy, but they say that's way too much work. Prima Donna types, you know.
>
> Hope everyone had a good holiday!
>
> steve
>
>
>
> Quoting Alex Neuman <alex at vidadigital.com.pa>:
>
>> I would use an autoreply message like the one created by Webmin, since
>> you can tell it *not* to reply a second time if the e-mail comes in
>> before a certain timeframe. This prevents loops a bit further and
>> lessens the impact a busy account might have, since it only sends an
>> autoreply if a sender hasn't written in more than X minutes since last
>> time.
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 8:52 AM, Jeff Earickson <jaearick at colby.edu> wrote:
>> > Steve,
>> >
>> > I see from a later email that you got it working, but to answer your
>> > question, I have
>> > an alias for "ls":
>> >
>> > ls      /usr/bin/ls -CFl
>> >
>> > So one of those options puts an asterisk at the end of files that are
>> > executable.
>> > Sorry about that, that could puzzle you.  Glad you got it working.
>> >
>> > Even though we moved Colby's email to Google 3 or 4 years ago, we have
>> > never been
>> > able to get rid of our legacy email server (now virtual); one of the
>> > big reasons is that
>> > we don't want to loose our redirect feature from these perl scripts.
>> > They are very handy.
>> >
>> > -----------------------------------
>> > Jeff A. Earickson, Ph.D
>> > Senior Server System Administrator
>> > Colby College,
>> > 4214 Mayflower Hill,
>> > Waterville ME, 04901-8842
>> > 207-859-4214 (fax 207-859-4186)
>> > Eastern Time Zone, USA
>> > -----------------------------------
>> >
>> >
>> > On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 10:42 PM, Steve Campbell <campbell at cnpapers.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> Jeff,
>> >>
>> >> My Mprog line is identical to yours. It's the default of the Centos
>> install.
>> >>
>> >> I don't have a directory under /usr named "adm" or a directory anywhere on
>> my
>> >> system named sm.bin. Do you think I should create it? yum shows no package
>> that
>> >> provides it as well.
>> >>
>> >> What does the "*" at the end of the /etc/mail/redirectstu.pl* represent?
>> >>
>> >> I realize MailScanner doesn't come into play here, but that's how I start
>> and
>> >> restart sendmail. I've got mailman running on another older system that
>> uses the
>> >> same scheme, so I tried to compare what was there. The files on that
>> system are
>> >> in /etc/smrsh. I'll do a little googling to see what I can find on Centos
>> 6.3 smrsh.
>> >>
>> >> Thanks for the help. I'll be working on this from home since I need this
>> done by
>> >> Monday.
>> >>
>> >> Quoting Jeff Earickson <jaearick at colby.edu>:
>> >>
>> >>> Steve,
>> >>>
>> >>> I am running all of this on Redhat 6.3, same as Centos.  I build and
>> >>> install sendmail from source code, so I have the /usr/sbin/smrsh on my
>> >>> system.  My /usr/adm/sm.bin directory looks like so:
>> >>>
>> >>> (106)> ls -l
>> >>> total 0
>> >>> lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 26 Apr 12  2011 redirectstaff.pl ->
>> >>> /etc/mail/redirectstaff.pl*
>> >>> lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 24 Apr 12  2011 redirectstu.pl ->
>> >>> /etc/mail/redirectstu.pl*
>> >>> lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 17 Apr 12  2011 vacation -> /usr/bin/vacation*
>> >>>
>> >>> Where the perl scripts I attached reside in /etc/mail, chown
>> >>> root:mail, chmod 755.  The Mprog line in my sendmail.cf looks like:
>> >>>
>> >>> Mprog,                P=/usr/sbin/smrsh, F=lsDFMoqeu9,
>> S=EnvFromL/HdrFromL,
>> >>> R=EnvToL/HdrToL, D=$z:/,
>> >>>
>> >>> I would suggest using the debug feature in the script(s), and then
>> >>> looking at the files it dumps in /tmp.
>> >>>
>> >>> This is all a sendmail config issue, nothing really to do with
>> MailScanner.
>> >>> -----------------------------------
>> >>> Jeff A. Earickson, Ph.D
>> >>> Senior Server System Administrator
>> >>> Colby College,
>> >>> 4214 Mayflower Hill,
>> >>> Waterville ME, 04901-8842
>> >>> 207-859-4214 (fax 207-859-4186)
>> >>> Eastern Time Zone, USA
>> >>> -----------------------------------
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 4:03 PM, Steve Campbell <campbell at cnpapers.com>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>> > Well, I'm not sure what's going on but I keep getting the message in
>> >>> maillog
>> >>> > "Service unavailable".
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I soft linked in /etc/smrsh the name of the perl script to the
>> modified
>> >>> > script you provided me, added the line in aliases, ran newaliases and
>> >>> > restarted MailScanner.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > My sendmail.cf already had the MProg line configured properly.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I'm running Centos 6, by the way. Any clues? the smrsh is a little
>> generic
>> >>> > to provide a lot, since it references the smrsh.c file, which I don't
>> have
>> >>> > on my system.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Thanks
>> >>> >
>> >>> > steve
>> >>> > On 12/21/2012 10:52 AM, Jeff Earickson wrote:
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Steve,
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Since you use sendmail, have I got just the perl scripts for you.  See
>> >>> > attached.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > If you want to see how this script performs in the real world, send
>> >>> > email to "tjchrist at colby.edu",
>> >>> > a person who has left and has a redirect set via redirectstaff.pl.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > For redirect+forwarding, see the redirectstu.pl script.  However, you
>> >>> > **really** don't want to do this.
>> >>> > Set a redirect and that is it.  Forwarding will bite you (or him) at
>> some
>> >>> > point.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > -----------------------------------
>> >>> > Jeff A. Earickson, Ph.D
>> >>> > Senior Server System Administrator
>> >>> > Colby College,
>> >>> > 4214 Mayflower Hill,
>> >>> > Waterville ME, 04901-8842
>> >>> > 207-859-4214 (fax 207-859-4186)
>> >>> > Eastern Time Zone, USA
>> >>> > -----------------------------------
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Steve Campbell
>> <campbell at cnpapers.com>
>> >>> > wrote:
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I've been asked to do  a dual task for one of our users. The user is
>> >>> > retiring and wants all of his email forwarded to another user. He also
>> >>> > wants a message returned to the sender indicating that he is retiring
>> >>> > and that from here on, all email should be addressed to the user his
>> >>> > email is being forwarded to.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I use sendmail, so the forwarding would normally be done in the alias
>> >>> > file. I don't like to do out-of-office requests, but this seems like a
>> >>> > way to handle the message he wants returned to the sender. I'm not
>> sure
>> >>> > both would work at the same time anyway.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I use  the user's .procmailrc to handle the OOO stuff.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Can anyone suggest a better way to do this or an opinion on how I'm
>> >>> > thinking of doing this please?
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I'd rather the retiring user to have handled the sender's notices
>> before
>> >>> > leaving but that's not going to happen.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Thanks for any input.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > steve campbell
>> >>> >
>> >>> > --
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>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
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>>
>> --
>>
>> --
>>
>> Alex Neuman van der Hans
>> Reliant Technologies / Vida Digital
>> http://vidadigital.com.pa/
>>
>> +507-6781-9505
>> +507-832-6725
>> +1-440-253-9789 (USA)
>>
>> Follow @AlexNeuman on Twitter
>> http://facebook.com/vidadigital
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>
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-- 

--

Alex Neuman van der Hans
Reliant Technologies / Vida Digital
http://vidadigital.com.pa/

+507-6781-9505
+507-832-6725
+1-440-253-9789 (USA)

Follow @AlexNeuman on Twitter
http://facebook.com/vidadigital


-- So-called "legal disclaimers" are not legally binding, so don't
bother. A cute graphic saying "save the planet, don't print this" can
potentially create more CO2, not less, so don't bother either.


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