Forwarder bug?

I

IT_Architect

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I have a new customer that has everybody get a copy of everyone else's email. I setup forwarders like this to test the process:
[email protected] -> [email protected],[email protected],[email protected]
[email protected] -> [email protected],[email protected],[email protected]
[email protected] -> [email protected],[email protected],[email protected]
[email protected] -> [email protected],[email protected],[email protected]

If I send a message to test, test1, test2, and test 3 will get a copy as expected. However, test gets two copies of the message. If I send a message to test1, test 1 gets two copies of the message, and the others get one copy, etc.

I made up a test4 account with no forwarder. It gets one copy of the message as expected.

If there is no way around this behavior, please let me know and I'll put them on a different server with a different control panel.

Thanks!
 
Here is something that I can tell you doesn't work, forward to lists. You will immediately notice a big server slow-down. I don't think I need to explain.
 
They agreed to having all of their computers check all of their accounts and leave a copy on the server for 10 days.
 
What you've done is set up a loop.

user1 -> user2 -> user1

I don't see how any control panel can protect against that other than to not let you set up the forwarder.

Jeff
 
Originally posted by jlasman What you've done is set up a loop. user1 -> user2 -> user1 I don't see how any control panel can protect against that other than to not let you set up the forwarder. Jeff
Click to expand...
The last time I had to do this it was with a control panel that would do this fine, vDeck. I haven't had a server with a Plesk control panel for 11 months and I closed down my last cPanel server last week. I never had the occasion to test this on them. DirectAdmin almost does it in that only the originating mail box will end up with a second copy of the originating message. H-Spere catches on only after it has created a complete Cartesian Product in each mail box, and then sends looping error message for each message.

I'm pleased the customer would accept a more portable solution. The only thing that I know is they came from a Windows server. I don't know what, if any, control panel they had.
 
The customer changed his mind. The owner can't log into Webmail that way and see all of the messages. He wants them all to go to one account, but they need to be able to be sent using their own E-mail account. They don't want a second copy in their own E-Mail.

Any thoughts?
 
Now I'm a bit lost.

The owner wants a copy of all incoming email? Or all outgoing email?

For incoming email, simply create a new account for the owner. Then create for every user a mailbox and also a forwarder to the owner's new account.

For outgoing email it requires some changes to your exim.conf file which will make it a custom exim installation. And it won't stop people from using other mailservers (for example their ISP's mailserver from home) to send email from their company return address.

Jeff
 
jlasman said:
Now I'm a bit lost. The owner wants a copy of all incoming email? Or all outgoing email?
Click to expand...
All incoming mail. This is what they really want.
1. One incoming mail directory to pick up messages from. They are left on the server for 10 days. This allows the owner to see all messages when he logs into web mail when he is traveling around the country.
2. Each user has their own account to respond to the messages from.
3. SpamAssassin ropes possible spam into a spam directory where one person can rummage though it to separate the sheep from the goats. The sheep get put back into the live area where people can see and pull them in pop3 or view them with webmail.
 
Okay, everyone has their own email box.

Including the owner. But the owner also has a separate email box, perhaps checkout@example.com.

For every email box except checkout you also create a forwarder, forwarding the email to checkout@example.com.

I don't think you can manage Spam separately, though. I don't use SpamAssassin and I don't know where the forwarding takes place.

Jeff
 
The obvious, and cleanest method I can envision is intercepting messages early and routing them to a common mailbox that has spam filtering and everyone checks. Outbound would go through the users account. That would not be out-of-the-box support, and may, or may not be simple. I would need an Exim and SpamAssassin expert to know if this is feasible.

Currently, I have it set up so everyone pulls everyone else's email. But that makes it spam times five, and time six if I add a combined folder I forward to.

My thoughts are
- Setup a spam account. Set the filtering to be aggressive for the domain, and route potential spam to a spam folder on the spam account. The spam manager separates the sheep from the goats and moves the sheep into the inbox where everyone can pick them up POP3.
- Have all accounts, including the spam account, forward to the the combined account.

To make that work:
- Messages would need to be forwarded after the spam filter so spam wouldn't make it to the common folder.
- When messages are moved from the spam folder to the inbox on the spam account, they would then need to be picked up by the fowarder and sent to the common account.

I don't know the answer to these two yet.

Thanks!
 
Was there something wrong with my idea?

Your idea seems a bit confusing and gives everyone access to everyone's email.

Or is that something you need?

Your idea would also require some kind of authentication set up for each user as the built-in popb4smtp wouldn't work if they were to send through their own account (why would they need to send through their own account, anyway?)

Jeff
 
Forwarders not working

I have a regular email account setup for [email protected] that is working. The user would like a copy of messages kept in this account but also forwarded to an outside email account so I setup a forwarder for [email protected] -> [email protected]

When I have both setup only the real mailbox gets the message. When I remove the account and just setup the forwarder then the outside mailbox gets the message.

I have this setup on many other servers and it works great. I can not figure out what the problem is. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Running DA 1.28.6
 
Is this a virtual mailbox user, or the main mailbox for the site?

You should carefully compare whatever version of exim.conf you're using against one which works without error; either the order or content of routers in exim.conf could cause the problem.

Or just install a new exim.conf file (be sure to make the changes as required).

Be sure to restart exim after changing/replacing exim.conf.

Jeff
 
jlasman said:
Was there something wrong with my idea?Jeff
Click to expand...
The only thing not handled is the spam. I put something out on the SpamAssassin forum for that. I've also baited a forum for an Exim hack where I could divert all incoming emails for legitimate users for a domain and have them go to one mail box. That way I could catch all the spam in one place...maybe. I thought I had several better ideas in the mean time, but they also limped.
 
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