"Vacation" mail loop

[cpbs]

Hi folks,

I just interrupted a mail loop in which a DirectAdmin "vacation message" was participating. I broke the loop by removing the "vacation message", waiting a few minutes, and then recreating it.

The incoming mails were not from the "<>" null sender (which is bad - envelope sender for autoresponses should be "<>"), although I see that the autoreplies going out from DirectAdmin/exim *were* from "<>" - that's good.

I'm pretty sure I remember the old unix "vacation" program kept a database of addresses to which it had autoreplied and would not autoreply to an address it had seen within the last n days (n=7 by default, IIRC). I would suggest that DirectAdmin's "vacation messages" and "autoresponders" features should use something similar to prevent forwarding loops like this.

Thanks.

 

[nobaloney]

I thought it did. Any other comments?

Jeff

 

[DirectAdmin Support]

Depends if you've got the updated exim.conf or not...

Check your /etc/exim.conf, in the section for "uservaction" for the code

  #once re-added May 16, 2008:
  once = /etc/virtual/${domain}/reply/${local_part}.once
  once_file_size = 100K
  once_repeat = 2d

which is the database controlling this, to prevent loops.

If you don't have it, just update your exim.conf
http://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=51

John

 

[cpbs]

Thanks, it was indeed due to an old version of exim.conf.

 

[nobaloney]

Note to everyone: The SpamBlocker 3-beta version on my website as of this post doesn't have this latest code. I don't have any idea how I missed it.

However I'll add it later tonight, and post here again when it's added. Users of SpamBlocker 3-beta will need to update their exim.conf files manually (it's very easy). I'll post the method later tonight in the SpamBlocker 3 forum here, and also to the DirectAdmin mailing list.

Jeff