RE: [courier-users] TO command not using SENDMAIL variable?

Jay Lee wrote:
> Bowie wrote:
> > Sam wrote:
> > > I'm still waffling as to the right solution for this. There are
> > > three basic options -- pass along the original $SENDER, as you're
> > > doing. I earlier believe that if that bounced, the backscatter will
> > > get eaten, but I was wrong. The forward message is really a new
> > > message that originates locally, whose contents happen to be the same
> > > as the original message, and its any bounce is not seen as
> > > backscatter. The second option is to set the return address to a
> > > null, thus all bounces get discarded -- the current behavior. The
> > > third option is to use the address doing the forwarding as the return
> > > address, but this may result in mail loops.
> >
> > I'm not sure I understand why this would be considered backscatter.
> > This is what I see:
> >
> > - Someone sends mail to one of my users
> > - I use maildrop to forward that mail to the user's preferred account
> > - Any bounces generated at any point in the chain need to go back to
> > the original sender so that he knows the message was not received.
>
> I believe Sam changed the sender on TO and CC because of problems I
> had awhile back, it had originally been set to the recipient address
> (See http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/m...sg_id=11317249).
> I was getting loops because of situations similar to what you
> mentioned. Users were using the .mailfilter to forward mail to
> another account, if the account went down though (as freemail
> accounts regularly do), then either the local or remote server would
> generate a delivery failure which would need to be delivered to the
> recipient again, which the .mailfilter would try to forward and we
> have ourselves a loop.

Right. I can see why this would cause a problem.

> I've been doing ok with < > although I think it means mail sometimes
> blackhole dissapears from a user's perspective. I'm not sure about
> setting the recipient to sender. Suppose the sender is a mailing
> list. I'm subscribed to the list as jlee@pbu.edu, I forward all mail
> to jlee@gmail.com via a .mailfilter that sets the mail from to
> $SENDER. Should my gmail account close down, the mailing list will
> get the delivery failure but they'll have no way of knowing it was
> jlee@pbu.edu that is subscribed and has issues. Same thing when you
> send a message to more than one person (although it might be easier
> to track down in this case).

I'm trying to avoid the blackhole possibility for legitimate mail.

People (and mailing lists) may receive bounces from an unexpected
address, but I consider this to be better than receiving no bounce at
all.

> I'm not sure there is a perfect solution in this case...

I _AM_ sure that there is no perfect solution here. Everything is a
trade-off of some form.

--
Bowie


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