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Autoresponder limit not working correctly

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lehmann at cnm

Oct 14, 2009, 9:17 AM

Post #1 of 7 (1085 views)
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Autoresponder limit not working correctly

Hello,

we are using an autoreply transport with exim 4.69 and according to our
configuration:

once = /vrmd/mailin/spool/once.db
once_repeat = 1d

there should be only one autoresponse per sender address and day. But we
recently had the case, that two autoresponders where sending more than
100.000 messages to each other each day. So obviously, the limit didn't
work. How does exim know which address to use as key for the once-index?
The return-path is typically empty on auto-responses.

Kind regards
Marten

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chris+exim at qwirx

Oct 14, 2009, 12:07 PM

Post #2 of 7 (1011 views)
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Re: Autoresponder limit not working correctly [In reply to]

Hi Marten,

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009, Marten Lehmann wrote:

> we are using an autoreply transport with exim 4.69 and according to our
> configuration:
>
> once = /vrmd/mailin/spool/once.db
> once_repeat = 1d
>
> there should be only one autoresponse per sender address and day. But we
> recently had the case, that two autoresponders where sending more than
> 100.000 messages to each other each day. So obviously, the limit didn't
> work. How does exim know which address to use as key for the once-index?
> The return-path is typically empty on auto-responses.

I doubt that it solves your problem, but you should never ever send an
auto-response to a message with an empty return-path, so you could exclude
this in your ACL:

! senders = :

Cheers, Chris.
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\__/_/_/_//_/___/ | We are GNU : free your mind & your software |

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exim-users at spodhuis

Oct 14, 2009, 12:51 PM

Post #3 of 7 (1006 views)
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Re: Autoresponder limit not working correctly [In reply to]

On 2009-10-14 at 18:17 +0200, Marten Lehmann wrote:
> Hello,
>
> we are using an autoreply transport with exim 4.69 and according to our
> configuration:
>
> once = /vrmd/mailin/spool/once.db
> once_repeat = 1d
>
> there should be only one autoresponse per sender address and day. But we
> recently had the case, that two autoresponders where sending more than
> 100.000 messages to each other each day. So obviously, the limit didn't
> work. How does exim know which address to use as key for the once-index?
> The return-path is typically empty on auto-responses.

You are using "to = $sender_address" for the auto-reply, right? So that
Exim is replying to the SMTP Envelope Sender? Which would make this
impossible.

-Phil

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lehmann at cnm

Oct 27, 2009, 8:23 AM

Post #4 of 7 (921 views)
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Re: Autoresponder limit not working correctly [In reply to]

Hello,

> You are using "to = $sender_address" for the auto-reply, right?

yes. My complete auto-reply section looks like this:

address_autoreply:
driver = autoreply
text = ${lookup ldap
{ldap:///cn=$local_part@$domain,ou=users,dc=mail,dc=mail?autoresponder}}
from = $local_part@$domain
subject = Re: ${rfc2047:$header_subject:} (autoresponse)
to = $sender_address
# to = $header_from:
headers = MIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;
charset=UTF-8\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
once = /vrmd/mailin/spool/once.db
once_repeat = 1d

> So that Exim is replying to the SMTP Envelope Sender?
> Which would make this impossible.

Why? I once heard that MTAs don't send an smtp envelope sender for
bounces and autoresponses. So when a foreign MTA is sending an
autoresponse to our MTA then the MAIL FROM (= $sender_address) is empty.
And I though that the autoreply driver wouldn't send any email when the
value for "to" is empty.

As you can see I once tried it with "$header_from:", but header_from
will typically always contain a value so it is impossible to find out
wether the email to be replied to is a bounce, autoresponse or a valid
email.

Seems that I am misunderstanding something, but I can't find any better
information in the documentation.

Kind regards
Marten

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lehmann at cnm

Oct 30, 2009, 1:01 PM

Post #5 of 7 (888 views)
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Re: Autoresponder limit not working correctly [In reply to]

> You are using "to = $sender_address" for the auto-reply, right? So that
> Exim is replying to the SMTP Envelope Sender? Which would make this
> impossible.

Did you read my longer reply? In short: Yes, I'm using "to =
$sender_address", but I don't understand what's wrong with it. What
whould make the once-per-day setting impossible? $sender_address is en
email address and would perfectly make a key for a once database.

Regards
Marten

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exim-users at spodhuis

Oct 30, 2009, 5:53 PM

Post #6 of 7 (891 views)
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Re: Autoresponder limit not working correctly [In reply to]

On 2009-10-30 at 21:01 +0100, Marten Lehmann wrote:
> > You are using "to = $sender_address" for the auto-reply, right? So that
> > Exim is replying to the SMTP Envelope Sender? Which would make this
> > impossible.
>
> Did you read my longer reply? In short: Yes, I'm using "to =
> $sender_address", but I don't understand what's wrong with it. What
> whould make the once-per-day setting impossible? $sender_address is en
> email address and would perfectly make a key for a once database.

Miscommunication caused by poor phrasing on my part, sorry.

You reported on having two autoresponders responding to each other.

If you use "to = $sender_address", then you won't reply to a bounce,
because the bounce will have an empty sender.

Now, if the other auto-responder is using something other than the empty
sender, then that would explain it. And for that many responses, the
sender must have been varying.

The "exim_dumpdb" utility should let you look at the once DB; I suspect
something like BATV or VERP addressing from the other auto-responder,
which is ... unfortunate. Neither of those should be changing the empty
envelope sender, but buggy configurations are not unheard of.

You should really be using a senders filter on auto-responders, so you
could add more to that.

Eg, config.samples/C006 includes:

senders = !^.*-request@.* : !^owner-.*@.* : !^postmaster@.* : \
! ^listmaster@.* : !^mailer-daemon@.*

You probably want to build on that.

Probably also:

condition = ${if and{\
{!def:h_Auto-Submitted:}\
{!def:h_Precedence:}\
{!def:h_List-Id:}\
}}

to try to filter out some mailing-lists, auto-submitted stuff, etc.

If you have spam-scanning which inserts a header with a spam-score,
probably also worth not auto-responding to stuff which you consider
spam.

Regards,
-Phil

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jethro.binks at strath

Nov 2, 2009, 1:36 AM

Post #7 of 7 (853 views)
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Re: Autoresponder limit not working correctly [In reply to]

On Fri, 30 Oct 2009, Phil Pennock wrote:

> You should really be using a senders filter on auto-responders, so you
> could add more to that.
>
> Eg, config.samples/C006 includes:
>
> senders = !^.*-request@.* : !^owner-.*@.* : !^postmaster@.* : \
> ! ^listmaster@.* : !^mailer-daemon@.*
>
> You probably want to build on that.
>
> Probably also:
>
> condition = ${if and{\
> {!def:h_Auto-Submitted:}\
> {!def:h_Precedence:}\
> {!def:h_List-Id:}\
> }}
>
> to try to filter out some mailing-lists, auto-submitted stuff, etc.

See also the following for a more complete list of other conditions you
may want to consider:

http://wiki.exim.org/EximAutoReply

Jethro.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jethro R Binks
Computing Officer, IT Services, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

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