Quoth Harald Meland on Mon, Dec 21, 1998:
> Setting 'ignore_errmsg_errors' (or 'ignore_errmsg_errors_after') to
> true does help a bit, but I would prefer the original error message to
> be available in full -- a single line in the log stating the incorrect
> address is not all that helpful when trying to track down which Eudora
> user has misconfigured their return address.
If I didn't have ignore_errmsg_errors set, I would not be able to
do any real work except of watching exim's queue (which was true
in the first two weeks after we installed exim, just because I
looked forward for something to fail). But I want to do things
like perl hacking, installations, and wiring RS-232 cables. IMO,
throwing away undeliverable error messages is perfectly fine.
> With sendmail, the failed error message is made into a error message,
> with both envelope sender and recipient set to MAILER-DAEMON. The
> original, bogus-envelope-sender message is then available to whoever
> receives MAILER-DAEMON's mail.
"<MAILER-DAEMON>" or "<>"?
> I can see a few possible "solutions" to the problem:
>
> * Make all valid localparts known to all hosts running any SMTP
> service (via some grand distributed configuration scheme, like
> LDAP). However, this is a situation I am not very likely to find
> myself in shortly...
What we have here is a Hesiod-distributed passwd file and an
access list (so bad (or, to be precise, not good enough) people
don't login to important machines). And that's how it's supposed
to be. BOFHish? Maybe. Works? Yes. Good? Perfect.
> * Come up with something clever to make Exim do what sendmail does.
IMO, the good solution will be making this behavior optional.
> * Make some scripts to gather up the frozen error messages from my
> mail relays and put them somewhere (e.g. in MAILER-DAEMON's
> mailbox) "by hand".
By hand? Naah, re-writing something in them and thawing them
will be nice.
> * Set `ignore_errmsg_errors', scan Exim's logs for ignored error
> messages, and compare with POP logs, samba logs, and so on and so
> forth in an attempt to track down which Eudora user I should notify
> about the incorrect sender address.
You're sick, my friend. Look for simple solutions. This one is
so complicated that it's hard to do it right and you're just
looking for trouble.
> * Set 'ignore_errmsg_errors' and just don't care that whoever sets
> their MUA up to use incorrect sender addresses won't be able to
> send _anyone_ mail. This option is tempting, to say the least ;-)
A nice one.
> [ An additional bonus is that this solution would reduce the
> possibility that my users are feeling I'm invading their
> privacy. ]
Sometimes postmasters just have to do it, although it's
disgusting, to say the least. But we set up out postmaster
address (in the pre-exim days) so it strips off the body of the
failed message, passing on to the human only the headers of the
error message + the headers of the failed message.
> OTOH, I might be missing something -- if so, would anyone please tell
> me what it is?
You're missing apathy, maybe?
Vadik.
--
If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a protected
abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor, and when
was the last time you needed one?
-- Tom Cargil, C++ Journal.
--
*** Exim information can be found at
http://www.exim.org/ ***
