[Exim] Preventing procmail induced mail loops

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Szerző: Nick O'Brien
Dátum:  
Címzett: exim-users
Tárgy: [Exim] Preventing procmail induced mail loops
Hi,

We are running Exim 2.15 (we are upgrading to 3.* over Easter :) on
Solaris 2.5.1.

Quite a few of our users have set up .forward files which filters their
mail through procmail where their .procmailrc file forwards the mail to
another accounts as well as saving the mail in their local inbox, e.g.

0:
{
    :0
    ! account@???
    :0 c
    ! another@???


    :0
    new
}


Where we run into problem is where one of the remote mail servers starts
refusing connections (e.g "552 sorry, that message exceeds my databytes
limit") and so we encounter a mail loop as bounces fly to and forth.

The side effect is that the user's inbox grows to a huge size,
ignoring the quotas set in Exim obviously as the mail is being delivered
by procmail, and the system load average often climbs to a worrying level.

Luckily either I or a colleague has been around to spot the situation,
and remove the offending .forward file, so we can contact the user about
what happened.

After looking at the Exim mailing list archives, am I right in thinking
that there is nothing within Exim we can do to prevent this happening?

Therefore am I wondering if anyone has found another way of preventing
this from happening.


    Rgds.,


        Nick.


========================================================================
"Animal? No, worse - human!", Manny - "Runaway Train"
Nick O'Brien                        Phone: +44 118 931 8432
Computer Officer                    Email: N.G.J.OBrien@???
Reading University, UK              Web: http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~vis98ngo/