woods@??? (Greg A. Woods) writes:
> [...] The real defense is called
> ``rate limiting'' and has been implemented by BSD Vacation since at
> least 1990, and perhaps even since its inception in 1983, though I don't
> have a copy of the original to check. It's such a powerful and
> successful mechanism that [...]
Unfortunately, some versions of "vacation" don't do this in a robust
way. Any problem with the ${HOME}/.vacation dbm file that records
messages sent, e.g. a failure to create it because the user mucked up,
or to extend it because the user is over quota, causes the autoreply
to be sent anyway. This has in fact caused loops for us in the past.
The safe thing would be *not* to send the message if there is trouble
with the dbm file, of course.
Chris Thompson
Email: cet1@???
