[ On Sunday, January 25, 2004 at 21:28:04 (+0000), David Woodhouse wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [Exim] Stopping out-of-office auto-reply mail loops
>
> On the mail to which I'm replying I see:
> Return-path: <exim-users-admin@???>
> Sender: exim-users-admin@???
>
> Do you _really_ assert that this is either coincidence or broken
> software, rather than normal behaviour? Which of the two, in this
> particular case, do you believe to be the case -- is it just a
> coincidence or is something broken?
Coincidence.
You keep confusing the protocol layers. You seem to be so confused on
these matters that you're not even aware of your own confusion.
> > Where you respond to has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not
> > you avoid responding to bounces.
>
> Theoretically true, practically false.
Literally true, in fact. Simple logic, even. If one does not respond
to a message originating from "MAILER-DAEMON", then one will not respond
to bounces. It can't get much simpler.
Having written several MUA robots in my time I can assure you that it is
most important to design one's software in such a way that it first
decides whether or not sending a response is desirable, and only then if
a response is to be sent to decide where to send it.,m
> Take, for example, the example
> which started this thread. If it had been configured with
> 'to = $sender_address' I believe it would have automatically avoided
> responding to bounces.
At the moment I'd have to read too much code that I've no interest in
reading to know whether responding to $sender_address in this context in
Exim would itself create a bounce, or even what, exactly,
$sender_address expands to in this context.
If one did respond to bounces then one would most likely be sending mail
to "MAILER-DAEMON" and hopefully one's local postmaster would quickly
slap one on the wrist and that nonsense would be put to an end.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP RoboHack <woods@???>
Planix, Inc. <woods@???> Secrets of the Weird <woods@???>
