And verily didst Brent Chapman spake of these matters:
>
> # >I have 1.92. I'm using resend. Is there a way to handle bounces
> # >automatically - i.e. if a message bounces, have MajorDomo automatically
> # >move the address from the list to the bounces list? Or does it all have to
> # >be done by hand (i.e. by sending a BOUNCE command to MajorDomo)?
> #
> I used to think the same way, but now I'm not so sure... I'm up to
> several _hundred_ bounces a day for Firewalls; I've _got_ to do
> something...
Although my autobounce program is only working on 1.62 currently,
I'll post it here for anyone who wants to try it now.
> I started looking at the bounces, and realized that some very large
> fraction of them (80% or more) are generated by a handful of different
> mailers (sendmail, sendmail v8, mmdf, etc.). I think that for any
> list, a large percentage of the bounces are going to be generated by
> your own mailer, as the result of host unknown or user unknown
> problems when your mailer tried to send the message outbound.
That's exactly why it is worth doing. Don't worry about the few
fringe bounces; get the bulk.
> email addresses from that format. Each recognizer subroutine would be
> in a seperate file in a particular directory; you could add more
> routines just by adding files to the directory, and we could trade
> them like trading cards, without having to modify the base program.
> The base program would simply apply the various recognizer routines
> until one of them signalled a match, and forward the message to the
> list owner if none of them matched.
This is one area I'm still undecided on. I agree there should be
some separation from the code itself for easy updates/additions.
The flip side is that I worry about the proliferation of a bunch
of little files to get lost, etc. What I ended up with is a single
configuration file separate from the code, but with all mailer profiles
in the one file.
> I've been thinking of having the base program, instead of immediately
> bouncing the address in question, log the address to a file. Each
> ...
> recognizer actions). Then, nightly, I'd run something against this
> log that decided who to bounce according to some policy (i.e., more
> than N bounces, or bounces on more than N of the last M days, or
> whatever).
A good idea. A problem with my approach is that it is a
"take-no-prisoners" method: One bounce and you're history.
However, most of the transient bounces I get are from sendmail
notices which have an SMTP error code in the 4XX series. So I
made my sendmail profile only match 5XX error codes, which mostly
fixes it.
- Alan
----
Alan Millar E-Mail: amillar@bolis.SF-Bay.org
System Administrator Web: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/amillar/welcome.html
MOSTLY harmless??!!
References:
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