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Oh! That's odd.
<br />
<br />I've worked with the .forward file at the CLI for years and know its behavior. But I'd never used a autoresponder till I was pushed into BlueQuartz some years back. Back then, the vacation message was problematic - sometimes causing the CPU load to go through the roof and stay there. So I usually just disabled the feature and didn't work with it. And so I didn't really understand where it was activated in the process flow.
<br />
<br />So it seems you're saying the autoresponder is a Sendmail function - something activated inside Sendmail or called by Sendmail? Wouldn't that mean that Sendmail or its configs are modified each time a user activates or deactivates their vacation message function? That seems a little excessive, or high-level for a user-level requirement. But I guess if its the only to make it work....
<br />
<br />Thanks for the education Michael.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Chuck
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<br /><b>---------- Original Message
-----------</b>
<br />
From: Michael Stauber <mstauber@blueonyx.it>
<br />
To: BlueOnyx General Mailing List <blueonyx@mail.blueonyx.it>
<br />
Sent: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:56:24 +0200
<br />
Subject: [BlueOnyx:10104] Re: Vacation message bugs
<br />
<br />> Hi Chuck,
<br />>
<br />>
> I think any other method would risk potentially revealing the address you
<br />>
> have your mail forwarded to - something you might not want.
<br />>
<br />>
That is a good point, Chuck.
<br />>
<br />>
No, all in all Mon Chan's setup will not work and only one vacation message
<br />>
will be sent. Which is good enough anyway, because why does the sender really
<br />>
need to get two vacation messages after sending just one email to one
<br />>
recipient?
<br />>
<br />>
That's like overkill.
<br />>
<br />>
The way it works is this:
<br />>
<br />>
The email comes in. The recipient is mon1@aaa.com. This recipient has an auto-
<br />>
responder configured AND a forward to mon2@aaa.com
<br />>
<br />>
The auto-responder will happen first. It checks if the sender has already
<br />>
received an auto-responder message in the last couple of days. If he has not,
<br />>
then the auto-responder message is sent to the sender.
<br />>
<br />>
In the next step the .forward kicks in. This happens AFTER sendmail is done
<br />>
with the email and forwards it to the local mailbox of the recipient.
<br />>
<br />>
The .forward does it's job and delivers a copy of the email to mon2@aaa.com.
<br />>
As this happens AFTER Sendmail is done with the email and the recipient mon2
<br />>
is a local user on the same box, the auto-responder will not be triggered.
<br />>
Because Sendmail doesn't "see" the message. So it cannot jump on it
with the
<br />>
auto-responder.
<br />>
<br />>
This behaviour cannot be changed, so if you set up a chain of auto-responders
<br />>
that bounce messages to each others, then the sender of the email will get
<br />>
only one auto-responder message. From the first user that he emailed to.
<br />>
<br />>
If the sender sends an email to multiple users with enabled auto-responders,
<br />>
then that is a different story and he will get as many auto-responder messages
<br />>
as applicable.
<br />>
<br />>
--
<br />>
With best regards
<br />>
<br />>
Michael Stauber
<br />>
_______________________________________________
<br />>
Blueonyx mailing list
<br />>
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<br />>
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