[Asterisk-Users] FIX YOUR AUTO-RESPONDERS!!!

[Joe Greco]

> > Why don't you setup a filter rule like...
> That's not the point. He isn't the only one getting them, so why
> should EVERYONE add filters to cover all possible auto reply messages?
> Just have the SENDER fix their end once for everyone.

The problem is that this is frequently an implementation error in the mail
server software, and a mere employee of a company doesn't get to force a
company to change their software "just to fix one little problem."

This programming problem largely steps from incompetence at vendors of
commercial mail server software (I believe that Exchange and Notes are
generally recognized as the most heinous offenders) because they don't
have a clue about what they're doing.

Error messages ought to be sent back to the envelope sender of a message,
which mailing list software would set as being the list management
address.  If I send a message to the Asterisk list, and the Asterisk list
then sends a message to john.q.luser at exchangeco.com, I have *not* sent a
message to JQL, and should not receive a vacation notification.  This was
designed into the protocol to avoid just this sort of thing.  Mail server
software that doesn't understand the difference between the body sender
and the envelope sender is just incompetently programmed.

It isn't just the mailing list case which breaks.  Verbatim message
forwarding, where a recipient of my mail forwards it on to a third party,
also breaks.

We also have a less formal standard for denoting various sorts of bulk
mail, which is the Precedence: header.  One should *never* reply with an
automated message to a message containing a Precedence: list, junk, or bulk
header, unless you *really* *really* know what you're doing... and probably
not even then.

The problem is that while some of us out here know how to write robust mail
systems, the people coding things like Exchange and Notes ... don't.

I will not include my normal rant about programmers who reach the point of
"it ran once successfully, it must be correct, let's release the product".

Sadly, there are more idiotic senders than there are clueful recipients.
It is a lost battle, at least many of us old-timers think so.  It doesn't
stop me from occasionally getting into a bout with a particularly nasty
mail server.  procmail rules.  :-)

Regards,

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.