Re: [opensuse] Why no Reply-To?

On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 23:26, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Just assume for a moment that this list had the reply-to changed to the
list. Then assume, as it happens now and then, that a user sets an autoreply
on his account to say he is off for the holidays. Now think:

 - You send an email to the list.
 - The list sends it to every body, including to the chap on vacation.
 - The autoreply on vacation replies, to the list server, that his owner
  is on vacation.
 - The list server will now send this "on vacation" message to the entire
  list.
 - This second message will provoke another "on vacation" email from that
  chap system, which will be sent to the list again...

You got a loop which can sends thousands of emails to the thousands of
subscribers, ie, millions of emails sent per hour, before some admin takes
action and kills it.

This is one of the scenarios that mail admins try to avoid by not changing
the reply-to header. This is the standard and proper method. If your sofware
does not follow the standard, live and suffer. As I do.

You know.. I'm on a LOT of MLs (and I'm a moderator on several right
now). Most munge the reply-to (including the ones I moderate)... and
I've never, in all the years I've been on MLs, seen this scenario
happen... not once. Yet it's always used as an example of how things
can go wrong with munged reply-tos

This is not to argue the case one way or the other... I don't care.. I
can work with either method... but... if this is such a "good" example
(and it must be since it's used every single time this discussion
comes up), why isn't it, as described, flooding all the MLs I'm on?
It doesn't happen in the real world, for whatever reason... well..
I've never seen it happen... ever, and I've seen Vacation autoreplies
pop up on every single ML I've subscribed to.

C.
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: [opensuse] Why no Reply-To?
    ... The list sends it to every body, including to the chap on vacation. ... This is the standard and proper method. ... I've never, in all the years I've been on MLs, seen this scenario ... and I've seen Vacation autoreplies ...
    (SuSE)
  • Re: out of office auto replies (was Re: Mock Penentration Test Site)
    ... People, mailing lists are easy to filter out for autoreplies, do it. ... I know they do this on other Security Focus lists. ... > subscribers can forward those vacation autoreplies? ...
    (Pen-Test)
  • Vacation and Sendmail
    ... Has anybody had experience with the Vacation extension of Sendmail? ... autoreplies after reading .forward file in a user's $HOME directory. ... Our users don't have ftp or shell access to the mail server, ...
    (comp.mail.sendmail)
  • Re: Vacation and Sendmail
    ... Has anybody had experience with the Vacation extension of Sendmail? ... autoreplies after reading .forward file in a user's $HOME directory. ... Our users don't have ftp or shell access to the mail server, ...
    (comp.mail.sendmail)