ietf-mta-filters
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Re: avoid double vacation messages

2008-07-09 15:37:16


Hello,

In my domain there are a lot of email addresses that are just redirects,
and end in mailboxes in all possible external domains (like mails for
user1(_at_)aegee(_dot_)org are redirected to user1(_at_)yahoo(_dot_)com and 
user2(_at_)aegee(_dot_)org is
redirected to user2(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com).

I was thinking what will happen if a user configures a vacation service
both on the redirecting server and on the server hosting her mailbox.
Actually there is not so much to think - both servers will send a
vacation reply.

This will only happen if something is broken or misconfigured - the "is
the recipient liested in the header" check should prevent the system hosting the mailbox from sending a vacation response.

Of course the user could specifically override this check with a :addresses
parameter specifying the address of the redirecting server. But that's then
a case of the user in effect saying that they want both repsonses sent.

Another potential issue is that redirection could potentially add a resent-to
field that would defeat the check. (This addition is optional in our
implementation at least.) But if that happens you now have an explicit
indicator of redirection you can test to see if you want the vacation message
sent.

But my concerns are how to suppress the second vacation,
  from the server hosting the mailbox, and indicate in the redirected
message that a vacation response has been already sent for it.

It's supposed to happen automatically. See above.

                                Ned

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