procmail
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Re: procmail as a delivery agent doesn't like root?

1997-07-18 09:15:00
Randy Schultz <schultz(_at_)cray(_dot_)com> writes:
On Thu, 17 Jul 1997, Philip Guenther spaketh thusly:
-{
-{done so.  Is this a vendor supplied binary?).  You don't want the 'm' or
-{'o' flags, and probably don't want the 'u' either.  Instead you'll

You had mentioned a few months ago on this list that the 'm' flag 
doesn't gain anything.  Why is this?  I would think it desireable esp.
on emails with many recipients.

Procmail tells sendmail whether or not the message was successfully
delivered using its return code.  With only one return code and
multiple recipients, procmail can't tell sendmail the whole story if
only one recipient can't be delivered to (or if their .procmailrc
explictly bounces the message).  It therefore takes the conservative
choice and returns failure, even if some of the recipients could be
delivered to.  Since sendmail can't tell who failed, it'll either retry
them all again later, resulting in duplicated mail, or return a bounce
message that lists all the addresses as failed instead of just the much
smaller list of real failures.


Also, wouldn't the 'o' flag be better to ensure recipients aren't running
things as somebody other than themselves?

Procmail handles all the uid switching for you.  That's why it's setuid
root after all.  Besides, the 'S' flag overrides the 'o' flag.


Philip Guenther

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