At 07:17 PM 7/29/97 -0500, Matthew G. Saroff wrote:
Hi,
I put in a field to check for to avoid loops:
X-Loop: msaroff(_at_)pca(_dot_)net
As can be seen in this bounce (I've snipped most of it) It comes
back without the the field.
First, X-Loop (or whatever other optional header you choose) is not
guaranteed to be there when the message is sent back to you. It is
particularly useful for keeping yourself from sending out replies to
messages that you send out (someone can forge a message to be from you and
mail you with it -- causing your procmail config to barf on itself -- an
alarming number of people can be whacked by this). If you mail something
to someone else and they've got an autoreply, which sends something back to
you, this can (as long as they're not removing the header) keep you from
replying to it as well.
It still won't do beans for you if the message is coming from the MAILER,
since that header is NEWLY CONSTRUCTED. Anything you're putting in the
header and hoping to use won't be there. This includes the subject line.
I made specific reference that X-Loop wasn't going to do you any good in
one of my two messages on this topic yesterday. Did you happen to read
either of them?
I'm thinking that this might be more of a sendmail problem than a
procmail problem, but does anyonehave a clue?
Well, again as I mentioned yesterday, the specific errors you're getting
are a function of a lame sendmail config at the receiving end. However,
the mail loop is a function of you blindly forwarding EVERYTHING -
INCLUDING BOUNCES - to the other address.
Also, don't even think of looking for an X-Loop in the body, since this
will cause legitimate forwards and some replies with headers to fail to be
forwarded - such as your message to the list, or anybodies reply to it
which incudes the text.
---
Please DO NOT carbon me on list replies. I'll get my copy from the list.
Sean B. Straw / Professional Software Engineering
Post Box 2395 / San Rafael, CA 94912-2395