Tim Bass writes:
This is far, far astream of procmail, so I won't go into further
detail -- I have done so in private email to Tim. If anyone else wants
to continue the discussion, it should be in private mail, I guess.
First, why is discussing system level issues with procmail
'far upsteam'?
Because the issue (of mail to invalid users) should ideally be
resolved before procmail comes into play. It's as easy as that.
Is only receipe discussions allowed?
Second, the solution in access_db with blackmail does not meet the
requirements of my original question.
You're absolutely right. Can't catch blackmailers with access_db, no question.
My question was not how to take the name of spammers and put the
into a database, which has been considered the 'solution'. It
is not; I should know, I defined the problem.
The problem is how to filter mail with procmail for user acccounts
that do not exist, delivering to valid accounts.
Your original question was:
| How do you use procmail to filter all the spam which goes
| to 'names' which do not exist?
This is different from what you are asking _now_. Do you know what
the problem is? Can you put it into clear non-misunderstanding words?
What do you _really_ want?
- accept no mail at all for invalid users? - the MTA should do it for you.
No LDA involved at all. 550 Failure reply, see RFC 821.
- accept mail for invalid users and route it to valid accounts - see
/etc/alias, or sendmail's various *table features.
- if rerouting via alias or genericstable or virtusertable is used,
only _then_, at LDA level, you can use procmail to filter out msgs to
the invalid accounts in many different ways, depending on what you intend.
- rerouting all mails to invalid accounts to valid accounts, with the
exception of spam - in this scenario it makes no difference at all
whether the accounts in question are valid or not, because the delivery
issues are the same. Your MTA _will_ need to have some sort of
blacklisting/rbl/etc in place, or, if procmail is the LDA, you can
use system-wide .rc files in /etc as indicated in the procmail(1)
man page.
- you _can_ use access_db to refuse any mail for invalid users, like
luser(_at_)domain(_dot_)com 550 Mailbox disabled for this recipient
or
lusenet(_at_)domain(_dot_)com 550 Fix your harvester, spammer
(the latter being prompted eg. by a combination of broken usenet address
harvesters and 'plus' addressing, ala 'user+lusenet(_at_)domain(_dot_)com').
- anything else: maybe I didn't understand the question.
However, think it is better not to ask here. The louder, more
active voices on the list seem to not want to talk about and
only want to provide inaccuate, incomplete discussions.
What's the point in blaming others if you can't communicate your
problem in the first place?
Many have pointed out that the access_db solution is not what
we require. We should know, it is our requirement!
It seems I've stumbled into another list dominated by a few
people who have decided that only their topics are appropriate.
Bother reading the procmail archives before spewing wild accusations?
*PLONK*
Good Bye.
Good Riddance.