procmail
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"TO" equals "from"?

1998-09-30 16:28:16
My situation is a little convoluted, and my understanding of procmail is
modest (but has been improving by leaps and bounds as I try to get to the
root of this problem). Here goes.

I run an announcement-only mailing list on my home computer. The list
server (Letter Rip, FWIW) relies on a POP box at my web-hosting service for
all incoming mail. I have several different e-mail addresses for it that I
route to the same box using very basic procmail recipes, like this:

:0
* ^TOxj-list
! admin(_at_)crossroads(_dot_)net

I have a few other simple recipes of this type as well. Anything that
doesn't otherwise get handled gets dropped into my personal inbox by
default.

Here's the rub: When I send something to my own list, the listserver then
tries to send me a copy (since I am a listmember). But in response to list
traffic, the recipe shown above seems to match on the  *sender*, creating a
mail loop. This is relatively benign--the listserver does not try to
re-transmit the looped message. But it does mean that I don't get my own
posts, which I would prefer, just to make sure everything is OK. I was
under the impression that a "TO" condition did not match "From:", but that
seems to be exactly what is happening.

I tried creating a recipe that would intercept mail that looked like it was
for me personally and drop it in my inbox, but if placed earlier than the
above recipe, it pre-empts the  above recipe, so that when I sent e-mail to
the list, it just comes back to me. In other words, "TO"="From:" in this
case as well. If this recipe comes after the above recipe, it is not
invoked.

What is especially odd is that the listserver also generates daily status
reports, which it e-mails to me. I wasn't getting those either until I
started messing with procmail's logging settings--they were looping back
the admin box. Now I am getting those.

I should note that as a result of all the studying I've been doing, I have
changed the "TO" shown above to "TO_" in my recipes (my hosting service is
using the latest version of procmail, so this should be OK), and I have not
had any traffic on the list since I made that change.

Thanks in advance for any help.

    Adam Rice |  adamrice(_at_)crossroads(_dot_)net  | Check out
Austin TX USA | http://www.crossroads.net | XJ: Translation Jobs

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