I want to implement a mailing list filter as simply as posible
preferably using a procmail filter receipe file.
By simply, I mean I do NOT want a full Mail List Manager (MLM).
No subscription or other administration. No extra files per list,
I just want to filter out, and bounce certain unwanted mail from
a mailing list. In fact I want to use the same filter for a large
number of mailing lists.
IE: something like the following in a sendmail aliases file...
testlist: |"/opt/bin/procmail -m /etc/procmailrcs/listfilter.rc testlist"
The situation. I am the postmaster for a teaching environment at a
university. We automatically generate student accounts from the student
enrollments. Over the years this automatic account creation has expanded
so that not only the student accounts are generated but some 500+
mailing lists are also automatically generated. Mailing lists cover
things line a list for each subject, course, year, project group, etc,
etc, etc.
These programmically generated lists were being handled with a simple
sendmail maillist, along the lines...
testlist: :include:/account_admin_dir/mail/testlist
Of course this provides no protection from spammers or from malicious
students. In past years we generally take action against one or two
students and the problem disappears.
This year however with the advent of the web free mail service providers
(read hotmail) and the use of web proxies, has ment it is next to
imposible to figure out who is sending a particularly annoying mail. A
re-wroked photo of one of the lecturers, who is most annoyed to say the
least.
QUESTIONS:
1/ Someone must have implemented just a bare minimum mail list filter.
But I can't seem to locate an example of it.
2/ How can procmail resubmit a mail to a large list of addresses?
Majordomo does this by creating a testlist-outgoing
mail alias and re-sending the mail to that, but that outgoing list
has now spam filter protection, if you know majordomo is being
used.
I am investigating SmarList at this time to find its solution
3/ How should procmail handle rejected mail, assuming it isn't of
course ^FROM_DAEMON. I have read the ``Moronic Mail Autoresponders
(A FAQ From Hell)'' webpage but that doesn't give a example of
using procmail to bounce mail.
4/ Any suggestions on determining if a mail originates from outside a
particular domain or IP pattern. This does not seem trival
as finding the last sendmail Recived: header for the host procmail
is running, as this mailing list message could have been forwarded
to this machine from another inside the domain.
EG: spmmaer.outside_domain -> machine.domain
Then machine.domain -> maillist_server.domain
which explodes the mail.
I am still working though the morass of information on procmail tips,
but haven't found solutions to the above problems. Any and all help,
tips or suggestions (other than installing a full mail list manager)
and examples welcome.
Anthony Thyssen ( System Programmer ) http://www.sct.gu.edu.au/~anthony/
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Using encryption on the Internet is the equivalent of arranging an
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anthony(_at_)lyrch(_dot_)cit(_dot_)gu(_dot_)edu(_dot_)au