Re: Proper procedure for bounced mails?

["Jens Knoell" <jens@ing.twinwave.net>]

From: "Glynn Clements" <glynn.clements@virgin.net>
> Whereabouts in the message delivery chain does the script sit? Does it
> process the message as it comes in, or is it fed the message after the
> SMTP server has acknowledged its acceptance?

It uses the Mlocal part of sendmail's config, so it is possible to use the
exit code, as far as I know. But to the best of my knowledge, it's not
possible to return some custom string to indicate the reason for failure, is
there?

> For the former (e.g. if the script is registered as a mailer in
> sendmail.cf, or called from a procmail rule), it should simply report
> a failure via its exit code, so that the SMTP server indicates an
> error immediately. This eliminates the need to construct a bounce
> message.

Absolutely - IF I can somehow return a custom error message like "Message
appears to be spam - look at http://blah.blubb.bleh/spampolicy.html" or some
such...?

> For the latter, then it needs to send a bounce message to the
> *envelope* sender address; sending bounces to any other address may
> result in your domain being blacklisted by mailing lists.

That's what I currently do, I think.

Good point about mimicking sendmail's generic error messages... I hadn't
thought of doing it that way.

Thanks a lot
Jens