[mlmmj] How to disable bounce probes

[mlmmj] How to disable bounce probes

[Marc MAURICE]

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Hello,

Is it possible to disable mlmmj bounce probe feature ?

I have an open mailing list (anybody can post), receiving lot of spam.
This list is more like an alias (as in /etc/aliases), with multiple
destinations, but it's convenient for me to have it managed by mlmmj.

Those spams are deleted by the subscribers antispams, however, mlmmj
receives bounces, and send bounce probes to check, I guess, that the
subscriber is active.

So my users are receiving the following.
Question : is it possible to disable bounce probes ?

"
Some messages to you could not be delivered. If you're seeing this
message it means things are back to normal, and it's merely for your
information.

Here is the list of the bounced messages:
"

Thanks in advance,
Marc

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Re: [mlmmj] How to disable bounce probes

[Ben Schmidt]

One way to do it is to set 'staticbounceaddr' (see TUNABLES) to send the
bounces to a black-hole, rather than having Mlmmj process them. Mlmmj
will then think nothing is bouncing, so will not try to probe.

I think removing the text/probe or text/bounce-probe list text would
also turn off the messages, but log an error to syslog when Mlmmj tries
to send one. You'd have a record of which address are bouncing that way,
though, which may or may not be a benefit.

Beware, though, that if a lot of spam emails are being sent from your
mail server, you may end up with your IP blacklisted or something like
that. It's probably more worth your while to try to filter out the spam
and avoid it going out at all. Ignoring the problem by turning the
bounces off will just let the problem grow, unnoticed and unrestrained.

That's my opinion, anyway.

Cheers,

Ben.



On 16/03/12 8:12 AM, Marc MAURICE wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Is it possible to disable mlmmj bounce probe feature ?
>
> I have an open mailing list (anybody can post), receiving lot of spam.
> This list is more like an alias (as in /etc/aliases), with multiple destinations,
> but it's convenient for me to have it managed by mlmmj.
>
> Those spams are deleted by the subscribers antispams, however, mlmmj receives
> bounces, and send bounce probes to check, I guess, that the subscriber is active.
>
> So my users are receiving the following.
> Question : is it possible to disable bounce probes ?
>
> "
> Some messages to you could not be delivered. If you're seeing this
> message it means things are back to normal, and it's merely for your
> information.
>
> Here is the list of the bounced messages:
> "
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Marc

Re: [mlmmj] How to disable bounce probes

[Mads Martin Jørgensen]

Another option is to not run mlmmj-maintd.

-- 
Mads Martin Jørgensen

On 15/03/2012, at 22.47, Ben Schmidt <mail_ben_schmidt@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

> One way to do it is to set 'staticbounceaddr' (see TUNABLES) to send the
> bounces to a black-hole, rather than having Mlmmj process them. Mlmmj
> will then think nothing is bouncing, so will not try to probe.
>
> I think removing the text/probe or text/bounce-probe list text would
> also turn off the messages, but log an error to syslog when Mlmmj tries
> to send one. You'd have a record of which address are bouncing that way,
> though, which may or may not be a benefit.
>
> Beware, though, that if a lot of spam emails are being sent from your
> mail server, you may end up with your IP blacklisted or something like
> that. It's probably more worth your while to try to filter out the spam
> and avoid it going out at all. Ignoring the problem by turning the
> bounces off will just let the problem grow, unnoticed and unrestrained.
>
> That's my opinion, anyway.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ben.
>
>
>
> On 16/03/12 8:12 AM, Marc MAURICE wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Is it possible to disable mlmmj bounce probe feature ?
>>
>> I have an open mailing list (anybody can post), receiving lot of spam.
>> This list is more like an alias (as in /etc/aliases), with multiple destinations,
>> but it's convenient for me to have it managed by mlmmj.
>>
>> Those spams are deleted by the subscribers antispams, however, mlmmj receives
>> bounces, and send bounce probes to check, I guess, that the subscriber is active.
>>
>> So my users are receiving the following.
>> Question : is it possible to disable bounce probes ?
>>
>> "
>> Some messages to you could not be delivered. If you're seeing this
>> message it means things are back to normal, and it's merely for your
>> information.
>>
>> Here is the list of the bounced messages:
>> "
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Marc
>
>

Re: [mlmmj] How to disable bounce probes

[Ben Schmidt]

On 16/03/12 8:49 AM, Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:
> Another option is to not run mlmmj-maintd.

Off the top of my head I can't remember exactly what mlmmj-maintd does, but 
doesn't it do other things that shouldn't be disabled, like requeuing mail on 
temporary SMTP failures and sending digests and stuff?

Ben.

Re: [mlmmj] How to disable bounce probes

[Mads Martin Jørgensen]

On 16/03/12 13.05, Ben Schmidt wrote:
>> Another option is to not run mlmmj-maintd.
>
> Off the top of my head I can't remember exactly what mlmmj-maintd does,
> but doesn't it do other things that shouldn't be disabled, like
> requeuing mail on temporary SMTP failures and sending digests and stuff?

Absolutely. But in the use cases that I know of, where bounces are 
uninteresting due to spam, public lists, etc. people have realized that 
all the mlmmj-maintd functionality is something that is good to disable.

-- 
Mads Martin Joergensen, http://mmj.dk
"Why make things difficult, when it is possible to make them cryptic
  and totally illogical, with just a little bit more effort?"
                                  -- A. P. J.

Re: [mlmmj] How to disable bounce probes

[Marc MAURICE]

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Hello,

Thanks for your response.
> One way to do it is to set 'staticbounceaddr' (see TUNABLES) to send the
> bounces to a black-hole, rather than having Mlmmj process them. Mlmmj
> will then think nothing is bouncing, so will not try to probe.
But if I do that it will disable all bounces. I want to get bounces, but
I don't want mlmmj to check for bounces.
I want to do it manually.
>
> I think removing the text/probe or text/bounce-probe list text would
> also turn off the messages, but log an error to syslog when Mlmmj tries
> to send one. You'd have a record of which address are bouncing that way,
> though, which may or may not be a benefit.
In mlmmj 1.2.17 (debian stable version) it is not sufficient because
mlmmj will fallback on /usr/share/mlmmj/text.skel/en/.
I had to remove read access to it too :

rm -vf /var/spool/mlmmj/*/text/bounce-probe
chmod o-r /usr/share/mlmmj/text.skel/*/bounce-probe

and to prevent package upgrades to reset it (ext fs only) :
chattr +i /usr/share/mlmmj/text.skel/*/bounce-probe

Is it different in mlmmj 1.2.18 ??
>
> Beware, though, that if a lot of spam emails are being sent from your
> mail server, you may end up with your IP blacklisted or something like
> that. It's probably more worth your while to try to filter out the spam
> and avoid it going out at all. Ignoring the problem by turning the
> bounces off will just let the problem grow, unnoticed and unrestrained.
You're right. I will install a spamassassin if I find the time one day.

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Re: [mlmmj] How to disable bounce probes

[Ben Schmidt]

On 27/03/12 12:29 AM, Marc MAURICE wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Thanks for your response.
>> One way to do it is to set 'staticbounceaddr' (see TUNABLES) to send the
>> bounces to a black-hole, rather than having Mlmmj process them. Mlmmj
>> will then think nothing is bouncing, so will not try to probe.
> But if I do that it will disable all bounces. I want to get bounces, but I don't
> want mlmmj to check for bounces.
> I want to do it manually.

Well, you could always send them to a mailbox instead of back to Mlmmj,
if you wanted to.

>> I think removing the text/probe or text/bounce-probe list text would
>> also turn off the messages, but log an error to syslog when Mlmmj tries
>> to send one. You'd have a record of which address are bouncing that way,
>> though, which may or may not be a benefit.
> In mlmmj 1.2.17 (debian stable version) it is not sufficient because mlmmj will
> fallback on /usr/share/mlmmj/text.skel/en/.
> I had to remove read access to it too :
>
> rm -vf /var/spool/mlmmj/*/text/bounce-probe
> chmod o-r /usr/share/mlmmj/text.skel/*/bounce-probe
>
> and to prevent package upgrades to reset it (ext fs only) :
> chattr +i /usr/share/mlmmj/text.skel/*/bounce-probe

Ah, yes. I forgot about that. I wonder if that's properly documented. I
perhaps need to fix it.

> Is it different in mlmmj 1.2.18 ??

No, it is the same.

>> Beware, though, that if a lot of spam emails are being sent from your
>> mail server, you may end up with your IP blacklisted or something like
>> that. It's probably more worth your while to try to filter out the spam
>> and avoid it going out at all. Ignoring the problem by turning the
>> bounces off will just let the problem grow, unnoticed and unrestrained.
> You're right. I will install a spamassassin if I find the time one day.

Smiles,

Ben.