Re: [courier-users] TO command not using SENDMAIL variable?

[Sam Varshavchik]

Bowie Bailey writes:

Sam Varshavchik wrote:

Bowie Bailey writes:

> I am migrating my Courier installation to a new machine running
> Courier 0.53.1 (the old one was 0.46-1.2).  I have the new system
> configured and running just like the old one, but I just found one

> by Maildrop in the TO and CC commands when forwarding to another
> account. This doesn't appear to be happening anymore.

maildrop is using SENDMAIL, however maildrop is also explicitly
adding the -f "" flag also.  Originally, this change was added to
prevent maildrop from generating backscatter; but now that Courier
has a real backscatter suppression filter, this is really no longer

However, you can replace "!<address>" with "| $SENDMAIL <address>",
and get the same results.

> problem. > > In previous versions, the SENDMAIL environment variable was used needed.

Things are starting to make sense now.  That behavior should either be
removed (if it is not needed), or documented so it doesn't confuse
anyone else.  Or possibly you could check to see if the $SENDMAIL
variable already set a -f flag and only do -f "" if the flag is not
already set.

I did play around with the "| $SENDMAIL" construct and it works fine.
Unfortunately, that means I have to modify about 200 .mailfilter files
as well as my program that maintains the accounts.  Can I modify the
code to remove this behavior?  If so, where do I look?

maildrop/deliver.C:

                       cmdbuf=sendmail;

                       cmdbuf += " -f '' ";

Replace this with



Mail forwarding has always been clumsy.

cmdbuf += " "; I'm still waffling as to the right solution for this. There are three basic options -- pass along the original $SENDER, as you're doing. I earlier believe that if that bounced, the backscatter will get eaten, but I was wrong. The forward message is really a new message that originates locally, whose contents happen to be the same as the original message, and its any bounce is not seen as backscatter. The second option is to set the return address to a null, thus all bounces get discarded -- the current behavior. The third option is to use the address doing the forwarding as the return address, but this may result in mail loops.

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