On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Dean Staff wrote:
> Not really... (you should me by know...I never do anything normally)
>
> What we do is take a message address to a fax number
> ie;[EMAIL PROTECTED] deliver it to a mail box that is
> checked by one of our fax servers which then converts the body of
> the message and any attchments into a fax formated tif. We then
> send it to a fax out server that actually faxes the dovument to the
> number embedded in the To: field. If there are 2 numbers in the to
> field the fax is sent to both. but if the message is passed from the
> qmail box as 2 separate messages we process the fax twice and
> both reciepients get two copies of the fax. (and our customer get
> billed twice)
Re-interpreting To: lists more than once is very dangerous!! It should
*only* be done at the sender's MTA.
You can avoid it, even using sendmail, by using the envelope address
rather than parsing To:, Cc: etc. Configure sendmail to do per recipient
delivery. But that's by the by.
You have no control over whether you receive one copy of a message, with
two recipients, or two copies, with one recipient each (*). That's
entirely up to the sending MTA. You therefore have your problem whether
you use e-smith or some other system.
(*) Here's an analogy for you. Postcards inside envelopes. The postmaster
at Yellowknife is given a postcard with two addressees. She can place the
postcard in a single envelope, and send it to you, asking you to pass it
on to both recipients. Or she can copy it, placing it in two envelopes,
with instructions to you to pass each on to a single recipient. These two
paths are equally valid. If you rip open the envelopes and discard them,
then pass on each copy of the postcard to both recipients, then it is you
who has created the problem.
> > As we have said a few times now, obtuse-smtpd just _accepts_ mail. The
> > mail is passed on to qmail for delivery. Please repeat before bedtime
> > "Obtuse SMTPD only receives mail, it _does_ not attempt delivery" :-)
>
> Obtuse SMTPD only recieves mail, it_does_not attempt delivery!
> Obtuse SMTPD only recieves mail, it_does_not attempt delivery!
> Obtuse SMTPD only recieves mail, it_does_not attempt delivery!
> I'll get this part yet. :-)
>
> Is this (the relaying) handled by the smtpfwdd daemon in 4.1? Or is
> it part of the qmail package?
Both smtpdfwdd and qmail relay the mail. smtpdfwdd to qmail, qmail to
either local delivery, or relay, depending on recipient.
> > The suppression is a P.I.T.A. IMO - if I send mail to an alias of
> > which I am a member, I expect a copy in return.
>
> P.I.T.A ? echew obfuscation. (DNA)
Pain in the nether regions, or something like that.
> I did look at the header and did notice that for each message the
> Delivered-To and Message ID were different. (this was on the
> message received on the final destination sendmail box. The qmail
> router only recieved the message once.
If that was the case, then the message arrived without a Message ID. As
mentioned earlier, it is perfectly valid for the qmail router to have
received multiple copies of the message. The downstream sendmail will
not/cannot coalesce the multiple copies.
> The way our fax servers work is to look at either the subject line or
> the To: field for the fax number. (we based the parsing process on
> sendmail) I'm pushing to convert all mailservers to e-smith boxes
> running qmail (and obtuse-smtp on the newer systems). I'm just
> looking to understand how the messages are processed so I can
> take this to our developers, so they can modify the parsing
> process.
Great. Sounds like the right thing to be doing.
Charlie Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.e-smith.org (development) http://www.e-smith.com (corporate)
Phone: +1 (613) 368 4376 or 564 8000 Fax: +1 (613) 564 7739
e-smith, inc. 1500-150 Metcalfe St, Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1 Canada
