"F. Even" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:38:34 -0600
> From: Tim Legant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: addresses being incorrectly added to blacklist
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>> "F. Even" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>>> OK....I've just had 3 addresses added to my blacklist from messages
>>>> that I'm not sure were ever confirmed.  I KNOW I've released them all
>>>> manually, I don't know if the people ever sent their confirmation.  If
>>>> I release a message, why should it ever get added to the blacklist,
>>>> even considering how I have my setup configured?  This would seem to
>>>> be a bug to me.  I am using the latest version this time, that has
>>>> been confirmed.
>> What Stephen said is correct.  When TMDA deletes messages from the
>> queue, which can happen anytime you receive mail (tmda-filter does the
>> work), those sender addresses are added to PENDING_DELETE_APPEND.
>> This may seem weird, but it is the desired behavior.  Deleting a
>> message and blacklisting the sender are not the same thing.  If you
>> want to blacklist a sender, you should explicitly choose to blacklist
>> them.  If you simply want to delete a message, don't add that sender
>> to your blacklist!
>> Remove PENDING_DELETE_APPEND from your configuration and you will
>> find
>> that these problems go away.  If you want to keep track of the sender
>> addresses of email you have deleted, set PENDING_DELETE_APPEND to a
>> different filename than your blacklist file.
>
> But this is a BUG, can we not at least agree on that? 

No, this is documented behavior.

> No one can explain to me why this is happening, except to "remove
> this." 

I honestly thought I had explained why it happens.  When the code that
auto-cleans the pending queue deletes a message, it adds the sender's
email address to the file configured in PENDING_DELETE_APPEND.  I can
point you to the source code file and line where it happens, if you
would like.  It is straightforward.

> Even according to the documentation, it "suggests" that this could
> be used for blacklisting:
>
> [quote]
> PENDING_DELETE_APPEND
>      Filename to which a sender's e-mail address should be
>      automatically appended when a message is "deleted" by
>      tmda-pending. tmda-filter's automated pending queue cleanup
>      feature (see PENDING_CLEANUP_ODDS) also respects this setting.
>
>      Example:
>
> PENDING_DELETE_APPEND = "/full/path/to/blacklist"
> [/quote]

I don't like this example.  It doesn't make any sense, given the
behavior documented in the sentence immediately before it.  I will see
about removing it.

> The problem here though is that it is adding it to the blacklist EVEN
> IF it has been confirmed or manually released.

Confirmed and released messages remain in the pending queue until they
are deleted.  At that point the sender's address will be added to
PENDING_DELETE_APPEND, whether that deletion occurs because of a
user's action in tmda-pending/tmda-cgi or because that message has
aged beyond PENDING_LIFETIME.

> If someone can explain to me how to enable some USEFUL logging to
> determine why this is happening, I'll be happy to keep watching it
> contributing information.

I don't understand what you're looking for.  The reason why this
happens has been explained three times.  I don't see how additional
logging could make it any clearer.

I do think the option's purpose is confusing and I'm not sure that it
is even useful.  One thing we could consider would be to not append
addresses from confirmed/released messages to PENDING_DELETE_APPEND.

Another possibility would be to remove the option entirely; the
addresses that get appended to the file are practically guaranteed to
be bogus, especially if we don't write confirmed/released addresses to
the file.  I'm not sure just what the point of saving a file full of
garbage would be.  Adding bogus addresses to your blacklist and having
TMDA check them is just a drain on your system's resources.

Would getting rid of the option make sense to you?


Tim

_____________________________________________
tmda-users mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://tmda.net/lists/listinfo/tmda-users

Reply via email to