[TriLUG] order of operations (sort of) for sendmail

[Jeff Groves]

Another choice is to use the /etc/mail/access file (at least that's what 
it is on Fedora Core/RH machines) and add an entry like this:

to:no-reply at mydomain.com         DISCARD

and then rebuild your access.db if you have it set up to need to be 
using: make
and the restart sendmail (I think it's necessary to restart it).

Thanks,

Jeff G.


Aaron S. Joyner wrote:

> Brian Henning wrote:
>
>> Hi!
>>   Would someone mind telling me quickly if procmail processing comes 
>> before sendmail rejects based on whether a mailbox exists (my 
>> instinct says no...)?  
>
>
> Procmail happens *after* sendmail has done everything it's ever going 
> to do.  When it's finished, it washes it's hands of the message by 
> handing it off to Procmail, with a note saying "put it in <suzie's> 
> box".  Procmail is the "local delivery agent", sendmail is the "mail 
> transport agent", after the message is done being transported around, 
> it gets locally delivered.
>
>> I want to create a no-reply at mydomain.com that gets /dev/null-ed 
>> (rather than causing a bounce to the sender)..  Can I do this with an 
>> alias?  
>
>
> Yes.  The right way to do this is in the aliases file.  Simply create 
> an address, and assign it's output to a file, /dev/null.  An entry 
> like this in your aliases file will do the trick:
> no-reply     /dev/null
>
> Keep in mind of course that will create that address for all mail 
> domains hosted on the server in question.
>
>> Or a procmail recipe?  Or do I absolutely have to create a new mailbox?
>
>
> That will work, but it's not quite as elegant a solution.  Also don't 
> forget that depending on how you're doing spam / virus scanning, the 
> mail to this address may go through that processor-intensive filter.  
> So if you're throwing a lot of mail into this alias, you might want to 
> whitelist it for spam and virus filtering through what ever mechanism 
> is appropriate, if possible.
>
> Aaron S. Joyner
>

-- 
Law of Procrastination:
        Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has
        the feeling that there is nothing important to do.