bill@unixland.uucp (Bill Heiser) (05/11/91)
I recently experienced a problem where due to a neighbor site doing
mailer reconfiguration, I got lots of extra traffic due to messages
bouncing back and forth, ending up with paths like
sysa!sysb!sysa!sysb!sysa!sysb....
I'm using smail 3.1.
How can I set it up to limit the number of bounces to something
reasonable?
bill
--
bill@unixland.uucp The Think_Tank BBS & Public Access Unix
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508-655-3848 (2400) 508-651-8723 (9600-HST) 508-651-8733 (9600-PEP-V32)lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) (05/14/91)
bill@unixland.uucp (Bill Heiser) writes: >I'm using smail 3.1. >How can I set it up to limit the number of bounces to something >reasonable? In config, set max_hop_count to whatever value you want. The default is 20. This won't help you if the address you are bouncing back to us bogus. -- Lyndon Nerenberg VE6BBM / Computing Services / Athabasca University atha!cs.athabascau.ca!lyndon || lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca Packet: ve6bbm@ve6bbm.ab.can.noam The only thing open about OSF is their mouth. --Chuck Musciano
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (05/14/91)
In article <1991May11.151523.21852@unixland.uucp> bill@unixland.uucp (Bill Heiser) writes: >I recently experienced a problem where due to a neighbor site doing >mailer reconfiguration, I got lots of extra traffic due to messages >bouncing back and forth, ending up with paths like >sysa!sysb!sysa!sysb!sysa!sysb.... >I'm using smail 3.1. >How can I set it up to limit the number of bounces to something >reasonable? It sounds like you are trying to use each other as smart-hosts. The only thing you can do in smail3 is to change the max_hop_count setting in the config file lower. It just counts the Received: lines in the headers and bounces when the number (default = 20) is exceeded. Note that the bounce follows the 20-hop path to go back. If the site is question is not really your smart-host or a domain gateway, something is drastically wrong. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us
bill@unixland.uucp (Bill Heiser) (05/14/91)
In article <lyndon.674163786@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca> lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) writes: >bill@unixland.uucp (Bill Heiser) writes: > >>I'm using smail 3.1. >>How can I set it up to limit the number of bounces to something >>reasonable? > >In config, set max_hop_count to whatever value you want. The default >is 20. This won't help you if the address you are bouncing back to >us bogus. Is there any good reason to let a message bounce more than, say, TWICE? ??? -- bill@unixland.uucp The Think_Tank BBS & Public Access Unix ...!uunet!think!unixland!bill ..!{uunet,bloom-beacon,esegue}!world!unixland!bill 508-655-3848 (2400) 508-651-8723 (9600-HST) 508-651-8733 (9600-PEP-V32)
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (05/14/91)
In article <1991May14.005523.12586@unixland.uucp> bill@unixland.uucp (Bill Heiser) writes: >Is there any good reason to let a message bounce more than, say, TWICE? >??? Maybe. You can't know that the destination address is the same on a second or third pass through your machine even if you look at the From_ line and notice a!b!a!b etc. (Smail 3 doesn't). The destination address may have been modified by alias expansion or explicit forwarding on any or all of the hops. Plus, in a loop involving more than 3 machines you couldn't be sure that the duplicate names in the From_ path are actually the same machine. Smail3 just counts the Received: lines and only allows a configurable number. Anyway, the solution is to route correctly in the first place so this doesn't happen. If you are generating complete routes correctly and your neighbor is re-routing back through you, you had better start going around them. Likewise if you are using them as a smart-host and they are passing mail back to to you without expanding the path. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us