#43 Anti-backscatter no-qmail-default configure option

[Sean Newton]

So, I've installed a number of qmail patches to stop backscatter. One of the issues it creates is that it expects .qmail-default to be ABSENT in order for the anti-backscatter quiet refusal to work.

I've done a pretty ugly hack to my qmailadmin-1.2.11 sources to treat an empty .qmail-default as bounce-no-mailbox (and to unlink .qmail-default when the user clicks bounce-no-mailbox). If you would like this hack as a starting point, I'll be willing to provide it, but it's ugly enough that I'm pretty sure you won't want it.

My proposal is to provide a configure flag that allows us to specify that an absent .qmail-default file should be treated as bounce.

Maybe --absent-default-equals-bounce?

[Tom Collins]

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Why not use the chkuser patch to stop backscatter? It knows how to read .qmail-default, and it knows about vpopmail accounts.

Or, look at jms1's tools for rejecting email for invalid users.

http://qmail.jms1.net/patches/validrcptto.cdb.shtml

[Sean Newton]

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Ah, hadn't seen that one. What I've been using is qmail-verify, from http://free.acrconsulting.co.uk/email/qmail-verify.html

So, I guess that relegates the behaviour I requested to being a special case only applicable to servers which use qmail-verify then.

I'll leave it up to you to determine if this would be worth providing. At this point I would guess not, unless you guys want to be really nice to anyone who may be running qmail-verify.

[Tom Collins]

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Since most people are using chkuser or validrcptto, there's not a huge reason to invest time in supporting qmail-verify as well.

QmailAdmin and Vpopmail are two projects in need of developers. None of the past developers have time to put into it, so it's been pretty stagnant lately.