Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
qmail-autoresponder(1)	    General Commands Manual	qmail-autoresponder(1)

NAME
       qmail-autoresponder - Produce automatic responses with qmail

SYNOPSIS
       qmail-autoresponder  [ -cLNqT ] [ -O NAME[=VALUE] ] [ -n	NUM ] [	-s STR
       ] [ -t TIME ] [ MESSAGE-FILE ] DIRECTORY

DESCRIPTION
       qmail-autoresponder sends an  automatically-generated  message  in  re-
       sponse  to an incoming message.	It also	tracks the number of responses
       it sends	to each	sender in order	to limit the rate at  which  it	 sends
       responses,  to  prevent mail flooding or	denial of service attacks.  By
       default,	it limits the number of	responses it sends to a	maximum	of one
       message per hour	per sender.  It	will not respond to any	known  mailing
       list, nor will it respond to either bounces or loops.

       The  MESSAGE-FILE  is  used as the response message, and	must contain a
       complete	mail message including From: and  Subject:  headers.   If  the
       MESSAGE-FILE  argument is not present, it defaults to message.txt.  All
       occurrences of %S in the	message	file are replaced  with	 the  original
       message's  subject, %s with the original	message's sender (to which the
       response	will be	sent), and %r with the original	 message's  recipient.
       To put a	percent	sign in	the message, write it as %%.

   RESPONSE COUNTING
       For  each  response qmail-autoresponder sends, it creates a file	in DI-
       RECTORY.	 The name of that file consists	of the current UNIX time  num-
       ber, a period, the process ID of	qmail-autoresponder, a period, and the
       envelope	 sender	address	(with any / characters replaced	with : to pre-
       vent creation of	files outside of DIRECTORY).  When it receives a  mes-
       sage,  it  scans	DIRECTORY.  Any	files that are older than the time in-
       terval (see below) are deleted and ignored.  If the number of remaining
       files with the same sender address is greater than or equal to the max-
       imum number of replies, no response is generated.

   LOGGING
       If DIRECTORY contains a writeable file named log.txt, then  a  line  is
       added  to  this	file  each  time a sender is processed.	 The format of
       these lines are as follows:
	      TIMESTAMP	+SENDER
	      TIMESTAMP	-SENDER
       The first line indicates	a message was sent to the sender, and the sec-
       ond that	a message was not sent.	 The timestamp is expressed  as	 stan-
       dard UNIX time (the number of seconds since Jan 1 1970 GMT).

OPTIONS
       qmail-autoresponder  supports options specified on the command line, in
       a file named config.txt,	and as individual files	in DIRECTORY.  If con-
       fig.txt is present, any individual config files	are  ignored.	Option
       files in	the directory (either config.txt or individual files) override
       options set on the command line.

       The config.txt file contains one	setting	per line, with the option name
       separated  from	the  value  by	a =.  The value	extends	from the first
       character after the = to	the end	of the line.  Lines  starting  with  #
       are ignored.

       The  message may	also be	placed in this configuration file. It is sepa-
       rated from the settings by a single blank line. If present, message.txt
       is not read for the response message.

       For example:
	      copymsg=1
	      #	Keep all the X-* headers along with the	subject.
	      headerkeep=subject:x-*
	      bcc=sendmeacopy@example.com
	      starttime=2018-03-14 15:59:00
	      subject=This is a	very long response subject that	does not include the original

	      From: Automatic Responder	<recipient@example.com>
	      Subject: Vacation	response (%S)

	      This is an automated response to your email...

   COMMAND LINE
       -c     Equivalent to -O copymsg=1

       -L     Create new files (instead	of making links)  for  each  recipient
	      file.   This  uses more inodes, but may be required for filesys-
	      tems (such as Coda) that don't handle links properly.

       -N     Write the	generated response to standard output instead of send-
	      ing it.

       -n NUM Equivalent to -O msglimit=NUM

       -O NAME[=VALUE]
	      Sets named option	NAME to	VALUE.	If VALUE is omitted,  a	 value
	      of 1 is used.  See below for all the named options.

       -q     Quiet.  Don't show error messages.

       -s STR Equivalent to -O subject_prefix=STR

       -T     Do not add a To: <SENDER>	line to	the response.

       -t TIME
	      Equivalent to -O timelimit=TIME

   NAMED OPTIONS
       bcc (string)
	      If  given,  all responses	are copied to this address in addition
	      to the original sender.

       copymsg (boolean)
	      Copy the original	message	into the response.

       endtime (string)
	      Set the ending time for  which  this  autoresponder  is  active.
	      Messages	received  after	this time will not cause a response to
	      be generated.

       headerkeep (string)
	      If this option is	given, only the	headers	listed	in  the	 value
	      are  copied from the message into	the response.  Separate	header
	      names with a colon.  If neither this nor headerstrip  are	 used,
	      all headers are copied.

       headerstrip (string)
	      If  this	option	is  given  and	headerkeep is not, the headers
	      listed in	the value are omitted when copying  from  the  message
	      into  the	response.  Separate header names with a	colon.	Header
	      names are	treated	as patterns, and so may	contain	* to match any
	      string.  For example, the	pattern	x-* will match the headers  X-
	      DomainKeys: and X-SpamLevel:.

       msglimit	(integer)
	      Set the maximum number of	replies	per timelimit (defaults	to 1).

       no_inreplyto (boolean)
	      Do not add an In-Reply-To: header	to the outgoing	message.  Nor-
	      mally, if	a Message-Id: header is	found in the original message,
	      qmail-autoresponder  will	add the	contents of that header	to the
	      outgoing message.	 This allows some email	programs to group  re-
	      sponses more intelligently.

       numlines	(integer)
	      Limits the maximum number	of lines copied	from the original mes-
	      sage  body  into	the response.  This option is only relevant if
	      the copymsg option is also used.	If not given, all the lines in
	      the original message body	are copied.  This limit	does  not  im-
	      pact how many lines of the header	are copied.

       separator (string)
	      Add a separator line (or lines) between the response message and
	      the copied message.

       starttime (string)
	      Set  the	starting  time for which this autoresponder is active.
	      Messages received	before this time will not cause	a response  to
	      be generated.

       subject_prefix (string)
	      Add  a subject line to the response message composed of the pre-
	      fix STR followed by the original subject.	 This can also be  ac-
	      complished  by  putting  the  following line at the start	of the
	      message file:

	      Subject: STR %S

       timelimit (integer)
	      Set the interval during which responses are counted (in seconds)
	      (defaults	to 1 hour).

RETURN VALUE
       Exits zero if there were	no problems, otherwise exits 111.

ENVIRONMENT
       DTLINE qmail-autoresponder searches for this line (generated by	qmail-
	      local)  in  the  input  and bounces the message if it is present
	      (which indicates a mail loop).  It then adds  the	 line  to  the
	      output.

       SENDER This contains the	envelope sender	address	and is used as the ad-
	      dress to send the	reply to.

							qmail-autoresponder(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=qmail-autoresponder&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.0>

home | help