In response to an incoming message, the qmail autoresponder delivers an automatic response message. At Bobcares, with our Server Management Services, we can handle your qmail autoresponder issues.

What is qmail autoresponder?

When a message arrives, the qmail autoresponder responds by sending a message that was generated automatically. Additionally, it keeps track of how many replies each sender receives so that it can set a rate restriction for responses and avoid mail flooding or denial-of-service threats.

By default, it restricts each sender’s ability to send more than one message each hour of responses. It won’t react to bounces or loops, nor will it react to any known mailing list.

A complete mail message, including the From: and Subject: headers, must be included in the MESSAGE-FILE, which serves as the response message. It defaults to message.txt if the MESSAGE-FILE option is missing. Every time %S appears in the message file, it is replaced with the subject of the original message, %s with the sender of the original message (to whom the answer will be sent), and %r with the original message’s receiver. Write %% for the percent sign to appear in the message.

How qmail autoresponder take the response count?

The qmail autoresponder will create a file in the DIRECTORY for each response it sends. This file contains the current UNIX time number, a period, the process ID of the qmail autoresponder, a period, and the envelope sender address. When a message is received, it searches DIRECTORY. Older files are removed and ignored if they exceed the time interval. No response is produced if there are more than the allowed number of replies and the number of remaining files with the same sender address.

If DIRECTORY has a writeable file called log.txt, then each time a sender is processed, a line is added to this file. These lines should also be formatted as follows:

TIMESTAMP +SENDER

TIMESTAMP -SENDER

The first line indicates that the sender received a message, and the second line indicates that no message was sent. The timestamp is displayed using UNIX standard time.

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Conclusion

To conclude, the article provides a brief note on the qmail autoresponder from our Tech team.