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Recently, a client site with mmdf for whom all email is pulled in
with fetchmail asked for something that the users could manage themselves
via a .forward (copy of email to blackberry or other wireless device
account on demand on their own) - since they were already using webmin,
i added in usermin with which they can manage a .forward from a gui (they
can not use editor or be trusted to do anything technical).

the problem is that with usermin, when they check the box to keep a copy
for original receving user, usermin puts a backslash in front of username
in the .forward.

e.g. - if joe wants his email to go to joe and joe2, using the usermin
gui would setup a .forward with:
\joe
joe2

i do not know if this is a bug in usermin or just something that mmdf can
not handle, but with that backslash in the username, mmdf eats up all CPU
cycles and processes until finally failing with fork failed - too many
processes. take the backslash out and it is fine. i've never put a
backslash in myself when setting up .forward with vi so i'm not sure whose
bug it is.

--
-Joe Chasan- Magnatech Business Systems, Inc.
joe - at - magnatechonline -dot- com Hicksville, NY - USA
http://www.MagnatechOnline.com Tel.(516) 931-4444/Fax.(516) 931-1264

In article <20080318122305.A11328@magnatechonline.com>,
Joe Chasan <joe@magnatechonline.com> wrote:
>Recently, a client site with mmdf for whom all email is pulled in
>with fetchmail asked for something that the users could manage themselves
>via a .forward (copy of email to blackberry or other wireless device
>account on demand on their own) - since they were already using webmin,
>i added in usermin with which they can manage a .forward from a gui (they
>can not use editor or be trusted to do anything technical).
>
>the problem is that with usermin, when they check the box to keep a copy
>for original receving user, usermin puts a backslash in front of username
>in the .forward.
>
>e.g. - if joe wants his email to go to joe and joe2, using the usermin
>gui would setup a .forward with:
>\joe
>joe2
>
>i do not know if this is a bug in usermin or just something that mmdf can
>not handle, but with that backslash in the username, mmdf eats up all CPU
>cycles and processes until finally failing with fork failed - too many
>processes. take the backslash out and it is fine. i've never put a
>backslash in myself when setting up .forward with vi so i'm not sure whose
>bug it is.

It's a common syntax for .forward files, and one which MMDF didn't understand.
I can't reproduce the gone-haywire behavior you see, but it wouldn't work
regardless; the expected behavior for MMDF is for \foo to be treated as an
unknown user. Other MTAs use a leading backslash in an alias to mean that the
alias shouldn't be recursively expanded. MMDF's syntax for this is a leading
'~', but it doesn't need that to know that a user named in their own .forward
file means that mail should also be delivered to that user's local mailbox.

Since this is a general problem with users used to other MTAs and tools
designed for other MTAs, I've modified the relevant MMDF component (submit) to
treat a leading \ in a .forward file alias in the same way that it treats '~'.
You can pick up a new submit binary at:

ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/admin/mmdf/submit

This should replace /usr/mmdf/bin/submit, with permissions set identically to
the current submit (setuid mmdf, etc.) I've tested this on OSR5. I'd expect
the same binary to work properly under OSR6, but be extra careful there. Under
OSR5, don't try to use this unless you have MP5 installed. Be sure to save the
current submit and be ready to restore it if any problems show up. If you do
have any problems, please let me know. This will probably appear in a
supported form in the next MP for each OS.

John
--
John DuBois spcecdt@armory.com KC6QKZ/AE http://www.armory.com/~spcecdt/

Joe Chasan wrote:
> Recently, a client site with mmdf for whom all email is pulled in
> with fetchmail asked for something that the users could manage themselves
> via a .forward (copy of email to blackberry or other wireless device
> account on demand on their own) - since they were already using webmin,
> i added in usermin with which they can manage a .forward from a gui (they
> can not use editor or be trusted to do anything technical).
>
> the problem is that with usermin, when they check the box to keep a copy
> for original receving user, usermin puts a backslash in front of username
> in the .forward.
>
> e.g. - if joe wants his email to go to joe and joe2, using the usermin
> gui would setup a .forward with:
> \joe
> joe2
>
> i do not know if this is a bug in usermin or just something that mmdf can
> not handle, but with that backslash in the username, mmdf eats up all CPU
> cycles and processes until finally failing with fork failed - too many
> processes. take the backslash out and it is fine. i've never put a
> backslash in myself when setting up .forward with vi so i'm not sure whose
> bug it is.
>

Other folks have explained what it means. You should be able to edit usermin
to handle your needs for MMDF. But does your client need to use MMDF? I have
to admit that I've been walking through the SCO OpenServer configuration tools
for it and find them loathsome. Sendmail seems reasonably well supported, both
for SCO systems and in general.