[rt-users] Filtering incoming emails

[Mathew Snyder]

We are using 3.6.1 with postfix and procmail.  It isn't a complicated setup but
 a new configuration we're testing has an interesting "feature" which needs some
special attention.

We have five customer-facing queues (Triage, Network, Systems, Operations and
Sales).  Triage is the only one in which tickets can be created by outside
parties.  The other four  support correspondence but cannot have new tickets
created within by outside parties.  In to facilitate this, we run a cron job
which polls our customer database and builds a procmail script listing all of
the allowed "from" addresses.  Any incoming email is parsed through the script
and if allowed is then handed off to rt-mailgate.

In the /etc/aliases file, we alias the four non-triage queues to Triage which,
again, allows new ticket creation.  This serves to place all new ticket requests
in Triage as a new ticket while allowing RT to do it's thing by parsing the
subject and placing all correspondence for existing tickets in the right place.

On the surface this is a wonderful setup.  We guarantee that all new tickets are
only in the new ticket queue while all existing tickets get updated
appropriately.  However, I have discovered a fault which I'm hoping the RT
Faithful can help me with.

I have a monthly cron job which generates an email to be sent to one of the four
other queues; one of the four which doesn't allow new ticket creation.  However,
the "from" address for this email is internal.  The ticket that it generates is
intended to spawn three child tickets.  The problem is that, since this is a new
ticket, it gets trapped in the Triage queue and isn't allowed to move on to the
queue it is intended for.

What I need help with is finding a method that will allow this one email (or any
internal email, actually) to be allowed to bypass Triage and go directly to its
intended queue.

I've considered not aliasing the one queue to Triage.  This will lead to an
unwanted side-effect.  Right now, by trapping all new ticket requests in Triage,
we are preventing the automatically generated email which confusingly states
that a person is not allowed to create a ticket.  Instead, the ticket is created
in Triage and the auto-reply is sent stating this.  Should I cease the aliasing,
if a person decides to send a ticket to Systems (the non-Triage queue which the
email cron job is sending to) then they will receive the reply stating that a
user could not be found or whatever the confusing reply is.  I'd like to avoid this.

So, if I haven't convoluted this yet and someone has been able to follow what
I'm trying to say, can that person help me figure out how to allow incoming,
internal emails to avoid this trap I've created?

-- 
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