[rt-users] Autoreply Wars

[Vivek Khera]

>>>>> "MB" == Manfred Bathelt <Manfred.Bathelt at epost.de> writes:

MB> I think the solution is easy on SMTP-level, but I have no idea how to 
MB> fix it in RT codebase.
MB> Autoresponders normally insert special MIME headers in their messages, 
MB> just view them

I've had my fair share of autoresponder wars from running various
services over the years.  The *only* way to block this is to have a
per-address database of responses sent during the last X days (or
hours or whatever) and *not* respond to any address in that list.
We usually build our autoresponders to scan this list and purge old
addresses prior to checking for the existence of the current target.

In RT, I could see this as a config variable (say
$autoRespondBlackoutTime) and a per-queue list of of addresses that
have gotten an autoresponse and the time they got it.  If they send
another message that triggers an autoresponder within
$autoRespondBlackoutTime amount of time to that queue, they don't get
the response.  I'd set that time at something like 30 minutes.