[rt-users] What happens to incoming email if apache/mysql is down?

[Leif Nixon]

Jerrad Pierce <jpierce at cambridgeenergyalliance.org> writes:

> If you're running postfix, and this is a concern,
> you can turn errors into soft-bounces for later recovery.

No, because in this case Postfix hasn't got a clue that anything went
wrong.

Paul is correct - if you do the straightforward thing and use something
like

  :0
  * ^X-Spam-Status: YES
  ! spam at nsc.liu.se
  :0
  | /opt/rt/3.4.4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue nsc-support --action correspond

to let procmail filter out spam, your mail will indeed be silently
dropped on the floor if rt-mailgate fails - procmail doesn't propagate
rt-mailgate's exit code to the MTA by default. This has bitten me.

You have to handle this yourself. I don't have the details available
right now, but something like

  :0
  * ^X-Spam-Status: YES
  ! spam at nsc.liu.se
  :0w
  | /opt/rt/3.4.4/bin/rt-mailgate --queue nsc-support --action correspond
  # if procmail has reached here, delivery has failed. return with a
  # temporary failure code from <sysexits.h>.
  # 75 = EX_TEMPFAIL
  EXITCODE=75
  :0
  /dev/null

should do the trick. (Please note that the above snippet is untested,
though.)

-- 
Leif Nixon                       -            Systems expert
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National Supercomputer Centre    -      Linkoping University
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