OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail without deleting the account?

OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail without deleting the account?

[Jayson Smith]

Hi,

     I run a Linux server via VPS. The 'mail' account is getting tons and 
tons of spam, so I'd like to start bouncing messages to that account. But I 
presume bad things will happen if I outright delete the mail account, right? 
My MTA is Sendmail. Is there any way to tell the system not to accept mail 
for that account? I tried aliasing it to a nonexistent user, but the mail 
still gets accepted, then it bounces since the alias points to total junk, 
then more often than not the bounce bounces, so Postmaster gets the bounced 
bounce, generated from a message I never even wanted in the first place! So 
is there a way to tell it, as soon as it sees that the message is for mail, 
error out right there?
Thanks,
Jayson

Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail without deleting the account?

[Kyle]

Hi,
Could this work for you? Not sure, since I found it via Google looking for:
procmailrc bounce message
but it's worth a shot.
http://www.it.ca/software/procmail-bounce
I think it goes in a .procmailrc in the home directory for the account 
whose mail you want to bounce. Of course, you will probably need to 
modify it, but it looks like it should do the job you want after your 
tweaks.

Kyle

-- 
  Jesus you're my life.
I live only to serve You
  Each and every day.
--Kyle

Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail without deletingthe account?

[Jayson Smith]

Hi,

     What that looks like is that it accepts the message, then immediately 
bounces it back. That's exactly what I don't want to happen. The reason is 
simple. As you probably know, spammers often use totally bogus addresses. So 
I bounce the message, and it turns out the original sender's address is also 
invalid. That bounced bounce has to go somewhere, and that somewhere just 
happens to be the Postmaster account I think it is, which is aliased to a 
real account. So if there's a way to not accept the message in the first 
place, or to possibly just accept it and then destroy it, I'd love to know. 
I tried making /var/mail/mail a simlink to /dev/null, but that didn't last.
Thanks for any help.
Jayson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kyle" <kyle4jesus@gmail.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2009 4:50 PM
Subject: Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail without 
deletingthe account?


> Hi,
> Could this work for you? Not sure, since I found it via Google looking 
> for:
> procmailrc bounce message
> but it's worth a shot.
> http://www.it.ca/software/procmail-bounce
> I think it goes in a .procmailrc in the home directory for the account 
> whose mail you want to bounce. Of course, you will probably need to modify 
> it, but it looks like it should do the job you want after your tweaks.
>
> Kyle
>
> -- 
>  Jesus you're my life.
> I live only to serve You
>  Each and every day.
> --Kyle
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

RE: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail withoutdeletingthe account?

[James Homuth]

Why not just an alias entry?

In /etc/aliases, do:
Mail: /dev/null

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Jayson Smith
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 3:24 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail
withoutdeletingthe account?

Hi,

     What that looks like is that it accepts the message, then immediately
bounces it back. That's exactly what I don't want to happen. The reason is
simple. As you probably know, spammers often use totally bogus addresses. So
I bounce the message, and it turns out the original sender's address is also
invalid. That bounced bounce has to go somewhere, and that somewhere just
happens to be the Postmaster account I think it is, which is aliased to a
real account. So if there's a way to not accept the message in the first
place, or to possibly just accept it and then destroy it, I'd love to know.
I tried making /var/mail/mail a simlink to /dev/null, but that didn't last.
Thanks for any help.
Jayson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kyle" <kyle4jesus@gmail.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2009 4:50 PM
Subject: Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail without
deletingthe account?


> Hi,
> Could this work for you? Not sure, since I found it via Google looking
> for:
> procmailrc bounce message
> but it's worth a shot.
> http://www.it.ca/software/procmail-bounce
> I think it goes in a .procmailrc in the home directory for the account
> whose mail you want to bounce. Of course, you will probably need to
> modify it, but it looks like it should do the job you want after your
tweaks.
>
> Kyle
>
> --
>  Jesus you're my life.
> I live only to serve You
>  Each and every day.
> --Kyle
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup




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Virus Database (VPS): 090810-0, 08/10/2009
Tested on: 8/11/2009 3:27:12 PM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.

Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail withoutdeletingthe account?

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

You can always ask procmail to deliver it to /dev/null


On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 03:27:12PM -0400, James Homuth wrote:
> Why not just an alias entry?
> 
> In /etc/aliases, do:
> Mail: /dev/null
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
> On Behalf Of Jayson Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 3:24 PM
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> Subject: Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail
> withoutdeletingthe account?
> 
> Hi,
> 
>      What that looks like is that it accepts the message, then immediately
> bounces it back. That's exactly what I don't want to happen. The reason is
> simple. As you probably know, spammers often use totally bogus addresses. So
> I bounce the message, and it turns out the original sender's address is also
> invalid. That bounced bounce has to go somewhere, and that somewhere just
> happens to be the Postmaster account I think it is, which is aliased to a
> real account. So if there's a way to not accept the message in the first
> place, or to possibly just accept it and then destroy it, I'd love to know.
> I tried making /var/mail/mail a simlink to /dev/null, but that didn't last.
> Thanks for any help.
> Jayson
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kyle" <kyle4jesus@gmail.com>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2009 4:50 PM
> Subject: Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail without
> deletingthe account?
> 
> 
> > Hi,
> > Could this work for you? Not sure, since I found it via Google looking
> > for:
> > procmailrc bounce message
> > but it's worth a shot.
> > http://www.it.ca/software/procmail-bounce
> > I think it goes in a .procmailrc in the home directory for the account
> > whose mail you want to bounce. Of course, you will probably need to
> > modify it, but it looks like it should do the job you want after your
> tweaks.
> >
> > Kyle
> >
> > --
> >  Jesus you're my life.
> > I live only to serve You
> >  Each and every day.
> > --Kyle
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   _____  
> 
> avast! Antivirus <http://www.avast.com> : Outbound message clean. 
> 
> 
> Virus Database (VPS): 090810-0, 08/10/2009
> Tested on: 8/11/2009 3:27:12 PM
> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
The Moon is Waning Gibbous (70% of Full)
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Winning isn't everything, but losing really sucks.

Re: OT - How to stop an account from receiving mail without deletingthe account?

[Kyle]

You can accept the message and then destroy it by delivering it directly
to /dev/null. Then it doesn't have to bounce or anything, it just gets
delivered to nowhere. I'm a little rusty at this, but something like

:0 *
/dev/null

in the .procmailrc for the account you want to delete messages for
should do it. Hopefully someone more familiar with procmail can help
correct my attempt.

Hope this helps,
Kyle

-- 
 Jesus you're my life.
I live only to serve You
 Each and every day.
--Kyle