Endless auto-reply loop

We just set up an instance of RT on the webhost (jail shelled) account for
the small non-profit my wife works for. Although the email address used for
support / information requests does get some spam that makes it through
spamassassin, it has never been much and we figured we would just delete
those occasional tickets.

However, within 48 hours we had the misfortune of being emailed by a small
company that apparently uses a mailing list for sending promotions, and that
list is configured to deny incoming emails, and send an email to the sender.
Not a reply, but an email saying the sender has no permission.

See what’s coming? We use fetchmail to check the email server every 5
minutes. Every 5 minutes there is an email from this list saying we don’t
have permission to post. RT opens a new ticket in response to this email and
auto-reply’s. This has been happening every 5 minutes for days now.

Having very limited access to the system, I have been looking for a way to
exclude email addresses from auto-reply. In all my searching I have not
found a concrete answer, or if I did I didn’t understand how it applied to
my situation. I did find the following email in the archives:
http://www.mail-archive.com/rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com/msg12292.html

Where Jesse replies:
“And you can always set up individual addresses to not get mail.”

But with no further clarification on how to do that. I have looked at the
RTAddressRegexp option, but that does not seem to be intended for the
purpose of blocking outside addresses, and I worry adding the domain of the
problem emailed may have unintended consequences.

Is there a way to configure RT to ignore, or at least not auto-reply, to
certain addresses? Would it be safe to overload RTAddressRegexp for this
purpose or is there a better solution?

Many thanks,
Sean

Where Jesse replies:
“And you can always set up individual addresses to not get mail.”

Configuration → Users, search for the user, leave the username as the
email address and then blank out the email address of the user record.

-kevin

They aren’t a user in RT. The only users within RT are the staff and
volunteers for the membership office. The ‘clients’ are the the thousands of
people who join the organization (Interscholastic Equestrian Association),
mostly riders and coaches. Because the membership ‘office’ is actually a
group of people who are widely distributed geographically, working out of
their homes, keeping track of support requests was becoming a nightmare. Our
hope is that RT can centralize the point of communication and tracking open
issues.

Given that, we configured it so anyone could email in and create a new
ticket. Most members of the IEA do have an email address, so I suppose we
could add them all ‘by hand’, but how would we keep the membership in sync,
which changes a little all the time and has significant churn every
enrollment period (late summer).

Thanks,
SeanOn Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Kevin Falcone falcone@bestpractical.comwrote:

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 10:05:08AM -0500, Sean Quinlan wrote:

Where Jesse replies:
“And you can always set up individual addresses to not get mail.”

Configuration → Users, search for the user, leave the username as the
email address and then blank out the email address of the user record.

-kevin

They aren’t a user in RT. The only users within RT are the staff and volunteers for the
membership office. The ‘clients’ are the the thousands of people who join the organization
(Interscholastic Equestrian Association), mostly riders and coaches. Because the membership
‘office’ is actually a group of people who are widely distributed geographically, working out
of their homes, keeping track of support requests was becoming a nightmare. Our hope is that
RT can centralize the point of communication and tracking open issues.

Given that, we configured it so anyone could email in and create a new ticket. Most members of
the IEA do have an email address, so I suppose we could add them all ‘by hand’, but how would
we keep the membership in sync, which changes a little all the time and has significant churn
every enrollment period (late summer).

You said you don’t want RT emailing a mailing list. To stop it from
sending mail to the mailing list:

 Configuration -> Users, search for the user, leave the username as the
 email address and then blank out the email address of the user record.
 -kevin

If RT has received or sent mail to an email address, there
is a User, believe me.

-kevin

Ah, my apologies! I went to the Users page and didn’t see them, and did not
register your instruction to search for them. Thanks for being patient and
reposting your instructions. I have done as you suggested, and hopefully
that takes care of it.

Thanks again,
SeanOn Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 12:18 PM, Kevin Falcone falcone@bestpractical.comwrote:

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 12:05:06PM -0500, Sean Quinlan wrote:

They aren’t a user in RT. The only users within RT are the staff and
volunteers for the
membership office. The ‘clients’ are the the thousands of people who
join the organization
(Interscholastic Equestrian Association), mostly riders and coaches.
Because the membership
‘office’ is actually a group of people who are widely distributed
geographically, working out
of their homes, keeping track of support requests was becoming a
nightmare. Our hope is that
RT can centralize the point of communication and tracking open issues.

Given that, we configured it so anyone could email in and create a new
ticket. Most members of
the IEA do have an email address, so I suppose we could add them all
‘by hand’, but how would
we keep the membership in sync, which changes a little all the time
and has significant churn
every enrollment period (late summer).

You said you don’t want RT emailing a mailing list. To stop it from
sending mail to the mailing list:

 Configuration -> Users, search for the user, leave the username as

the

 email address and then blank out the email address of the user

record.

 -kevin

If RT has received or sent mail to an email address, there
is a User, believe me.

-kevin

 Configuration -> Users, search for the user, leave the username as

the

 email address and then blank out the email address of the user

record.

 -kevin

That appears to have worked perfectly, and if I run into this specific issue
again I now know how to quickly resolve it.

Thanks,
Sean