[olug] procmail vacation intermittent error

[Sean Kelly]

In the log below, it says:
  procmail: Executing "cat,/home/user1/admin1/.vacation.msg"

However, in the one that worked it said:
  procmail: Executing "/bin/cat,/home/user1/admin1/.vacation.msg"

Note that the one that works has a path, while the one that doesn't does
not. Where is $CAT being defined at?

Also, it is generally considered best practice to only reply once over a
given period to a sender. Does your rule do this?  Is there some other
unshown rule that also keeps you from auto-replying to lists? Possibly mail
filtering for lists before this rule?

On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 08:17:21AM -0500, Jon H. Larsen wrote:
> 
> I changed the lines to :0 ???: vacation.lock
> 
> Got the same result:
> procmail: Unlocking "vacation.lock"
> procmail: Locking "vacation.lock"
> procmail: Executing "cat,/home/user1/admin1/.vacation.msg"
> procmail: Error while writing to "cat"
> procmail: Rescue of unfiltered data succeeded
> procmail: Unlocking "vacation.lock"
> procmail: Locking "vacation.lock"
> 
> Puzzling, eh?
> 
> On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Dave Weis wrote:
> 
> > Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 07:32:07 -0500
> > From: Dave Weis <djweis at internetsolver.com>
> > Reply-To: Omaha Linux User Group <olug at olug.org>
> > To: Omaha Linux User Group <olug at olug.org>
> > Subject: Re: [olug] procmail vacation intermittent error
> > 
> > Jon H. Larsen wrote:
> > > I have a procmail based vacation at work.  I have been encountering a 
> > > intermittent error that I can't seem to resolve.  My script seems to work 
> > > only half the time.  It only fails sometimes when attempting to cat a 
> > > files for inclusion in the outgoing response email.  
> > > 
> > > Here is the procmail code for the return message:
> > > 
> > > :0 fhw
> > > * ^Subject: *\/[^ ].*
> > > | $FORMAIL -I "Subject: I am away AutoReply (was: $MATCH)"
> > > 
> > > :0 fbw
> > > | $CAT $HOME/.vacation.msg
> > > 
> > > :0 w
> > > | $SENDMAIL -t -Rhdrs
> > > 
> > 
> > You might want to use lockfiles to make sure you aren't running the 
> > recipes in parallel. Change the first lines to :0???: (add trailing colon)
> > 
> > dave
> > _______________________________________________
> > OLUG mailing list
> > OLUG at olug.org
> > http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Jon H. Larsen  - relayer -at- levania -dot- org
> Operations Manager, Omaha Linux Users Group - http://www.olug.org/
> AnimeSunday.org - http://www.animesunday.org/
> ICQ#: 10412618 - http://www.levania.org/~relayer/
> GPG/PGP Pubkey - http://www.levania.org/~relayer/relayerpubkey.txt
> _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug

-- 
Sean Kelly          | PGP KeyID: D2E5E296
smkelly at smkelly.org | http://www.smkelly.org