[olug] procmail vacation intermittent error

[Jon H. Larsen]

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


Here is the logfile of a successful reply:
procmail: Matched "Re: Test 2.0"
procmail: Match on "^Subject: *\/[^ ].*"
procmail: Executing "formail,-I,Subject: I am away AutoReply (was: Re: 
Test 2.0)"
procmail: Executing "/bin/cat,/home/user1/admin1/.vacation.msg"
procmail: Executing "/usr/sbin/sendmail,-t,-Rhdrs"
procmail: Assigning "LASTFOLDER=/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -Rhdrs"
procmail: Notified comsat: "admin1@:/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -Rhdrs"

And the logfile of a unsuccessful reply:
procmail: Matched "Re: Test 2.1"
procmail: Match on "^Subject: *\/[^ ].*"
procmail: Executing "formail,-I,Subject: I am away AutoReply (was: Re: 
Test 2.1)"
procmail: Executing "/bin/cat,/home/user1/admin1/.vacation.msg"
procmail: Error while writing to "/bin/cat"
procmail: Rescue of unfiltered data succeeded
procmail: Executing "/usr/sbin/sendmail,-t,-Rhdrs"
procmail: Assigning "LASTFOLDER=/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -Rhdrs"
procmail: Notified comsat: "admin1@:/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -Rhdrs"

Cat is correct in it's permissions.
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        14684 Feb 15  2006 /bin/cat


Any ideas?

-- 
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