[15996] in Athena Bugs
Potential future problem with auto-acks
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Matt Braun)
Fri Jun 26 15:15:48 1998
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 15:16:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Braun <matt@MIT.EDU>
To: tooltime@MIT.EDU, olc-bugs@MIT.EDU
Cc: postmaster@MIT.EDU
This is not a bug report...just a notice of a potential 'interaction'.
I noticed the message below in in hotine[43981]. This was the result of
someone (Lou in this case) using the hd hotline tool forwarded mail to
olc@mit.edu which initiates a log. The problem is that matisse, the OLC
server sends a reply which if hotline@team-usa were configured the same as
computing-help, would generate an automatic reply and so forth. Two things
kept this infinite loop from happening
1. The hotline category does not yet send auto-acks like computing-help
2. matisse sends its mail from daemon@mit.edu
Although communication between our support systems is good...too much
communication could be a bad thing (like an infinite email loop). This should
be kept in mind when systems that automatically reply to mail are set up.
Even though there is no supported way to do 'vacation' on Athena, people do
periodically use such things and our tools should be able to deal robustly.
Matt
Subject: Your mail to olc-other
From: <daemon@MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 14:50:33 -0400 (EDT)
To: hotline@MIT.EDU
Hello,
Your question has been entered into the on-line consulting
system (olc). A consultant will send you a reply, either directly
through olc if you are logged in to athena, or via mail. To send
follow-up messages, please login and type:
olc
at your athena% prompt, and then:
send
at the olc> prompt.
You can also send follow-up messages via email to olc-other@mit.edu
If you would like to speak with a consultant directly, please call
253-4435 or stop by building N42.
Thank you for using OLC!
Athena Consulting
================================================================
Do not reply directly to this message; it was automatically generated.
