[tamarian]

This post will be used for an updated FAQ and How-To's

How it works
1. vBouncer makes your forum send emails with a modified "Return-Path" header including the vBouncer emaila ddress, so most ISP's will send bounce notices to that email (instead of the webmaster email).
2. When ISP's send the bounced notices, those notice emails are stored in the mail spool of vBouncer. Most will tag those notices with a "Final-Destination" header stating the email address that bounced.
3. The vBouncer cron task (vBouncer-collect.php) checks the spool file and extracts all email adresses that are bouncing, and store them into a database table, if they belong to a forum member. It wil then empty the spool file.
4. If you selected auto processing, the vBouncer cron task (vBouncer-clean.php) reads the table and stats, and executes the options you chose to apply in your vBouncer settings. The database table will pruned from any old data.

Email setup: For vBouncer to work, you need to:
1. Create a new email account on your server, and that email account has to be unique, and only used for this purpose, collecting bounced emails.
2. This account should not be POP'ed or deleted by any user, only vBouncer should delete them.
3. The vBouncer emails should be in a regular spool file (text file). This is standard on SendMail and PostFix. Not sure about Qmail, Exim or Windows, but they should able to do it. (Anyone with experience in those systems, please let me know)
Please check with your server admin how to accomplish this.

Tips:
If you can't make your mail server spool to a single text file, you may want to try the (dot)forward file method:
http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/pser...es/forward.htm
See post #3 below for further details on mail servers.


vBouncer Settings The comments on the vBouncer settings page are verbose, but here are the important ones with additional comments.

Post notification sender email
This is the email vBouncer will use to send new reply notification. You need to create a unique email address for this. Bounced emails will be returned to this email address on your site/server domain. This email account should not be downloaded, and must be left waiting, vBouncer will pick it up.
Example: subscriber_notify@mydomain.com

Full path to email spool file
This is the full path to where the mail spool file resides. This is where bounced email notifications are sent back to the post notification email.
Example: /var/spool/mail/subscriber_notify
(Use the diagnostics option to sure the file is readable and writable)

Maximum unique members to process per run
Processing the mail log file will stop when this limit is reached. If your logs repeatedly excede this number, it is better to run the scheduled vBouncer collect task more frequently, instead of making this limit too high, for performance reasons. Example 100

Auto processing mode?
You have the option to either let vBouncer automaticly change subscription levels for members with bouncing emails, or choose no if you prefer to simply decide based on the stats of bouncing emails.
Yes No
(Choose no, if you just want to monitor the stats)

Bounce limit
If you selected auto-processing, how many bounced email notices should be acted upon?. (Only works in auto mode) Example: 50

Bounce limit period
Enter the number of days in which the bounce limit set above will be applied. (Only works in auto mode) Example: 7

The above two options results in setting a limit of X email bouncer per Y days period.

Send Notification PM
PM Sender ID
PM Sender Username
Send PM warning
Warning Limit
Change default subscription level to no email
Change subscribed threads to no emails
Change subscribed forums to no emails
Change usergroup for bouncing members?
Destination usergroup
Protected usergroups
Untouchable usergroups
These options control what actions to do with members who excede the set limits.