Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Auto Bounce Messages Management

Brought to you by Syrian Medical Society & Milado

Introduction: quoted from wikipedia with adaptation.
Any long-lived forums is going to eventually contain addresses that can't be reached. Addresses that were once valid can become unusable because the person receiving the mail there has switched to a different provider (possibly as a result of changing jobs or schools). In another scenario, the address may still exist but be abandoned, with unread mail accumulating until there is not enough room left to accept any more.

The presence of invalid addresses in the forums results in bounce messages being sent to the owner of the forums. If the mailing list is small, the owner can read the bounce messages and manually remove the invalid addresses from the forums. With a larger forums, this is a tedious, unpleasant job, so it is desirable to automate the process.

In short: This hack automates handling of the bounce messages.


Requirements:

• vBulletin 3.7.1
• catch-all email address, with POP3 access. (I use Google app (Gmail))

Features:

• Auto Bounce Messages Management.
• Uses POP3 protocol to retrieve messages from your catch-all email box.
• On bounce detection the user will be moved to bounce usergroup (you can set which usergroup).
• Works according to VERP.

A note:
I believe there is no need to delete the user subscriptions. because once a user got moved to the "Awaiting email confirmation" usergroup, he / she won't be sent any additional emails.

How Does It Work?
You have your catch-all email box, that will be used to receive the bounce messages. Of course we must have a POP3 access to retrieve messages from it.
Let's suppose that your catch-all email address is bounces@yourdomain.ext
After we set it properly, it will work as described below:
1) By default: On every single message being sent, vBulletin generates a unique Message-ID for it, example:

Message-ID: <20080608103128.551e45224330@www.yourdomain.ext>

This ID is generated By using the following code in /includes/class_mail.php:

PHP Code:

$msgid = '<' . gmdate('YmdHis') . '.' . substr(md5($message . microtime()), 0, 6) . vbrand(100000, 999999) . '@' . $http_host . '>'; 


I take the red portion from the unique Message-ID, and the red portion from the domain name of the catch-all address:

Message-ID: <20080608103128.551e45224330@www.yourdomain.ext>

bounces@yourdomain.ext

The result will be:

bounce20080608103128.551e45224330@yourdomain.ext

Now every single message has its own unique envelope-from address. so if it gets returned as a bounce, I will recognize it easily.
So every message will be recorded in the database. each record consists of : toemail, bounceemail (the one we generated) and the timeline (for sake of pruning.)
2) A cron job runs every ten minutes to retrieve bounce messages from the catch-all email box.
If the message sent to something similar to the bounceemail we generate, it will update the appropriate record in the database to be marked as returned. and delete the message from the POP3 server.
3) Another cron job runs once an hour, reads the bounced emails from the database and moves their owners to an usergroup which is determined by the admin from the settings.
4) Yet another cron job, will run once daily, to prune the records that haven't returned bounces in a settable period of time (30 days by default).

Did I miss something here?
Yeh, right. this is the first beta, I believe the core is almost done. but there may be some functions to add, and few things to tweak.
I'm all opened to your suggestions. So feel free to dream!

Installation & Upgrade:
1) Have your own catch-all email with POP3 access. I don't have the time to write a how-to article for this please do it yourself, you'll be luckily if someone explains it to others.
2) Upload files from the /upload/ folder in the package to their appropriate locations.
3) Install the xml product file: product-bounce_management.xml, of course choose yes to override when upgrading.
4) Refresh your AdminCP. you will see at the navigation side, above the Users tab, a new tab called "Bounces Management"
5) At that tab, go to the settings: Set your POP server settings, your "Bounce Usergroup" and "Exclude Usergroups".
6) At the same tab you will find a link called "Test POP Connection" to test the connection with your POP server.
7) Enjoy! Click install to let me enjoy too!

Settings:
Attachment 81933

Know issues:
- In rare situations, a vacation reply may returned via the bounce path rather than the webmaster path.


Change log:

• 1.0.0.b.1 first public release, on June, 8 2008.

Support:
The product marked as not supported, but that doesn't mean you won't see me again here.
So please try to help each other.

License & Credits:
1) I use the pop3_class from Manuel Lemos, Copyright (c) 1999-2005 to retrieve messages from the POP server, so all the credits regarding this go to him.
Here is his license (included in the package too):

Copyright (c) 1999-2005, Manuel Lemos
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* Neither the name of the Manuel Lemos nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR
CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Click install to receive updates.
You like it? nominate it. I'm looking forward to enter the Mod Of The Month competition.
I depend on you.
Also donations will help me to improve the product. :up:

[Milad]

Originally Posted by renep

Yes, it's a better idea to use an MTA with VERP support (that sends only bounces with the VERP address pattern to a bounce mailbox), instead of a catch-all address.

That would require this add-on to actually use VERP (mailbox+memberid@ourdomain), rather than a proprietary pattern similar to VERP

If you have a better pattern to suggest, go on.

[Milad]

mailbox+memberid@ourdomain won't be a good approach, because it can be abused by members. someone may send a fake email to kick someone else. so we can't use a simple pattern.

mailbox+messageid@domain.com is a good idea. I use bouncemessageid@domain.com not too different. I can alter it to mailboxmessageid@domain.com if you will get benefit from it.

[Milad]

Originally Posted by Devices

I think the messageid idea is good to verify the bounce is not a fake bounce causing havoc to your members.

Exactly. I'm not leaving this mod for kids to play with it. it got to be secure. for sure.

[Devices]

Originally Posted by Milad

For me, I use Gmail. it handles the spam very well. Spam messages go to the spam box, and the bounce messages will be returned to me.

This is very easy and nice.

Our own spam filters do a very good job at actually catching the spam. The main one is refusing connections for non existing accounts. Mail that does get through to real addresses will then be tagged if they are spam and passed to the MTA and moved by the MTA to the spam folder. By using a catch-all I increase the load on the MTA that the spam filters are currently releiving it of.

If you add a + sign in between the mailbox name and the message id then I think from what I have read about VERP you will be compatible. Then people can still use catch-all if they have no other choice. I am not an expert in VERP but this is how i understand it.

[Devices]

Originally Posted by Milad

mailbox+memberid@ourdomain won't be a good approach, because it can be abused by members. someone may send a fake email to kick someone else. so we can't use a simple pattern.

mailbox+messageid@domain.com is a good idea. I use bouncemessageid@domain.com not too different. I can alter it to mailboxmessageid@domain.com if you will get benefit from it.

Yes, Then an account named bounce will catch all email to bounce+(anything)@domain.com but will not catch anything that does not start bounce+. This will definatly help in my situation and as i understand it any VERP compatible MTA.

[Milad]

Originally Posted by Devices

If you add a + sign in between the mailbox name and the message id then I think from what I have read about VERP you will be compatible. Then people can still use catch-all if they have no other choice. I am not an expert in VERP but this is how i understand it.

Would you please give me a link to what you've read?

Regards

[Milad]

I think it's acceptable to use + or =

[Devices]

Originally Posted by Milad

Would you please give me a link to what you've read?

Just the info in wikipedia.

Originally Posted by Milad

I think it's acceptable to use + or =

I can use one of four characters + - _ or %.

On wikipedia the = sign is used as an example to replace the @ if you are adding the users full email address in the return address.

[Jase2]

Looks good, but as others have said, the copyright on FORUMHOME is completely unnecessary. So, for that reason, I'm not installing.

[woostar]

Originally Posted by Jase2

Looks good, but as others have said, the copyright on FORUMHOME is completely unnecessary. So, for that reason, I'm not installing.

Same here.

Support:
The product marked as not supported, but that doesn't mean you won't see me again here.
So please try to help each other.

If we help each other can we request homepage links too