vBouncer (PHP): reduce server load by unsubscribing bouncing members from threads

There's also a vB 3.5 version: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...threadid=83486

vBouncer is a handy tool for busy forums (or those that do not require email verification) to control the amounts of bogus emails sent from and to your server. This was initially released for vB 2.x and vB 3.0.x as a Perl script, and is now fully integrated with vB as scheduled tasks with admin panel control.

What vBouncer does: vBouncer monitors your mail spool file, and identifies members responsible for large amounts of bounced emails. It then issues a PM warning, and when the unsubscribe threshold is met, it will will unsubscribe them for all threads, and sets them to the "no email" subscription level.

After a couple of runs, this should significantly reduce your server load.

Features:
Manual or auto processing option
Collect logs via IMAP/POP or mail spool file
Uses vB's cron files (Scheduled tasks)
Custom filters to match patterns in bounced emails
Encryption header to authenticate bounces.
Stats on members with bouncing emails, and error codes
Tuning options
Verbose cron logs for diagnostics
Option to send PM warning prior to reaching the limit
Option to send PM notifications after reaching the limit
Option to change the member's subscription default
Option to all thread subscriptions to "no email"
Option to all forum subscriptions to "no email"
Option to move offenders to a different primary usergroup
Option to process 5.0.0/550 errors (email unknown) upon a single email, isntead of observing the bounce limit

Installation:
1. Extract the files into the corresponding directories (admincp => admincp, includes/cron => includes/cron)
2. Run the installation script in the admincp
3. Fill out the settings menu in the vBouncer section of the admin panel (see the how-to post below)
4. Edit includes/mail.php
Find:

PHP Code:

if ($minusf)
        {
            $this->success = @mail($toemail, $subject, $message, trim($headers), "-f $fromemail");
        }
        else
        {
            $this->success = @mail($toemail, $subject, $message, trim($headers));
        } 


Replace with:

PHP Code:

global $vboptions;
                if (is_valid_email($vboptions['vbouncer_spool_account'])) {
                        if ($vboptions['vbouncer_header_return_key'])
                                $headers .= 'X-Return-ID: ' . md5($vboptions['vbouncer_header_return_key'] . $toemail) . "\n";
                        $this->success = @mail($toemail, $subject, $message, trim($headers), '-f' . $vboptions['vbouncer_spool_account']);
                }
                else
                        $this->success = @mail($toemail, $subject, $message, trim($headers), "-f $fromemail"); 


In admincp/index.php, find:

PHP Code:

                                  if (can_administer('canadmincron')) 


Add before::

PHP Code:

                          if (can_administer('canadmincron'))
    {
        construct_nav_option('vBouncer Settings', 'options.php?do=options&dogroup=vBouncer', '|');
        construct_nav_option('Stats', 'vbouncer.php?do=stats', '<br />' );
        construct_nav_option('Diagnostics', 'vbouncer.php?do=diag', '<br />');
        construct_nav_group('vBouncer');
    } 


5. Once ready, add the cron scripts to your scheduled tasks: vbouncer-collect.php (should be run daily, or more frequently) and vbouncer-clean.php (weekly, equal to Bounce limit period)

Change log:

- July 11, 2005 v1.2 Bug fix for some server/PHP setups; resolve aliases for return keys, otherwise some aliases would be considered forged.

- July 5, 2005 v1.1 Bug fix in standard report pattern matching

- July 4, 2005 v1.0 Added encrypted header for authentication (suggested by Paul M).

- July 3, 2005 v0.9.1 added fixed a bug preventing IMAP/POP log collection.

- July 2, 2005 v0.9 added IMAP/POP option and custom filters file vbouncer.ini

- June 27, 2005 v0.51 for 3.0.7 Corrected installer file.

- June 27, 2005 v0.5 for 3.0.7 Add setting for custom header strings.

- June 26, 2005 v0.2 for 3.0.7 Initial release No changes, just removed the plugin

Screenshots from 3.5 beta, but it looks the same on 3.0.7...

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by David Bott

Ah!!! I have a great idea. (I think)

Ok, you have the option to act fully on a 5.0.0/550, or what have you, on the first bounce of a mail, Why this can make for an issue as you know, it gave me an idea. (Look at the log, a lot of them are 5.0.0/550.

In any case....here is the thought. Have the option to look at the Last Activity date where you can set..."If have not visited in X days, assume dead e-mail" and then act on it.

So they get a 5.0.0/550 bounce. When the cleaner runs the system looks up the address in the user database, and also pulls the last activity date for that user and says..."is the last activity date that older than X days" If yes, run the full clean options.

You see, looking at some of the users that have bounced, they have not been back to the site in some time, thus it would be great to act on them why it may not be good to act on some others with a 5.0.0/550.

Thoughts?

95+% of the mail performance issues are due to instant notifications. Those are only sent once per thread, until the member's next visit. If they don't visit often, they will not generate instant notifications, so adding more code for those who have not visited lately will have little impact.

[David Bott]

Thanks for th note.

Maybe you do not know my site and thus do not see the same concerns. (Not that you would know the site.)

We see over 65,000 unique people a day with over 3000 showing as on-line most of the day. Over 190,000 register with about 250-300 new registrations a day based on what is going on. Over 6.5 millions posts and under 4000 in Alexa.

Running the clean once a week does not work. In 3 days we could have someone already over the other limit and thus to late for any warning notice for it would have already taken action. The site is very, very active and a lot of mail goes out.

I mentioned the idea to check the last visit date because looking at some of the users that have bounced mail, they have not been to the site in over 6 months. You see, we have threads that are active still for years.

Oh, the image path. Ys, I had seen that line but would not know what edit out to stop the ../ part.

Thanks

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by David Bott

Maybe you do not know my site and thus do not see the same concerns. (Not that you would know the site.)

We see over 65,000 unique people a day with over 3000 showing as on-line most of the day. Over 190,000 register with about 250-300 new registrations a day based on what is going on. Over 6.5 millions posts and under 4000 in Alexa.

Running the clean once a week does not work. In 3 days we could have someone already over the other limit and thus to late for any warning notice for it would have already taken action. The site is very, very active and a lot of mail goes out.

vBouncer was written for large sites. Smaller sites have no use for it, so I'm aware of the load issues, that's why I wrote it

You don't need to run the "clean" cron once a week, but hourly is an overkill, and provides no benefits, unless your warning period is defined as hourly. The interval should be no less than your warning interval, can be 2 days, 3 days.

Users who have not visited for a month or more, will never get instant notification emails. It's either the daily digest, or the weekly digest. If you set your digests to run in the off hours, then 99% of the mail load damage is caused by instant notifications, which is done by active members only.

[rstan]

have i had to much crack today or does my vb have no email.php?

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by rstan

have i had to much crack today or does my vb have no email.php?

mail.php, not email.php

[David Bott]

Hello...

I have been using this for some time now and it works great.

However I just moved my mail to a new mail server and I have run into an issue. Here is the error that is reported...

Failed to access email, please check vBouncer mail settings.
Last error: Certificate failure for mail.tivocommunity.com: self signed certificate: /C=US/ST=Unknown/L=Unknown/O=Unknown/OU=Unknown/CN=cambridge.micfo.com/emailAddress=ssl.net
Unable to clear bounced emails, exiting.

The question is, is their any way to ingnor this error and contiune on? The POP3 account does work just fine but it seems SSL is getting in the way for PHP is using IMAP.

Please help.

Thank you.

[tamarian]

Try adding "notls" into the connection string.

[Quarterbore]

Anybody up to trying to get this updated for 3.6.x?

[sv1cec]

Can you please fix code suggested for mail.php? Because as it is in the notes, there are some curly brackets missing, and since the time I did that suggested change, all email from my sites were stopped.

Also, if one of the guys/gals who posted in this, have installed this hack and it is working, can you please tell me how you modified your mail.php file?

One more thing. I am trying to use the file method for this hack. The file /var/spool/mail/rejects (or whatever you call the account name), is owned by rejects and the group is mail. The permissions are set to 666, but as soon as procmail delivers mail to it, it is reset to 600. Also, I do not see anything in my php configuration, regarding pop. All I see is :

mod_php4, mod_setenvif, mod_so, mod_auth, mod_access, mod_alias, mod_userdir, mod_actions, mod_imap, mod_asis, mod_cgi, mod_dir, mod_autoindex, mod_include, mod_status, mod_negotiation, mod_mime, mod_log_config, mod_env, http_core

Is mod_imap the required procedure to access the email account via POP3? If so, why do I get a Failed in diagnostics?

"Your PHP installation supports IMAP/POP Failed"

Thanks

[sv1cec]

Anyone can answer the above please??