vBouncer : Unsubscribe threads for members with bouncing emails

What vBouncer does
vBouncer will reduce your server load, bandwidth, and your forum admin in-box, by unsubscribing members who keep bouncing their emails back to your forum admin email, which may bomb your mail box if you have a busy forum with many members who subscribe to many threads, but their emails are either invalid, in box full, or have ISP problems.

Screen shots
None, this is a command line script, with some changes in functions.php

Who may want to use this?
1. Very busy sites, with thousands of notifications a day.
2. Your admin box gets too many bouncing emails
3. You use sendmail. I'm not sure how this works on other mail servers.

Caution
This may drive some of your members mad If their email bounces a lot, this script will unsubscribe them from their favourite threads. They will have to fix their email account, and then subscribe manually to each thread again... This may not be due to bad emails, just ISP side problems.

Use at your own risk. I'm sharing this since some indicated interest at vBulletin.com in this thread:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...threadid=71496
I'd be glad to help answer questions, but as with most hacks, it is your responsibility....

Installation
1. Create a unique email address on your server, dedicated to catch bouncing emails. Do not use adminemail, or any other existing email that you want to receive through a POP account. This email will be used only to catch bouncing emails.

Recommended name (makes for less editing): subscriber_notify

2. Edit functions.php

Find:

PHP Code:

        // work out the 'From' header
        if ($from == '') {
            $headers = "From: \"$bbtitle Mailer\" <$webmasteremail>\r\n" . $headers;
        } else {
            $headers = 'From: "' . iif($username, "$username @ $bbtitle", $from) . "\" <$from>\r\n" . $headers;
        }

        // actually send the email message
        mail($toemail, $subject, $message, trim($headers)); 


Replace with:

PHP Code:

                // work out the 'From' header
                if ($from == '') {
                        $from = $webmasteremail;

                        $headers = "From: \"$bbtitle\" <$webmasteremail>\r\n" . $headers;
                } else {
                        $headers = 'From: "' . iif($username, "$username @ $bbtitle", $from) . "\" <$from>\r\n" . $headers;
                }

                // actually send the email message
                mail($toemail, $subject, $message, trim($headers), "-f$from"); 


Find:

PHP Code:

vbmail($touser['email'], $emailsubject, $emailmsg); 


Replace with: replace subscriber_notify@example.com with your domain name)

PHP Code:

    $emailerusername = "New Reply Notification";
    $emailer = "subscriber_notify@example.com"; // change this to your bouncer email account.
    $emailerheader = "Reply-To: $emailer\nErrors-To: $emailer\n";
    vbmail($touser['email'], $emailsubject, $emailmsg, $emailer, $emailerheader, $emailerusername); 


3. Copy vBouncer.pl.txt to a directory on your server. vBouncer.pl.txt is attached below.

Rename it to vBouncer.pl by typing:

mv vBounver.pl.txt vBouncer.pl

Make it executable by typing:

chmod +x vBouncer.pl

4. Edit the configuation section of vBouncer.pl

#! /usr/bin/perl -w
#
# USAGE: vBouncer.pl -bounce : to unsubscribe threads from members with bouncing email
#        vBouncer.pl : with no parameters to see (test) who will be unsubscribed
#
# When done, remember to reset the email file,
#       cp /dev/null subscriber_notify (or whatever filename your bouncing email file is chosen)
#
# Copyright (c) 2003 Mad SCO Disease, released under GPL. Mad SCO Disease reserves the right
# to sue your butt, if you don't buy out their small time company. Check eBay for current bids.
#
# Details on Mad SCO Disease provided here: http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html
# For the proper way to eat sane cows, check here: http://www.lowcarb.ca

# Config:
my $bouncelimit = 25;  # how much bounced emails are allowed, before taking actions
my $unsubscribe = 1;    # unsubscribe member from all subscribed threads, 1=yes, 0=no
my $changedefault = 1;  # change subscription default to no. 1=yes, 0=no
my $nobulletin = 0;     # This is only for those who installed the newsletter bulletin hack
                        # change receive bulletin option to no. 1=yes, 0=no
my $changeusergroup = 0;# change user group to bounced group, 1=yes, 0=no
                        # THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED USE WITH CAUTION
                        # IF AMINS AND/OR MODS BOUNCE EMAILS, IT WON'T CHECK
                        # IF you really want to use this option, you will need to uncomment the code
my $bouncedgroup = 2;   # the usergroup id for bouncing members, be careful, this number
                        # must match the user group id you setup in the vb control panel (not yet implemented)

my $bouncefile = "/var/spool/mail/subscriber_notify";
                        # the path/to/bouncing emails file. "subscriber_notify is the email name, you need
                        # to change it to the email name you chose for bouncing emails.

my $db="database";        # mysql database name
my $db_host="localhost";                # mysql host
my $db_username="username";             # mysql username
my $db_password="password";             # mysql password

5. Once a week or so, you can run the scropt manually, or through a cron job. When done, you have to clear the email file, otherwise it will keep unsubscribing members whos emails no longer bounce.

To run the script in test mode, type:

./vBounver.pl

To run the script in bouncer mode, type:

./vBounver.pl -bouncer

To clear the mail box, use:
cat /dev/null > subscriber_notify

6. Optional bonus: If you have very long threads, you can queue emails until the server load is acceptable. Edit /etc/sendmail.cf

Find:
# load average at which we just queue messages
#O QueueLA=5

Change to:
# load average at which we just queue messages
O QueueLA=3

This basically means sendmail will not attempt to deliver the email if your server is at load average of 3 or greater, it will place it in the mail queue for later delivery. You can change this number to suit your needs.

Planned enhancments (will wait for vB 3.0)

1. Instead of unsubscribing members threads, suspend notification by making a copy of their subscriptions, and copying them back when emails no longer bounce.

2. Track bounce history through admin panel,. This is similar to the old eGroup bouncing history.

3. Automatically PM members re their bounced emails.

4. Offer an option to admin to disable email notification to bouncing members, but keep the subscription. Similar to vB 3.0's daily and weekly notification, but adding a "no emails" option. This is also planned to be a seperate hack. If someone already has access to vB3.0, feel free to use this idea


Attached file is dated June 1st, 2003

[tamarian]

Today at 09:59 PM pgowder said this in Post #9
I'm trying that now, but before I could finish installing, I've noticed that all the emails are now coming to my Outlook???

I can only see this happening, if the members who successfully received an email notification decide to reply to that email, instead of posting on the forum.

In that case, yes, it will go to that address. I didn't consider this a problem, but I will edit my 2.2.9 code to avoid that. In that case is will go to the admin email.

If it arrives to outlook express, you might have missed some steps. I any of the steps have been missed, or not folowed exactly as written, please let me know which ones.

Do you use sendmail?

Did you create a new email account (subscriber_notify)?

To receive it through Oulook or any POP client , you need to set up your email client for that email address. For this vBouncer to work, you should not set it up as a POP client for the vBouncer dedicated email account, just leave it on the server to collect bounced emails.

If you did not set a POP client, then it is possible you are getting the emails forwarded to the "catch-all" account, if the email was misspelled.

Hope this helps

[CJi]

Works marvellously! Clicks install!

[CJi]

I have noticed that regardless of whether -bouncer was specified or not, it ran in test mode. To correct this, make the following changes:

line 65: change: $bouncemode =0; to: $bouncemode = 1;

It seems in some versions of perl (or indeed all?) it's similar to php - setting a variable with a 0 (zero) in effect wipes that variable, changing it to a 1 sets it so that the if($bouncemode) works correctly.

[tamarian]

Today at 06:07 PM CJi said this in Post #13
I have noticed that regardless of whether -bouncer was specified or not, it ran in test mode. To correct this, make the following changes:

line 65: change: $bouncemode =0; to: $bouncemode = 1;

It seems in some versions of perl (or indeed all?) it's similar to php - setting a variable with a 0 (zero) in effect wipes that variable, changing it to a 1 sets it so that the if($bouncemode) works correctly.

It's more like lack of coffee

File updated, thanks for the correction.

[CJi]

Pleasure! I'm just glad it was something that simple

[CJi]

<a href="http://www.ukairsoft.net/bounce.php" target="_blank">http://www.ukairsoft.net/bounce.php</a>

I've automated the process so users can keep abreast of the problem as well as changed the system slightly. I'll be happy to share the code if anyone is interested.

[Lesane]

^that would be cool CJI.

tamarian, i get the following error when i execute vbouncer.pl:

PHP Code:

malformed header from script. Bad header=Running in test mode. No actio: /home/wildvibe/public_html/cgi-bin/vbouncer.pl 


[tamarian]

Today at 04:43 PM Lesane said this in Post #17
^that would be cool CJI.

tamarian, i get the following error when i execute vbouncer.pl:

PHP Code:

malformed header from script. Bad header=Running in test mode. No actio: /home/wildvibe/public_html/cgi-bin/vbouncer.pl 


Are you running it from a browser? If so, try running it from the command line. Also, take out of public_html directory, to a directory above the html document root, for security reasons.

[CJi]

Please find attached the (slightly) modified bouncer.pl code (basically added tables support and removed reporting of the userid as it doesn't mean an awful lot to my users.)

Create 2 shell scripts (bounce-list.sh and bounce-do.sh or similar, and make sure they are executable by you, the owner and are in the same group as your mail bounce file. (chmod 700 should suffice.)

bounce-list.sh:

#!/bin/sh
/root/./bouncer.pl -test > /home/virtual/site1/fst/var/www/html/output.html
A=`date "+%H:%M"`
T=`date "+%d/%m/%Y"`
echo "<br><br>Last Updated: $A on $T" >> /home/virtual/site1/fst/var/www/html/output.html

Note: -test is required to stop perl moaning about an empty variable check, or something. Replace /home/virtual[yadeya]/output.html with the file you would like to dump the results in. Then you can use php to include this file into your site template.

bouncer.sh:
As above, but replace -test with -bouncer.

These 2 scripts can then be placed in a crontab as required. I run mine every 8 hours or so in list mode, and manually run the bouncer when I can remember/be bothered.

Original code author: If you do not wish this code to be published, please email me and I will remove it. Just trying to make a great piece of software just that little bit better.

[tamarian]

Today at 12:35 AM CJi said this in Post #19

Original code author: If you do not wish this code to be published, please email me and I will remove it. Just trying to make a great piece of software just that little bit better.

I don't mind a bit, all contributions and suggestions are welcome.