CGI Sendmail function and spam

[Jim Ault]

My "system" is not operating now since the project was cancelled a couple
years ago, but I still had the activity logged and reported to my personal
email account every five minutes.  This was a mission critical point, so any
interruption was important.

As far as abuse, I probably got lucky and did not suffer any attacks.  I did
receive some miscellaneous junk once in a while, but filtered it so only my
stuff went out.

Sorry I cannot be of more help in your situation.

Jim Ault
Las Vegas


On 12/13/05 2:20 AM, "Sivakatirswami" <katir at hindu.org> wrote:

> OK, so your CGI is not getting "abused" by hackers from the
> outside... this is all your outgoing mail..?
> 
> 
> On Dec 13, 2005, at 12:17 AM, Jim Ault wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On 12/13/05 12:02 AM, "Sivakatirswami" <katir at hindu.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> I call sendmail on our linux web server from at least a dozen web
>>> forms and related revolution CGI and I have a plain jaine send mail
>>> script CGI that only I know the name  of  and which is used by remote
>>> rev apps to forward mail. The Rev app posts to the CGI and the CGI
>>> calls send mail and sends the message. This is very useful as I can
>>> use a single CGI to handle and mail from any rev app.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Anyway, my system has *never* been abused. I'm curious to first ask,
>>> what  did your web form look like...and what did the CGI do?  was it
>>> simply a web form with from, to, subject  and  body?
>>> 
>>> Sivakatirswami
>>> 
>> 
>> I guess my point is that you can create a "to do list" somewhere,
>> rather
>> than just execute the batch sending, therefore having some control
>> over
>> getting into difficulty with the host.  Perhaps you could just
>> generate a
>> text file, then review it to see the impact.
>> 
>> Another approach may be to schedule the send mail calls to space
>> them out,
>> if that would help.
>> 
>> Jim Ault
>> Las Vegas
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Dec 12, 2005, at 7:28 PM, Jim Ault wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Shoudn't you be able to queue for later delivery, then have Rev
>>>> some how
>>>> send you an email letting you know what's in the queue, ...and
>>>> then... you
>>>> send an email that Rev answers where the subject line triggers the
>>>> release!
>>>> (or kills them)?
>>>> 
>>>> This way no mail goes before its time, and you are in control.
>>>> 
>>>> Jim Ault
>>>> Las Vegas
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 12/12/05 9:21 PM, "Thomas McCarthy" <tominjapan at excite.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I used my rev cgi to call the UNIX sendmail process last summer.
>>>>> My site was
>>>>> shut down by the provider shortly after on account of the enormous
>>>>> amout of
>>>>> emails being generated. I thought I'd fixed the problem but I'm
>>>>> afraid it
>>>>> might have happened again.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Are there any suggestions for securely using sendmail in a rev
>>>>> script?
>>>>> 
>>>>> thanks,
>>>>> tm
>>>>>