Missing "Silent" option for Reject rules

[jdmc]

I just opened the "Define Rules" screen for the first time since the Oct 29 reboot of the Webmail interface, and I see that the former "Reject" section, which used to have a "Silent" checkbox available for each rule, has now been renamed as the "Discard" section, with no "Silent" checkboxes available. Where is the "Silent" option now? Or are all previously-defined Reject rules now being treated as Silent regardless of their prior settings?

The above is what I see when using the "Classic" interface, or when viewing "Advanced Settings" from the "new" interface.

[janusz]

Originally Posted by jdmc

are all previously-defined Reject rules now being treated as Silent regardless of their prior settings?

Yes: http://blog.fastmail.fm/2012/04/24/a...am-protection/ Not exactly hot news...

[jdmc]

Thanks for the link, janusz. That certainly answers that question.

However, I think this sucks. I should be able to set a certain email address to generate a bounce if I so desire. Over the years, since I have a catch-all domain, there are a few addresses that have cropped up at which I mistakenly receive messages intended for someone else whose email address contains a typo. Being a nice guy, I used to write a response to the sender each time this happened, explaining the problem. But I got tired of this, so I instead set up Reject rules for those addresses with the Silent option turned off, so the senders would immediately and automatically know something was wrong without my having to take time to tell them. With the Silent option now being forced-on for all cases, such senders will now have no idea that they sent their message to the wrong address and that their intended recipient never received it. In my opinion, removing the Silent option on Reject rules was a regrettable decision on the part of Fastmail.

[n5bb]

Fastmail had to make the change after getting flagged as a spam source due to such automatic rejects of emails with forged From addresses. In such cases, the reject message is sent to the incorrect From address due to way that many spammers set up their messages.

You can still manually create a reject message as follows:

• Log into your account at http://beta.fastmail.fm
• Go to Settings>Advanced Settings>Define Rules
• In the Advanced tab (only found when you use a beta login), create a custom Sieve rule such as:

  ### PreDiscard {{{
  if header :contains "to" ["badaddress@domain.com"] {
    reject "Mailbox does not exist";
    stop;
  }
  ### }}}

• Save this Sieve code, and click Apply all changes at the top

Now messages sent to that specific address will receive the indicated reject message.


Bill

[m46ah_30]

I had created a custom code many months ago but now I wonder...

Does the user have to use the beta build for sending/receiving mail in order for the rejection notice to be sent to those it's addressed to?

How otherwise does the Fastmail server know to return the rejection notice when mail is received from the listed addresses?

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by m46ah_30

... Does the user have to use the beta build for sending/receiving mail in order for the rejection notice to be sent to those it's addressed to?

How otherwise does the Fastmail server know to return the rejection notice when mail is received from the listed addresses?

Once you change your Sieve rules on the Fastmail server, they will remain as you saved them until you make some additional change, filtering your email continuously. These rules run whether or not your are logged in. Here is how this works:

• When an email is sent to your address, the sending server contacts the Fastmail MX (receiving) server and announces that it has a message for your address. The receiving server must operate very quickly to process incoming messages for many users, so it only does two checks on incoming messages:
  • Attempted incoming connections from insecure senders are blocked. In some cases, this involves greylisting (deferring the connection and waiting to see if the sender retries appropriately).
  • Only connections with messages for valid Fastmail accounts and aliases are accepted.
• The receiving server accepts incoming messages and then transfers them to a server which processes messages for your account.
• There is a Fastmail server which is executing the Sieve code for your account on each incoming message. Each incoming message is processed immediately by the Sieve code and filed into a folder (or rejected or discarded), no matter whether you are logged in or not.
• When you log into the normal, classic, or beta systems, you are really just running different software in your browser which is sent from a Fastmail web interface server. The interface you see looks different in each of these systems, but this only has to do with how you view messages, send messages, and make system configuration changes. Your Sieve rules are running independently, and only when a new incoming message arrives.
• Several different menus change your Sieve script, including the Rules, Spam settings, Personalities, and other places. Here is what makes using both the normal and beta logins tricky:
  • A normal login shows you a certain set of displays. In the Rules screen, saving your Sieve script is really saving your normal Sieve menu settings into the single Sieve script which runs in the IMAP server.
  • A beta login shows you a different set of displays. For example, the Rules screen shows an additional Advanced tab used in my example reject script. When logged into beta, saving your Sieve script is saving your beta Sieve menu settings into the single Sieve script which runs in the IMAP server.
  • If you log into beta and make the reject change I showed earlier and apply that Sieve script, it will be transferred to the running Sieve processing system and used at all times until it is changed again. So you don't want to save any settings from a normal login or you could overwrite the running Sieve with the normal (less features) version.

So after you make the changes using a beta login, it's best to not use the normal login settings screens. If you do, you need to then log into beta and save your beta Sieve script in the Rules screen (to overwrite the normal script with the beta script).

Bill

[m46ah_30]

So, if I understand, I don't have to do business from the beta version to preserve a custom sieve configuration but I must make all "settings" changes in the beta version to avoid changing the custom sieve back to default.?

Thank you!

[n5bb]

That's correct. Set up and save your Sieve rules in beta, then you can log in to normal (or use an email client) and those beta rules will be used. As long as you don't overwrite the rules by changing them in a normal login, you will be fine.

I recommend setting up a reject rule at some crazy alias (such as a subdomain address) for testing purposes. You can then test it at any time by sending a test message to that test alias. But please note that if you send with a From address which is in your online address book the message will be whitelisted and not rejected.

Bill