Sendmail/FormMail Clarification

[dispatcher]

There were recent announcements about FormMail & Sendmail problems, and a large number of posts about the end of Sendmail for all scripts. or only being able to send mail TO POWWEB addresses.

Could someone give a definative answer??

I do not use or like Matts FormMail
I use BNB's Form Mailer, and have it set up with restrictions by refferer, and hardcoded to send only to me. It is NOT named formmail.pl, or in my cgi-bin directory. So far nobody seems to have abused it.

I also use sendmail functions on a variety of small scripts
as well as in InvisionBoard. All seem to be working at the moment.

Do I need to do something???
Will sendmail suddenly die???

Is the restriction on FormMail or Sendmail,
and does it limit the input FROM POWWEB web servers, or OUTPUT to POWWEB mail servers.

Bob
4driver.com

[Sinistar]

The restriction seems to be implemented at the sendmail side of things.

I use PHP-Nuke on my PowWeb hosted site (www.fithlan.com) and my user registration form sends login and password info to newly registered users. My forums also allow mail notification for new posts in threads.

Both stopped working last Friday. I received reports of Server 500 errors from users, but when I tried to duplicate it, I was, of course, having things sent to my PowWeb mail, so it worked. I just tried it today to an external address and received the error.

PHP-Nuke, to my knowledge, uses the PHP mail(); function, so if THAT is no longer working, than it must be implemented at sendmail.

I have a request in to support asking for clarification, because if PowWeb truly means to stop all data submitted via form from going to external addresses, then I need to move back to my old provider.

This is unacceptable.

[KimmiKat]

Dispatcher,

I'm also waiting for clarification, especially relating to the mboards. If the "lock-down" effects many of the mboards hosted on Powweb, there's going to be a flood of complaints pouring in.

[dispatcher]

I don't know???

I did several tests over the weekend and they all worked, being sent to my addtresses, but NOT at POWWEB (I have several POP3 accts available) all worked. And a few messages came in today.

I suspect that the changes are in the FormMail script, as it is the easiest access point for spammers.

If you take a few precautions it will filter out most attacks

Sendmail, which most message boards use, has some vulnerabilities too, but that's another matter! Cutting it off totaly would shut down virtualy all of the auto verification & notification functions, ordering systems, etc

Bob

[Starr]

Folks, relax. We will not make any changes to form mail with making sure those of you that need to be able to send email off-site have a viable solution.

What we did do was make it so our own form mailer (/powweb-bin/FormMail.pl) was not able to relay email to a domain not hosted on that server, but your custom form mailers can still do this.

Also, in thinking about the future, there are other ways to have your forms or autoresponders work as they always have w/ little modification. We have a few users that now use their SMTP server (i.e.: mail.domain.com). You just have to have your scripts authentication to allow you to relay email.

There are many answerers out there and together, we will find many that will work w/ a variety of accounts and applications.

[dispatcher]

Thankyou - that is what I thought

just wanted a "correct " answer to all the confusin

Bob

[Jade Dragon]

Thanks Starr!

I thought we were reading more into this. Minor inconvenience(sp?), but things always have to be modified at some point in time. Better that than complete blacklist. :)

JD

[KimmiKat]

Starr,

Thanks for the clarification. I know with this issue people can come up all kinds of confusion.

[Sinistar]

Thanks for the clarification.

I guess it's back to the drawing board to figure out where my Error 500's are coming from...

It seemed so much easier to blame it on the formmail announcement. :)

[After testing, it seems I am having a legit problem with PowWeb sending to external e-mail address via PHP mail(); calls, but I'll move it to the PHP forum -> http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15368]