#722228 popularity-contest may send mail with a wrong domain by default

Package:
popularity-contest
Source:
popularity-contest
Submitter:
Vincent Lefevre
Date:
2015-06-20 08:21:05 UTC
Severity:
minor
#722228#5
Date:
2013-09-09 08:58:08 UTC
From:
To:
When HTTP fails, popularity-contest tries to send the report by
e-mail, but it may send the mail with a wrong domain:
#722228#10
Date:
2014-02-24 19:02:30 UTC
From:
To:
Hello Vincent, Sorry for the late answer.

The popcon.debian.org mail server is supposed to accept email with invalid sender
address. If it is no more the case, then this is a bug that should be fixed in the
server, not in the package.

Do you know if the problem still occur ?

Cheers,
#722228#15
Date:
2014-02-24 21:06:42 UTC
From:
To:
As far as I can see it does.

2014-02-24 21:54:30 1WI2Xm-0001Mu-Rw <= root@yellowpig.invalid U=root P=local S=353
2014-02-24 21:54:31 1WI2Xm-0001Mu-Rw ** test@popcon.debian.org R=smarthost T=remote_smtp_smarthost: SMTP error from remote mail server after MAIL FROM:<root@yellowpig.invalid> SIZE=1387: host smtp.free.fr [2a01:e0c:1::25]: 550 5.1.8 <root@yellowpig.invalid>: Sender address rejected: Domain
not found

I will ask Debian admin to fix it.

Cheers,
#722228#20
Date:
2014-02-24 22:22:45 UTC
From:
To:
On 2014-02-24 22:06:42 +0100, Bill Allombert wrote:
[...]
"smarthost" is rejecting the mail. There are two solutions to solve
this:

1. Make sure that an existing domain is used, either by using a fixed,
popcon-specific address for "From:", or by asking the user to provide
a valid e-mail address at configuration time (which could be changed
with dpkg-reconfigure).

2. Send the mail by a direct SMTP connection to the popcon server, so
that the usual SMTP smarthost is bypassed.
#722228#25
Date:
2014-02-24 22:25:31 UTC
From:
To:
Except the popcon.debian.org server itself seems to work properly, this is
the SMTP relay that reject the message.

I am concerned that an SMTP relay might be configured to only accept emails with
a certain MAIL FROM: domain, and that forcing the domain to be root@popcon.d.o
instead of using root email address might be counter-productive in the sense
that popcon might fail even if the root address is correctly configured.

Cheers,
#722228#30
Date:
2014-02-24 22:28:23 UTC
From:
To:
Well, this second solution wouldn't work well, unless popcon provides
its own scripts to send the mail when an Internet connection becomes
available (a bit like what local mail servers do). This is important
since mail is used instead of HTTP precisely when the HTTP connection
failed, e.g. because of the lack of a permanent Internet connection.
#722228#35
Date:
2014-02-24 22:37:37 UTC
From:
To:
ISP's SMTP smarthosts normally don't force the domain, as users may
have several e-mail addresses. These smarthosts just check whether
the domain exists (since if it doesn't, this probably means spam in
practice... or badly configured "From:", which needs to be fixed;
the use by popcon -- which never needs replies -- is special).

A user may configure his own submission host to accept only some
domains, though. But I'm wondering whether many users do this.