Flood of emails when using Piping

[Lisaweb]

Version of script: 2.3
Hosting company: Servint
Piping path in Cpanel I used: |/../../../usr/bin/php -q /home/xxxxxxxxx/public_html/helpdesk/inc/mail/hesk_pipe.php
What terms did you try when SEARCHING for a solution: email, duplicate, tickets

Write your message below:

I set up piping, and made certain the piping email forward in cpanel was not the same as the noreply address (it was the same as my Hesk admin email, however). But when I tried it, I got a flood of emails and tickets which only halted after I turned piping off! (several thousand emails later). I have since set up piping with a forwarder address that is not used for anything else, and it's working fine now. But....

What could have caused this? The piping forward address I used is also a normal mailbox, could this have caused the problem in some way? Because I want to be able to use some our current mailboxes, but have emails to them also pipe into the program. If not, what else could have caused this? I am perplexed, and I don't want this to happen again, it almost halted my server.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

-Lisa

[Lisaweb]

Okay, I think I figured out that the problem is.

If the piped email address is the same as the admin's email address (or possibly the users emails as well) an infinite loop is created.

Maybe this warning needs to be updated:

Warning: The address you enter must not be the same as the No reply email setting in your HESK settings!

...to include admin email and user emails settings as well. Cause I got an infinite loop, by using the same address for the piped email as my admin email.

[Klemen]

A loop is created only if you have an autoresponder setup that sends mail to the pipe email address.

That's why the "noreply" address mustn't be the same as the pipe address - to avoid loops if customers have autoresponders set up.

[Lisaweb]

Well, I can honestly tell you, I know I don't have an auto-responder set up on my admin email address. I have access to my own server, and just now double-checked. There are no auto-reponders set up on my server at all.

All I did was set up a pipe in cpanel on the same address as my Hesk admin email. And I got thousands of Ticket Replies, etc, until I turned off piping and chmod'd the pipe file to 000. I changed the piping to a different address than my admin one, and it never happened again.

Could there be any other reason this might happen?

Thanks for your help.

[Klemen]

If you want to use it like that you need to disable all email notifications to your admin address.

For example if someone sends an email to admin@yoursite.com this generates a ticket. You (admin@yoursite.com) receive a notification of a new ticket which in piped into a new ticket that again generates a notification that gets piped to a new ticket that generates a notification that... you get the idea

[Lisaweb]

Right. That's what I was thinking. So for us slower folks who would make such a mistake, it might be prudent to put out a warning on the piping instructions not to use any of your Admin or User email addresses for piping unless you completely disable all notifications (which is still risky because it would be easy for users to forget this).