Automatic Reply Facilities in the EMWAC Internet Mail Services

You (or mail recipients using IMS) can configure IMS to reply to messages automatically. This can be useful in a variety of circumstances.

For instance, a user who is on holiday may wish to arrange for people who send her mail to receive a message explaining when she will return. Or, as mail administrator, you may want to arrange for mail addressed to a former employee to be replied to with details of the individual's new email address. Some sample configurations are provided.

The autoreply feature is set up on a per-user basis, using files located in the user's mailbox. You, as administrator, may place the files there, or they may be placed by the user herself. The most important file is the IMS Control File IMS.CTL.

The following files are also important for the autoreply feature:

AUTORPLY.TXT

This file, if present in the user's mailbox, will cause an autoreply message to be sent. It contains the text of the reply message.

NOREPLY.TXT

This file, if present in the user's mailbox, must contain one RFC822 address per line. If a message is received which is addressed to (or CC'd to) one of these addresses, then no automatic reply will be sent. You would typically include addresses of mailing lists in here (since automatic replies to mailing list messages are antisocial).

Note that IMS will never send an autoreply to an address like owner-XXXXXX or like XXXXXX-request, for the same reason.

REPLIED.TXT

This file is created by SMTPDS if the RecordReplies flag is set in IMS.CTL. It contains one line for every address to which an automatic reply has been sent.

Example Configurations

Vacation

IMS.CTL:

[AutoReply]
  RecordReplies=Yes

AUTORPLY.TXT:

Thanks for your mail. This is an automatic reply.
I'm on holiday until 13 July, and will attend to your message
then.  You can send me more mail, and you won't get a second
copy of this message.

NOREPLY.TXT:

webserver-nt@delta.process.com
www-talk@w3.org

Employee Left

IMS.CTL:

[AutoReply]
  ReplyFrom=Postmaster@abc.com
  EchoMessage=Yes
[Delivery]
  Discard=Yes

AUTORPLY.TXT:

Ms Smith has left the ABC organization.  Her new address is
smith@xyz.com.  Please do not send further correspondance
to smith@abc.com.

NOREPLY.TXT:

interesting-list@pqr.edu