E-mail loop

E-mail loop

An e-mail loop is an infinite loop phenomenon, resulting from mail servers, scripts, or e-mail clients that generate automatic replies or responses. If one such automatic response triggers another automatic response on the other side, an e-mail loop is created. The process can continue until one mailbox is full or reaches its mail sending limit. In some cases, the e-mail loop could last an infinite duration. E-mail loops may be caused accidentally or maliciously, causing denial of service. Although rare, e-mail loops involving more than two participants can also occur.

E-mail loops are not as common today as in the past, due to changes to e-mail software, both on the client side and the server side, that prevent automatic replies to vacation responses and bounced mail responses.Fact|date=February 2007

Costs of an e-mail loop

* Bandwidth: E-mail loops use up limited bandwidth over networks.
* Processing time: E-mail loops will take up processing time, and could slow down other processes.
* Disk space: Automatic e-mails are usually stored in the mailboxes of participants.
* Human Time: Network administrators may have to intervene to fix the problem, or clean up mailboxes. Also the mailbox user/owner will have to delete the numerous responses in order to clean up their mailbox.

Causes

* Autoresponders, such as automatic "on vacation" replies
* E-mail bounces due to, for example, exceeding the inbox disk quota
* Replies to indicate that that mail has been delivered
* Replies to e-mail read-receipts

Prevention

* The mail system should retain Headers of incoming E-mail while performing any type of auto-forwarding operation.
* Auto Responder: Do not send more than 'x' replies to the same sender.

External links

* [http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2001-November/015081.html Vacation E-Mail Loop]
* [http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/mail+loop The Free Dictionary]
* [http://www.digitalpoint.com/lists/18554.html Mail Loop Error]
*RFC 2919


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