Email Loop Detection
Occasionally, an email message may be sent to an address that returns an automated reply, such as an out-of-office notification. If Techmail then receives and processes the automated reply, another message, such as an incident receipt or rule response, could be sent, generating another automated reply, forming an email loop.
To avoid this problem, the Techmail utility automatically terminates email loops using three detection methods.
- Duplicate messages—If Techmail detects that it has processed an identical email earlier in the same run, the duplicate email is deleted. Emails are considered duplicates if they are found in the same mailbox and contain the same email address, subject, send date, and body as a previous message.
- B2C Service messages—Techmail also looks for any incoming message header that contains a reply-to address matching the reply-to address of any mailbox. In this way, Techmail deletes any messages originating from the system, such as receipts and escalation notifications, to prevent continuous internal email loops within Service.
- Multiple messages—Techmail also enforces a maximum number of messages allowed from a single email address in a specified period of time, regardless of content. By default, no more than twenty-three messages are allowed from the same address in the same twelve-hour period. Additional messages from that address within that time period indicate that an email loop has occurred and are deleted to terminate the loop.
This table describes the configuration settings you can use to configure the Techmail email loop prevention function. See Edit a Configuration Setting.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| RightNow Common/Service Modules/Oracle Email | |
| EGW_LOOP_PREVENT_ENABLED | If enabled, any email where the reply-to email address matches the reply-to email address of any Oracle-managed Service mailbox, general Service mailbox, or Outreach mailbox is discarded and no incident is created. In this way, the mailbox deletes any messages from itself, which can prevent continuous email loops. Default is enabled (Yes). |
| EGW_DISCARD_DUPLICATE_ENABLED | If enabled, any email having the same date, email address, subject, and body as an existing incident are classified as a duplicate message and are discarded. Default is enabled (Yes). |
| EGW_MAX_MSG_DURATION | Specifies the number of hours in which EGW_MAX_PER_ADDRESS is calculated. By default, the system only accepts 23 messages from a given email address in a 12-hour period. Since a high number of messages in a short period of time is reasonable, it is recommended the duration not be less than 8 hours or more than 24 hours. Default is 12. |
| EGW_MAX_PER_ADDRESS | Specifies the maximum number of emails that are accepted from an individual email address within a EGW_MAX_MSG_DURATION hour period. This is used to identify and stop auto-responder email loops. For example, if this setting is set to 23, and 24 emails are received from the same address within EGW_MAX_MSG_DURATION hours, the 24th email from that address is discarded and no response email is sent, thereby breaking the email loop. Setting the value to zero turns off this loop detection. Default is 23. |
In the rare event that Techmail’s automated detection features are insufficient to prevent an email loop, you can use either of the following options to break the loop by temporarily discarding messages received from a specific email address.
- To end a loop using business rules, set up a temporary rule to delete email received from the address causing the loop. See Add a Rule.
- To end a loop using mailbox settings, temporarily add the email address to the Discard Addresses field for incoming email on the Mailboxes editor. See How Mailboxes Work and Edit an Oracle-Managed Service Mailbox.