I've posted a new version on the web site at 4:50 Eastern Time.
-- This is the first version that contains some of the Sidewinder Tracing and Rating Engine functionality! To enable this, from the menu run Database, Verify Servers.
-- Corrected parsing problem for SMTP headers where "by" comes before "from".
-- Other very minor coding improvements.
Full Version: Em@ilCRX v1.2.8
For the uninitiated among us (like me) what is Sidewinder Tracing and Rating Engine functionality?
Good question Tim!
One of the mistakes that I made while planning the development of both Sp@mX, and Em@ilCRX was expecting a perfect DNS system.
I was amazed at some of the things that I discovered from user feedback, and email that was forwarded automatically to the techsupport address that could not be traced and reported by CRX.
The Verify Servers function is the first step toward what I'm calling the Sidewinder Tracing and Valildation Engine. What this does is verify a logical path that would be taken by an email to get to a user. This includes a MX check, and an actual connection to the user's SMTP server to provide a secondary validation of the server names that CRX should expect to see in a header. As well as a provision to check relays that a user might use to forward email.
I'm going to pick on a user (protecting his name, of course), and use one of his emails as an example.
He has an email address of hisemailaddress@dotatdot.co.uk.
If you do a MX lookup for this domain, you'll get mx1.freeola.net, and mx2.freeola.net.
Ok, so I'm going to look for dotatdot.co.uk, and freeola.net as domains for this message to route through. Everything Ok? Nope. If you connect to either of the freeola.net MXs they will actually return the domain name mx(n).enta.net which is the domain name that shows up in an SMTP header in a message to this user.
Another wrinkle, he forwards his email from his .Mac address to his dotatdot.co.uk address.
So you have to do the same trick for his .Mac address if you want to find the true domain entry point for an email to this user.
The first whack at my Sidewinder Tracing and Validation engine does a respectable job of this. It will be perfected over the next few weeks, and be released with the Universal Binary versions of Sp@mX, and Em@ilCRX, and be the basis for the fully scriptable SidewinderX.
One of the mistakes that I made while planning the development of both Sp@mX, and Em@ilCRX was expecting a perfect DNS system.
I was amazed at some of the things that I discovered from user feedback, and email that was forwarded automatically to the techsupport address that could not be traced and reported by CRX.
The Verify Servers function is the first step toward what I'm calling the Sidewinder Tracing and Valildation Engine. What this does is verify a logical path that would be taken by an email to get to a user. This includes a MX check, and an actual connection to the user's SMTP server to provide a secondary validation of the server names that CRX should expect to see in a header. As well as a provision to check relays that a user might use to forward email.
I'm going to pick on a user (protecting his name, of course), and use one of his emails as an example.
He has an email address of hisemailaddress@dotatdot.co.uk.
If you do a MX lookup for this domain, you'll get mx1.freeola.net, and mx2.freeola.net.
Ok, so I'm going to look for dotatdot.co.uk, and freeola.net as domains for this message to route through. Everything Ok? Nope. If you connect to either of the freeola.net MXs they will actually return the domain name mx(n).enta.net which is the domain name that shows up in an SMTP header in a message to this user.
Another wrinkle, he forwards his email from his .Mac address to his dotatdot.co.uk address.
So you have to do the same trick for his .Mac address if you want to find the true domain entry point for an email to this user.
The first whack at my Sidewinder Tracing and Validation engine does a respectable job of this. It will be perfected over the next few weeks, and be released with the Universal Binary versions of Sp@mX, and Em@ilCRX, and be the basis for the fully scriptable SidewinderX.
Thanks for the explanation, Jeff!
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