Generating Vacation Notices on OpenVMS

The following DCL procedure and MAIL.DELIVERY file implement a "vacation" program. The procedures are careful not to send twice to the same originator and allows exclusion of mailing lists and other addresses that should not get the I-will-be-back message.

The two files required are PMDF_ROOT:[DOC.EXAMPLES]TRIP.DELIVERY and TRIP.COM. The following steps will implement Trip processing for mail delivered to a VMS Mail mailbox. 

  1. $ COPY PMDF_ROOT:[DOC.EXAMPLES]TRIP.COM SYS$LOGIN:TRIP.COM

  2. Create a SYS$LOGIN:TRIP.TXT text file containing the text of the vacation notice which you want to bless people with.

  3. Optionally, create a SYS$LOGIN:TRIP.REPLY file containing the addresses of folks not to pester with a vacation notice. One address per line in the IN%"user@host" format; e.g.,

    in%"your.name@process.com"

    Upper case vs. lower case is irrelevant. 

  4. $ COPY PMDF_ROOT:[DOC.EXAMPLES]TRIP.DELIVERY SYS$LOGIN:MAIL.DELIVERY

  5. Optionally, forward your VMS MAIL to IN%"~username" to force normal MAIL-11 traffic to go into PMDF and hence through DELIVER.

Each time a message comes in, DELIVER will run it through TRIP.COM. TRIP.COM will check to see if the from address is in the TRIP.REPLY file. If it isn't (or if the file doesn't exist), then a notice is sent back to the from address and the address added to the TRIP.REPLY file. (The file is created if necessary.)

Also, make sure that the DELIVER_BATCH system-wide logical is defined and point to a batch queue. It shouldn't point at MAIL$BATCH; it shouldn't point at a PMDF Process Symbiont queue; the queue should have /JOB_LIMIT=1 so as to avoid timing window bugs in VMS MAIL.

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