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To: <ilia@prohost.org>, <internals@lists.php.net>
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Date: Sun, 30 May 2004 14:29:53 -0400
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [patch] abuse-proof zif_mail()
From: paul@rusko.us ("Paul G")

ilia,

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ilia Alshanetsky" <ilia@prohost.org>
To: <internals@lists.php.net>; "Paul G" <paul@rusko.us>
Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [patch] abuse-proof zif_mail()


> First of all if you have people abusing the mail function one solution is
to
> disable it via the disable_functions directive inside your php.ini file.

depending on the function in question, this may or may not be a viable
option.

we already have system() and all of its bretheren disabled and have not had
any complaints from any legitimate users - those functions are not commonly
used in software typical users want to run and the collateral from disabling
them is negligible.

when it comes to mail(), it is a whole different story. if i disabled mail()
on just one box today, a *lot* of people would complain and with good
reason - the collateral inflicted by something that drastic (ie disabling a
very popular function to protect against a relative edge case) is way out of
line. i am not an anti-spam fanatic, the clients' requirements come first.

> If you must append headers then you could easily specify a path to a
sendmail
> using a configuration that would append any header that you like to
outgoing
> e-mails.

are you saying i can have sendmail append an identifier that would tell me
which script or user generated the email (given that it was invoked from
mail() in mod_php)? if so, i (stupidly) missed it and would love to get it
done that way rather than mucking with php's internals.

> There are plenty of other solutions available.

i would love to hear abut them. obviously, if there is a simpler solution,
it is vastly preferable. closer inspection reveals that $PWD is the only
thing i can get at from within sendmail and it is obviously user-supplied
(most of my trophy captured scripts did their deed from cd /tmp).

thanks for your input, much appreciated.

paul