Weird formail.pl problem

[drambo]

So we have this website hosted by sonic. The owner of the site has also purchased several other domain names. One of them is "pointed" at the primary domain in DNS. So, assume that

websitename.com is the primary domain and
web.com is the secondary, DNS-only domain.

The way it works in practice is if you type

www.web.com/pagename.htm, it will display that url in the urlbar, but the actual HTML displayed resides at www.websitename/pagename.htm

with me so far?

Now for the issue. Forms that use the Sonic.net formmail.pl that "originate" from websitename.com process without issue. Forms from the web.com pages will demand a username and password.

I contacted sonic support and they did a "Not our problem."

I have fixed some of these by making all links on the site that point to formpages use the primary domain name. So if you're on web.com/somepage.htm and it has a link to a form page, it's <a href> specifically points to websitename.com/formpage.htm

Anyone know how to fix it so if they land on web.com/formpage.htm the formmai.pl will process correctly and not demand a userid and password?

[dja]

This is purely speculation, but it seems that in order to prevent an open hole that email can be programmatically sent through, Sonic.net has put some type of http referrer filter in place that checks for domains that have hosting. If you install your own version of formmail.pl you'll be able to make your own configuration. I do suggest setting up some type of security for this script as you'll most likely end up with an inbox full of spam or an abundance of abuse tickets if you don't; however, setting up your own script should give you the freedom that you need to have both domains using your formmail program. Hope this helps!

[drambo]

We've been using the sonic formmail.pl since 2005 or so with a spam about 2x a year. It's just weird that this *just* started happening.

Thanks for the info -- we're doing a major redesign of the site this year, and we will be taking form processing inhouse, as it were.