[aclug-L] procmail info

[Jeff <schaller@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's those procmail info pages that I passed out at the meeting last
night (along with another file I found with some procmail links).

-----------------
PROCMAIL OVERVIEW
-----------------

####### To get procmail (get 3.11pre7):
ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packages/procmail/

#### links to info, mailing list, faq
http://www.iki.fi/~era/procmail/
http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/procmail/
ftp://cs.uta.fi/pub/ssjaaa/pm-tips.html
http://mirror.ncsa.uiuc.edu/procmail-faq/
http://www.zer0.org/procmail/

If you would like to receive the FAQ by electronic mail, send a
message with the words "send mini-faq.txt" (sans quotation marks) in
the Subject: header to the address: era+pr@xxxxxx

If you would like to subscribe to the Procmail mailing list, send a
message containing the word "subscribe" (without the quotes (and
without this parenthetical remark, too :^)) in the Subject: field to
<procmail-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>. Please spend an
additional second to check the spelling of that single word before you
send off the message.
  To unsubscribe from the list, change "subscribe" to "unsubscribe".
This word seems even harder to spell right than the other one.

##### sample .forwards
"|/opt/local/bin/procmail -f-"

"|IFS=' ' && exec /usr/local/bin/procmail -f- || exit 75 #schaller"

####### sample .procmailrc
PATH=$HOME/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/bin:.
MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail
ORGMAIL=/var/mail/schaller
LOGFILE=$HOME/logs/procmail.log
LOCKFILE=$HOME/.lockmail
VERBOSE=no

#:0
#* ^From: .*schaller.*
#* ^Subject: .*big.*
#* > 1000
#big

:0:
* ^Sender: owner-nanog@xxxxxxxxx
nanog

# procmail
# Resent-From: procmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
:0:
* ^TOprocmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
procmail

:0 f
* ^Subject: \[LN\]
| lotusfilter

# intp list - send to filter
:0fc
* ^Resent-From: intp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|$HOME/bin/intp_bin/filter_intp


-----------------
PROCMAIL FEATURES
-----------------

+ It's less filling (i.e. small) + Very easy to install (rated PG6 :-)
+ Simple to maintain and configure because all you need is actually only ONE
  executable (procmail) and ONE configuration file (.procmailrc)
+ Is event driven (i.e. gets invoked automagically when mail arrives)
+ Does not use *any* temporary files
+ Uses standard egrep regular expressions
+ It poses a very low impact on your system's resources
  (it's 1.4 times faster than the average /bin/mail in user-cpu time)
+ Allows for very-easy-to-use yes-no decisions on where the mail
  should go (can take the size of the mail into consideration)
+ Also allows for neural-net-type weighted scoring of mails
+ Filters, delivers and forwards mail *reliably*
+ Provides a reliable hook (you might even say anchor :-) for any
  programs or shell scripts you may wish to start upon mail arrival
+ Performs heroically under even the worst conditions (file system full, out
  of swap space, process table full, file table full, missing support files,
  unavailable executables, denied permissions) and tries to deliver the mail
+ Absolutely undeliverable mail (after trying every trick in the book)
  will bounce back to the sender (or not, your choice)
+ Is one of the few mailers to perform reliable mailbox locking across NFS as
  well (DON'T use NFS mounted mailboxes WITHOUT installing procmail)
+ Supports four mailfolder standards: single file folders (standard
  and nonstandard VNIX format), directory folders that contain one file
  per message, or the similar MH directory folders (numbered files)
+ Native support for /var/spool/mail/b/a/bar type mailspools
+ Variable assignment and substitution is an extremely complete subset
  of the standard /bin/sh syntax
+ Provides a mail log file, which logs all mail arrival, shows in summary
  whence it came, what it was about, where it went (what folder) and how 
  long (in bytes) it was
+ Uses this log file to display a wide range of diagnostic and error
  messages (if something went wrong)
+ Does not impose *any* limits on line lengths, mail length (as long as
  memory permits), or the use of any character (any 8-bit character,
  including '\0' is allowed) in the mail
+ It has man pages (boy, does *it* have man pages)
+ Procmail can be used as a local delivery agent with comsat/biff support
  (*fully* downwards compatible with /bin/mail); in which case it can heal
  your system mailbox, if something messes up the permissions
+ Secure system mailbox handling (contrary to several well known /bin/mail
  implementations)
+ Provides for a controlled execution of programs and scripts from
  the aliases file (i.e. under defined user ids)
+ Allows you to painlessly shift the system mailboxes into users' home dirs
+ It runs on virtually all (old and future) operating systems which
  names start with a 'U' or end in an 'X' :-) (i.e. extremely portable
  code; POSIX, ANSI C and K&R conforming)
+ Is clock skew immune (e.g. in the case of NFS mounted mailboxes)
+ Can be used as a general mailfilter for whole groups of messages
+ Works with (among others?) sendmail, ZMailer, smail, MMDF and mailsurr
Feature summary for formail:
+ Can generate auto-reply headers
+ Can convert mail into standard mailbox format (so that you can
  process it with standard mail programs)
+ Can split up mailboxes into the individual messages
+ Can split up digests into the individual messages
+ Can split up saved articles into the individual articles
+ Can do simple header munging/extraction
+ Can extract messages from mailboxes
+ Can recognise duplicate messages

----------
MISC LINKS
----------
http://www.qz.to/~eli/src/procmail/rc.master.html
http://alcor.concordia.ca/topics/email/auto/procmail/
http://icg.resnet.upenn.edu/procmail/
http://res2.resnet.upenn.edu/procmail/
http://www.west.net/~dh/homedir/pmdir/


-jeff
-----
Jeff Schaller, UNIX System Administrator, Learjet Inc.
Phone: 316 946-7255, Fax: 316 946-2809 Attn Jeff Schaller
The above thoughts are mine and are not representative of Learjet.
 9:29am up 32 days, 22:29, 5 users, load average: 0.16, 0.10, 0.09


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