Re: [aclug-L] procmail info

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Excellent, thanks!

Also I should add that the following commands can give some useful
information:

man procmailrc
man procmailex
man procmail

procmail is available as a package in Debian, RedHat, and (possibly)
Slackware, in which case it will live in /usr/bin.

Also, Linux generally uses /var/spool/mail, but hopefully you won't have to
explicitly specify the inbox anyway.

John

On Tue, Dec 15, 1998 at 09:29:02AM -0600, Jeff wrote:

> 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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-- 
John Goerzen   Linux, Unix consulting & programming   jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx |
Developer, Debian GNU/Linux (Free powerful OS upgrade)       www.debian.org |
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