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@(#) This page contains man pages from the Procmail modules
@(#) I have written and that can be used as includerc plug-ins:
@(#) some can be used as subroutines to your own programs and
@(#) some are self containing recipes. There is no user or site
@(#) specific settings in these modules.

@(#) I have tried to minimize the use of external processes and
@(#) use the procmail way as much as possible (eg. to get date and
@(#) directly from message without calling expensive shell date).
@(#) It is important that you concentrate on this performance factor
@(#) too; remember that procmail is run on every incoming message and
@(#) every tick you spend counts.

@(#) $Id: pm-code.txt,v 1.14 1999/04/23 10:21:17 jaalto Exp $
$Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com $
$URL: http://www.procmail.org/jari/ $
$HomePageURL: http://poboxes.com/jari.aalto/ $
$Keywords: procmail library includerc subroutine recipe $

Document control

This document has been automatically generated from the procmail rc files with 2 small perl scripts in the following manner

      % ripdoc.pl `ls pm-ja*.rc|sort`   | \
        t2html.pl --name-uniq --simple > pm-code.html

The perl program assume that the documentation sections have been written in Technical Text Format and you are looking at TF layout in this file. The perl programs can be found from CPAN http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local//scripts/

Downloading procmail code

          http://www.procmail.org/jari/pm-code.zip

Automatic URL change notification service

If you want to have automatic notification whenever my page changes, please visit this link and register any ULR in your reminder list. See also procmail module pm-janetmind.rc


Pm-jaaddr.rc -- extract 'foo@some.com' email address from variable INPUT

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
$Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com $
$Created: 1997-11 $
$keywords: procmail extractEmailAddress subroutine $

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This includerc extracts the various components of email address from variable INPUT. You can do quite a lot interesting things with your email address. Refer to http://www.qz.to/~eli/faqs/addressing.html for more information. One of the tricks that you could use if you don't have sendmail plus addressing capabilities, is that you put the additional infomation to the RFC comment. Eg. If you read and followup to posts in usenet games groups, you could use:
      From: login@site.com (John Doe+usenet.games)

Or if your email address's localpart (that's characters before @) already signify your First and surname, you don't need to repeat it in comment. However, place special marker "+" to mark additional information part for your procmail recipes:

      From: first.surname@site.com (+usenet.games)

The use of RFC comment should work everywhere because RFC requires that comments are preserved along with the address information. If you would have sendmail plus addressing capabilities you would have used:

      From: login+usenet.games@site.com (John Doe)

The idea is that the list infomation is readily available from the email. The following recipe will derive the plus information and use it directly as a mailbox where to drop the message. I The Editor: Emacs, means anything to you, you can program it to generate the appropriate From headers automatically when you send mail from Gnus Mail/Newsreader MUA. Drop me a message if you need an examle how a piece of Emacs lisp code makes those magic RFC plus addresses in the background while you compose the body of the message.

      RC_EMAIL = $PMSRC/pm-jaaddr.rc
      TOME     = "(login1|login2)"
      :0
      *$ ^TO\/.*$TOME.*
      {
          INPUT       = $MATCH
          INCLUDERC   = $RC_EMAIL
          PLUS        = $COMMENT_PLUS
          #  If COMMENT_PLUS was defined, we found "+"
          #  address which contained "usenet.games", save it to
          #  folder.
          :0 :
          * PLUS ?? [a-z]
          $PLUS
      }

Notes

1998-05 David Hunt dh@west.net also mentioned that "you need to remember that some MTAs, (qmail for one, and soon vmail) use a dash ( - ) as the subaddress delimiter. So you'll want to allow for that in your code". For this reason the email part accepts both "-" and "+". The RFC comment however accepts only "+".

Example input

      "From: foo+procmail@this.site.com (Mr. foo)"        traditional
      "From: foo-procmail@this.site.com (Mr. foo)"        new styled

NOTE: M$SOFT mailers tend to send idiotic smart quotes "'Mr. foo'" and this recipe ignores these two quotes ["'] as if message had only the standard ["]

Returned values

      ADDRESS     "foo+procmail@this.site.com"
                  containing the email address without <>
      ACCOUNT     "foo+procmail"
                  all characters before @
      ACCOUNT1    "foo"
                  characters before plus: account1+account2@site
                  Note, if there is no "+", this is same as ACCOUNT.
      ACCOUNT2    "procmail"
                  _only_ set if plus found: account1+account2@site
      SITE        "this.site.com"
                  all characters after @
      DOMAIN      "site.com"
                  the main domain, preceding words in site are
                  considered subdomain (local) addresses.
                      sub.sub.domain.net
      SUB         "this.site"
                  all the sub-domain names without the NET part.
      SUB1        "site"
                  The first subdomain counted from the _RIGHT_ after NET
      SUB2        "this"
                  Second subdomain.
      SUB3        ""
                  Third subdomain.
      SUB4        ""
                  Fourth subdomain.
      NET         "com"
                  last characters after last period ( net,com,edu ...)
      COMMENT     Anything unside parenthesis (Mr. Foo) or if no
                  parentheses found, then anything between quotes
                  "Mr. Foo"
      COMMENT_PLUS Anything after the "+" in the comment, like
                   "Mr Foo+mail.usenet" --> "mail.usenet"
                   Note: some MTA's don't allow + character, this
                   alternatively '--' can be used:
                   "Mr Foo--mail.usenet"  --> "mail.usenet"

Additionally there is variables DOT1 DOT2, which behave like ACCOUNT1 and ACCOUNT2, but in respect to dotted firstname.surname type address:

          john.doe@site.com
          ACCOUNT1    = john.doe
          ACCOUNT2    = <empty>
          DOT1        = john
          DOT2        = doe

If there is plus, the ACCOUNT2 is defined

          john.doe+foo@site.com
          ACCOUNT1    = john.doe
          ACCOUNT2    = foo
          DOT1        = john          (in respect to ACCOUNT1)
          DOT2        = doe           (in respect to ACCOUNT1)

Variable ERROR is set to "yes" if INPUT wasn't recognized or parsing the address failed.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include pm-javar.rc from there.

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

      INPUT = string-to-parse

Usage example

Read From field and address from it. This is lot faster than using external formail call.
      PMSRC   = $HOME/pm
      RC_ADDR = $PMSRC/pm-jaaddr.rc
      :0
      *  ^From:\/.*@.*
      {
          INPUT = $MATCH
          #  Turn off the logging while executing this part
          VERBOSE="off"   INCLUDERC = $RC_ADDR  VERBOSE="on"
          :0
          * ERROR ?? yes
          {
             # Hmm, no std email address found. Any other ideas?
          }
      }

Pm-jabup.rc -- Keeep N arriving message backup in separate directory

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 John Gianni, Jari Aalto
IdeaBy 1995-01 John Gianni jjg@cadence.com
Maintainer: Jari Aalto
Created: 1997-12
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
$Keywords: procmail backup recipe $

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

Preserve last N arriving messages in a separate sub-directory. This should be your safety-belt recipe that you put to the beginning of your .procmailrc.

Procmail saves the backup files with names like: msg.rcG msg.scG msg.3YS1, msg.4YS1, msg.VYS1, msg.fYS1 to the backup directory.

Note: this recipe will alawys call shell commands for each message you recive. That is needed because cleaning of the backup directory. If you receive only small number of messages per day, the performance drop of your .procmailrc is not crucial. But if you store many messages per day, then the shell calls may be a performance problem.

In that case, consider moving the cleanup to the pm-jacron.rc module (The cleanup is run only once a day, not for every message)

John Gianni send his simple bsckup script to Jari, who packaged and generalized the code. The code is reused with John's permission and maintaining responsibility was transferred to Jari

Required settings

(none)

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Usage example

You only want to keep backup of messages that are not from mailing lists. You may want to use TO_ macro to detect addresses better, this example matches against all headers
      LISTS          = "(procmail|list-1|list-2)"
      JA_BUP_DIR     = $HOME/Mail/backup/.        # Create the path too
      JA_BUP_MAX     = 42                         # this should be enough
      :0 c
      *$ ! $LISTS
      {
          INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jabup.rc
      }

If you get many messages, please don't use this module. Instead see pm-jacron.rc where similar backup work is done better.


Pm-jacookie.rc -- Handle cookie (unique id) confirmations

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-12
keywords: procmail cookieConfirm recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Overview of features

Description

This recipe handles generating the cookie to new users, comparing the returned cookie against the original one and passing known users through if they already had returned their cookie.

When you run automatised scripts, eg. to manage mailing lists where users can subscribe and unsubscribe, you have better to install safety measure so that someone can not subscribe his enemy to 30 mailing lists.

The cookie is any continuous block of random characters that is sent to person who wanted to use the service. He must send back the cookie before the service starts or action, like subscribe will take in effect. If someone forges the From address to pretend to be someone else and then subscribes as-beeing-someone-else to a mailing list, the cookie protects this from happening.

The cookie is sent to someone-else, and he must return the cookie before the "subscribe" service is activated. Obviously this someone-else will not be interested in sending back the cookie and thus the forgery fails. Isn't that simple, but efective protection against misuse?

And nowadays when UBE (aka Spam) is crawling from every possible domain thinkable, you can also start requesting that people "join" to your white list, before you start discussing with them. Bulk email shotguns do not reply to you, so you won't get cookies back from them, but individual peoples that want to talk with you, may want to return the cookie. For start you should add your friends to your cookie database by hand, so that they don't get upset when you activate "cookie-shield".

It's burden, I admit, to have to response to the cookies, but if that is the best way so far after the spam filters, to keep out uninvited people. Think this as a "doorbell", you don't usually let people in to your house without invitation or your approval.

If you have strong spam shield already, then you may not want to install cookie confirmation for your mates. But it's possible with this module.

How it works

By default, the cookie generated uses CRC 32 cksum, but if you have md5, you should use it. The cookie is generated from the reply address and immediately stored to cookie database file with entry
      DATE FROM-a COOKIE-a
      DATE FROM-b COOKIE-b

If this was a new user or an old user, who has not registered his cookie yet, then original message is sent back to the sender with instructions: "please place the magic string to Subject line and resent the message."

When cookie is returned back, a new line to the database is added, simply by adding a duplicate entry. The file now looks like this:

      DATE FROM-a COOKIE-a
      DATE FROM-b COOKIE-b
      DATE FROM-a COOKIE-a

When there is two or more same entries, like FROM-a, the address is supposed to be known and person behind it "cleared".

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Returned values

ERROR will contain the efective action when this recipe file ends

key is an internal variable in this recipe file and will hold the cookie id in case of "new-user" and "key-mismatch". You may want to use it if you generate your own reply.

Example usage for UBE shield

This is what I use to prevent unknown people from sending me UBE. It takes a bit extra, but they can easily return the message. Fill in the missing variables, this won't work out of the box for you.
       WORK = "(domain1|domain2|domain3)"
      LISTS = "(procmail|list-2|list-3|list-4)"
      VALID = "(postmaster|abuse|$LISTS|$WORK)"
      RC_COOKIE   = $PMSRC/pm-jacookie.rc
      :0
      *$ ! From:.*$VALID
      *$ ! $from_daemon
      {
          JA_COOKIE_SEND  = "no"   # Take over the resend control
          INCLUDERC       = $RC_COOKIE
          :0 wc: $RC_COOKIE.lock
          *    mail ?? yes
          * ! ^X-Loop: $JA_COOKIE_XLOOP
          *   ^Subject:\/.*
          | ( $FORMAIL -rkt -b                                        \
              -A "X-Authentication-key: $key [$ERROR]"                \
              -A "X-Loop: $JA_COOKIE_XLOOP";                          \
              -I "Subject: $MATCH $key"                               \
              echo "You Authentication key is: $key";                 \
              echo "$JA_COOKIE_MSG";                                  \
              ) | $SENDMAIL;                                          \
              echo "[my; cookie; $ERROR; $JA_COOKIE]" >> $HIN
          :0
          * mail ?? yes
          $COOKIE_SPOOL
      }

Example usage for subscriptions

      :0 c:        # keep backups, expired by cron
      $BACKUP
      $RC_COOKIE   = $PMSRC/pm-jacookie.rc
      ...Mailing lists handled here...
      ...Your work messages filed here..
      TO            = `formail -rt -zxTo:`  # We need this elswhere
      JA_COOKIE_TO  = $TO                   # Update this, it is known
      #   I run private List-X, and all subscribe requests must
      #   be confirmaed
      * ^TO_()list-x
      * ^Subject: +subscribe\>
      {
          JA_COOKIE_SEND  = "no"
          INCLUDERC = $RC_COOKIE
          :0
          * ERROR ?? known-user
          {
              #   User sent the subsribe request again, allow joining
              #   immediately.
          }
          :0 E
          {
              # Because the Send was set to "no"; we're in charge
              # to send a reply to the user.
              # ...generate suitable message with formail -rt
          }
      }
      #   Any other messages may be UBE
      JA_COOKIE_SEND  = "yes"
      INCLUDERC       = $RC_COOKIE

Pm-jacookie1.rc -- Generate unique id from INPUT variable.

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
$Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com $
$Created: 1997-12 $
$keywords: procmail cookieMake subroutine $

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

When given a string, this subroutine returns a unique number representing a string, a cookie.

Required settings

(none)

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Return values

Example usage

      INPUT           = "foo@site.com"
      JA_COOKIE_CMD   = "md5"     # or chksum
      INCLUDERC       = $PMSRC/pm-jacookie1.rc
      cookie          = $OUTPUT

Pm-jacron.rc -- Procmail: Run cron once a day

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-1999 Jari Aalto
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-12
Keywords: procmail cron framework recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

Framework for all cron tasks that can be run once a day. This is a wrapper recipe to your cron task list: when the day changes, you cron includerc is called.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source directory of procmail code. This recipe will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

A file JA_CRON_RUN_FLAG which defaults to ~/.yymmdd.run is created when your includerc, that contains list of cron tasks, is run. If new mail arrives while your cron recipes are still running, you should prevent invoking the cron again by checking if this file exists. When all the cron tasks have been run, this flag file is removed. Remember to use "w" flag in your cron recipes where necessary to serialize the work.

Return values

(none)

Usage example

Save backups to separate directory, but do cleaning only once a day We do not keep backups from mailing list messages
      LISTS          = "(procmail|list-1|list-2)"
      BACKUP_DIR     = "$HOME/Mail/backup/."
      #   Store backups: separate files to directory
      :0 c:
      *$ ! $LISTS
      $BACKUP_DIR
      #   Run JA_CRON_RC once a day. It contains all daily cron tasks
      CRON_RC             = $PMSRC/pm-jacron.rc   # the framework
      JA_CRON_RC          = $PMSRC/pm-mycron.rc   # the tasks to do
      JA_CRON_RUN_FLAG    = $HOME/.cron-running   # define this!
      #   Do not enter here if message arrived at the same day when
      #   the cron is already running. The CRON_RC takes care
      #   of deleting the file when cron has finished.
      :0
      *$ ! ? $IS_EXIST $JA_CRON_RUN_FLAG
      {
          INCLUDERC = $CRON_RC
      }

The pm-mycron.rc file may contain anything. For example to clean the backup directory; you add these statements there

      #   rm dummy: if ls doesn't return files, make sure rm has
      #   at least one argument.
      #
      #   ls -t: list files; newest first
      #
      #   sed: chop $max newest files from the listing, leaving the
      #   old ones
      max = 32
      :0 hwic
      | cd $BACKUP_DIR && $RM -f dummy `ls -t msg.* | $SED -e 1,${max}d`
      # End of file pm-mycron.rc

Pm-jadaemon.rc -- Handle DAEMON messages by changing subject

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-11
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail recipe daemon messages

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to Contactid with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

When you send a message to a address that had delivery troubles, you get a DAEMON message back explaining the error problem. I usually want to save these daemon mesaages to a different folder and check the folder from time to time. A typical daemon message is like this (shortened)
      From: Mail Delivery Subsystem MAILER-DAEMON@my.domain.com
      Subject: Warning: could not send message for past 4 hours
      The original message was received at...
      ----- Transcript of session follows -----
      Deferred: Connection timed out
      ----- Original message follows -----
      [YOUR MESSAGE AS YOU SENT IT WITH HEADERS]

Well, when I read the subjects, I do not like the standard error messages, but I also like to know to which address the delivery failed and what was the original subject. This small recipe changes the daemon message's Subject to

      Subject BRIEF-ERROR-REASON, SENT-TO-ADDRESS, ORIGINAL-SUBJECT

and from that you can immediately tell if you should be worried Eg. if SENT-TO-ADDRESS was your friend's, then you want to take actions immediately, but if it were your complaint to UBE message to postmaster, you don't want to bother reading that daemon message. Here are some real examples:

      fatal errors,postmaster,ABUSE (Was: Super Cool Site!)
      Host unknown,postmaster,ABUSE (Was: A-Credit Information)
      undeliverable,postmaster,Could you investigate this spam
      Warning-Returned,friend,Have you looked at this

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine needs scrips

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Return values

Usage example

Just add this recipe somewhere in your .procmailrc. The place where you would put this daemon message trapper subroutine is crucial: think carefylly how you order your recipes. One suggested order could be: backup important messages, cron-subroutine, handle duplicates, DAEMON MESSAGES, plus addressed message, server message (file server, ping responder...), MAILING LISTS, send possible vacation replies only after all above, apply kill file, detect mime, save private messages and las FILTER UBE.
      PMSRC           = $HOME/pm
      RC_DAEMON       = $PMSRC/pm-jadaemon.rc
      DAEMON_MBOX     = $HOME/Mail/junk.daemon.mbox
      ...
      INCLUDERC       = $RC_DAEMON
      :0 :            # If that was a daemon message, put it to folder
      * ERROR ?? yes
      $DAEMON_MBOX

Pm-jadate.rc -- Read date from the message hdrs: From_, Receved:

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-12
keywords: procmail dateFromMessage recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This recipe will scan several headers to find the date string. When suitable header is found and the parsing has succeeded, the return variables are set. The Date values reflects the arrive time of the message; not the sending time. If nothing works, a shell call date is used as a last resort.

Returned values

      YYYY    = 4 digits
      YY      = 2 digits
      MON     = 3 characters
      MM      = 2 digits
      DAY     = 3 characters
      DD      = 2 digits
      hh      = 2 digits      if available
      mm      = 2 digits      if available
      ss      = 2 digits      if available

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

(none)

Usage example

      INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jadate.rc
      #   now we have all date variables that we need
      #
      $TODAY    = $YYYY-$MM-$DD

Pm-jadate1.rc -- 'Tue, 31 Dec 1997' date parser from variable INPUT

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-11
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail subroutine date parsing

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This includerc parses date from variable INPUT which has string
      "Week, Daynbr Month Year"

Example input

      "Tue, 31 Dec 1997"      -- without comma
      "Tue 31 Dec 1997"       -- with comma

Returned values

      YYYY    = 4 digits
      YY      = 2 digits
      MON     = 3 characters
      MM      = 2 digits
      DAY     = 3 characters
      DD      = 2 digits
      hh      = 2 digits      If available
      mm      = 2 digits      If available
      ss      = 2 digits      If available
      TZ      = 5 characters  If available

Variable ERROR is set to yes if it couldn't recognize the INPUT and couldn't parse the basic YYYY, YY, MM, DD variables.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include pm-javar.rc from there.

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

      INPUT = string-to-parse

The INPUT can have anything after "Week, dayNbr Month Year", or before it: you can pass a string like "Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:43:23 +0200".

Usage example

The first Received header will tell when the message was received by your mailserver. We parse the date and avoid calling expensive date command.
      PMSRC           = $HOME/pm
      RC_DATE_WDMY    = $PMSRC/pm-jadate1.rc #Week-Day-Month-Year parser
      # Get time from first header, it ends like this:
      #
      #       Received: ... ; Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:43:50 +0200
      :0
      *$ ^Received:.*;$s+\/...,$s+$d.*
      {
          INPUT = $MATCH
          #  Turn off the logging while executing this part
          VERBOSE=off   INCLUDERC = $RC_DATE_WDMY   VERBOSE=on
          :0
          * ERROR ?? yes
          {
             # Use some other way to get the time or shout loudly
          }
      }

Pm-jadate2.rc -- 'YYYY-MM-DD' ISO date parser from variable INPUT

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-11
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail subroutine body-empty-test

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This includerc parses date in format "YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss" like 1997-12-01 and sets following variables whenever called
          YYYY    = 4 digits
          YY      = 2 digits
          MON     = 3 characters
          MM      = 2 digits
          DD      = 2 digits
          hh      = 2 digits  If avaliable
          mm      = 2 digits  If avaliable
          ss      = 2 digits  If avaliable

Variable ERROR is set to yes if it couldn't recognize the INPUT and couldn't parse the basic YYYY, YY, MM, DD variables.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include pm-javar.rc from there.

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

      INPUT = string-to-parse

Last string in INPUT that matches number sequence NNNN-NN-NN is parsed.

Usage example

      PMSRC          = $HOME/pm
      RC_DATE_ISO    = $PMSRC/pm-jadate2.rc # ISO date parser
      INPUT = "This is 1800-10-11, a very old date"
      #  Turn off the logging while executing this part
      VERBOSE="off"  INCLUDERC=$RC_DATE_ISO  VERBOSE="on"

Pm-jadate3.rc -- 'Tue Nov 25 19:32:57' date parser from variable INPUT

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-11
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail subroutine date parsing

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This includerc parses date from variable INPUT which has string
      "Week, Month dayNbr hh:mm:ss yyyy",

Example

      Tue Nov 25 19:32:57 1997

Returned values

          YYYY    = 4 digits
          YY      = 2 digits
          MON     = 3 characters
          MM      = 2 digits
          DAY     = 3 characters
          DD      = 2 digits
          hh      = 2 digits
          mm      = 2 digits
          ss      = 2 sigits

Variable ERROR is set to "yes" if it couldn't recognize the INPUT.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include pm-javar.rc from there.

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

      INPUT = string-to-parse

Usage example

The first Received header will tell when the message was received by the mailserver. Parse the date and avoid calling expensive date command.
      PMSRC           = $HOME/pm
      RC_DATE_WMDT    = $PMSRC/pm-jadate4.rc #Week-Month-Day-Time parser
      # Get time from X-From-Line: Which was added by my MDA
      #   X-From-Line: procmail-request@informatik.rwth-aachen.de \
      #    Tue Nov 25 19:32:57 1997
      :0 c
      *$ ^X-From-Line:\/.*
      {
          INPUT = $MATCH
          #  Turn off the logging while executing subroutine
          VERBOSE=off   INCLUDERC = $RC_DATE_WMDT   VERBOSE=on
          :0
          * ERROR ?? yes
          {
             # Use some other way to get the time or shout loudly
          }
      }

Pm-jadate4.rc -- make RFC 'Mon, 1 Dec 1997 17:41:09' and parse values

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-12 $
keywords: procmail dateFromSehll subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine calls shell command date once and prses the values. This should be your last resort if you haven't got the date values by any other means. This subroutine assumes that the DATE command knows the following % specifier formats (HP-UX)
      Y   NNNN    year
      h   MON     month
      d   NN      day
      a   WEEK    Like "Mon"
      H   NN      hour
      M   NN      min
      S   NN      sec

Returned values

      DATE    = RFC date in format "Mon, 1 Dec 1997 17:41:09"
                This is same as what you would see in From_
      YYYY    = 4 digits
      YY      = 2 digits
      MON     = 3 characters
      MM      = 2 digits
      DAY     = 3 characters
      DD      = 2 digits
      hh      = 2 digits
      mm      = 2 digits
      ss      = 2 sigits

Variable ERROR is set to "yes" if values couldn't be set

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source directory of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

(none)

Usage example

The First Received line will tell when the message was received by the MDA. If thata fails, then get date from the system. If you send test messages to # yourself, you don't usually put From_ header in it and thus there is # no date information in 'dry run' tests.
      # Get time from first eader, which is always same in my system
      # Received: ... ; Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:43:50 +0200
      INCLUDERC   = $PMSRC/pm-javar.rc    # to get $s $d definitions
      TODAY       # Clear it
      :0
      *$ ^Received:.*;$s+\/...,$s+$d.*
      {
          INPUT     = $MATCH
          INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jadate1.rc
          TODAY     = "$YYYY-$MM-$DD"
      }
      #   Check that variable did get set, if not then we have to call
      #   another date subroutine: Call shell then to find out date
      #
      #   You could also do this with ':0 E', but this is more
      #   educational
      :0
      *$ ! $TODAY^0
      {
          INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jadate4.rc    # Get date from Shell then
          TODAY     = $YYYY-$MM-$DD
      }

Pm-jadate5.rc -- 'Fri Jun 19 18:51:56 1998' date parser from var INPUT

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-06
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail subroutine date parsing

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This includerc parses date from variable INPUT which has string
      "WeekDay Month dayNbr Year"

Example input

      "Fri Jun 19 18:51:56 1998"      -- without comma
      "Fri, Jun 19 18:51:56 1998"     -- with comma

Returned values

      YYYY    = 4 digits
      YY      = 2 digits
      MON     = 3 characters
      MM      = 2 digits
      DAY     = 3 characters
      DD      = 2 digits
      hh      = 2 digits      If available
      mm      = 2 digits      If available
      ss      = 2 digits      If available
      TZ      = 5 characters  If available

Variable ERROR is set to "yes" if it couldn't recognize the INPUT and couldn't parse the basic YYYY,YY,MM,DD variables.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include pm-javar.rc from there.

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

      INPUT = string-to-parse

The INPUT can have anything after "Week, dayNbr Month Year", or before it: you can pass a string like "Fri Jun 19 18:51:56 1998 11:43:23 +0200".

Usage example

The first Received header will tell when the message was received by your mailserver. We parse the date and avoid calling expensive date command.
      PMSRC           = $HOME/pm
      RC_DATE_WDMY    = $PMSRC/pm-jadate5.rc #Week-Day-Month-Year parser
      # Get time from first header, it ends like this:
      :0
      *$ ()\/From .*
      {
          INPUT = $MATCH
          #  Turn off the logging while executing this part
          VERBOSE=off   INCLUDERC = $RC_DATE_WDMY   VERBOSE=on
          :0
          * ERROR ?? yes
          {
             # Use some other way to get the time or shout loudly
          }
      }

Pm-jadup.rc -- Procmail: Handle duplicates; store to separate folder

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-11
Keywords: procmail filter duplicates recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This recipe stores duplicate messages to separate folder

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source directory of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Return values

Usage Example

For simple usage, just put this somewhere after backup recipes
          RC_DUP      = $PMSRC/pm-jadup.rc
          ...
          INCLUDERC   = $RC_DUP

When you are testing messages, you send them over and over to procmailrc; which means that same message should not be trapped by
duplicate check. You can call procmail with option "-a test" which will set pseudo variable $1. The recipe below sets flag JA_ID_IGNORE to "yes" if test is on going and the duplicate filter should be bypassed.

      RC_DUP  = $PMSRC/pm-jadup.rc
      ARG     = $1        # Copy pseudo variable to $ARG
      :0
      * ARG ?? test
      {
          JA_ID_IGNORE = "yes"
      }
      #   Some microsoft product is known to send same message ids
      #   over and over. If we detect one, tunr off the duplicate test,
      #   because it would trash every message.
      #   <MAPI.Id.0016.00666479202020203030303430303034@MAPI.to.RFC822>
      :0
      * ! ^X-msmail
      * ! ^Message-ID: *<MAPI.*@MAPI.to.RFC822>
      {
          JA_ID_IGNORE = "yes"
      }
      #   Run this command every time a duplicate message is found.
      #   It writes a small log entry to MY_LOG
      INCLUDERC    = $RC_DUP
      :0 hwic:
      * ERROR ?? yes
      | echo "    [duplicate]" >> $BIFF

Pm-jaempty.rc -- check if message body is empty (nothing relevant)

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
$Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com $
$Created: 1997-11 $
$keywords: procmail filter duplicates recipe $

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This simple includerc will define variable BODY_EMPTY to "yes" or "no" when called like this
      INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jaempty.rc

Required settings

(none)

Pm-jafrom.rc -- get message's best FROM field without calling `formail'

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto $Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com $ $Created: 1997-12 $ $keywords: procmail extracFROM subroutine $

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This includerc extracts the most likely FROM address from the message. The order of the search is Reply-to, From_, Sender, From and if none found, then as a last resort, call formail. You would usually use the returned value for logging purposes.

Avoiding extra formail call could be usefull if you receive lot of messages per day.

Example input

      (none)

Returned values

      OUTPUT, containing the derived FROM field

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include pm-javar.rc from there. You nee procmail 3.11pre7 in order to use this subroutine. (due to formail -z switch)

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

(none)

Usage example

INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jafrom.rc FROM = $OUTPUT # now we have the 'best' FROM field

Pm-jafwd.rc -- Controlling forwarding remotedly, procmail 3.11pre7

File id

Copyright (C) 1997 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-10
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
keywords: procmail forward mail

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Overview of features

Description

This includerc makes it possible to control your message forwarding via simple remote email message. Thanks to Era Eriksson and Timothy J Luoma who gave the initial idea to this forwarding module in the procmail mailing list 1997-10-07.

Activating the forwarding by hand

If you want to activate the forwarding from the local site where this module is, then you could simply write the forward address to the file pointed by JA_FWD_FILE which is ~/.forward-address by default.
      % echo Me@somewhere.com > ~/.forward-address

and when you no longer need forwarding, then remove that file. But really, this module is not used for that purpose, because it is lot easier to write

      :0
      ! Me@somewhere.com

as a first statement in your .procmailrc when you want to forward your mail to another account.

Activating the forwarding by remote email

Suppose you're on the road and suddenly realise that you want your mail forwarded to the current account, then you send following control message
      Subject: forward-on password new-address@bar.com
      To: my-account@bar.com
      From: onTheRoad@some.com

That message is is enough to get the mail forwarded to the address new-address@bar.com This script will repond to address From that the current forwarding is now pointing to address "new-address@bar.com".

Deactivating forwarding by remote email

The message is very similar, but the Subject header says
      Subject: forward-off password

And no other fields are checked. Not even Reply-To. In this case the confirmation message is sent directly back to From address.

Activating forwarding via body message

If for some reason you have no control over the headers of email, eg when you send GSM-Mail message from your phone to your account:
      EMAIL foo@bar.com FORWARD-ON PASSWORD new-address@bar.com

The email message looks like this:

      From: GenEmail sms@FooBar.net
      Date: Thu Sep 17, 11:42am +0200
      To:   "'Foo.Bar'" foo@bar.com
      Subject: Message 03384874987
      FORWARD-ON PASSWORD new-address@bar.com

Instead of looking at the Subject field, you can get this module to look at the first words in the body field. See variable JA_FWD_CONTROL_FIELD which you want to set to "body".

Restricting the control message aceptance

If you only have persistent accounts, then you should set the JA_FWD_FROM_MUST_MATCH to match those addresses that you have. The following setting says that only control messages sent from these addresses are accepted. Nobody else can't change your forwarding settings.
      JA_FWD_FROM_MUST_MATCH = ".*(acc1@a.com|acc2@b.com)"

Hm, that's not a bullet proof, because someone may in theory forge the From address. You propably should also set this variable to point to accounts where the mail can be legally forwarded to. Then, even if the imposter forges the From address; he can't get the email forwarded anywhere else than to the valid locations.

      JA_FWD_TO_MUST_MATCH = $JA_FWD_FROM_MUST_MATCH

Consider also setting JA_FWD_PASSWORD_CASE to Procmail flag D which causes your control word "forward-on" and password to be case sensitive.

Diagnostics

If you don't receive confirmation message, then your control message was ill formed or you're not in the JA_FWD_FROM_MUST_MATCH list. There is no notification sent on failure, so that no attacker can draw conclusions.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Installation

You should preset all necessary variables prior adding the includerc command to your .procmailrc. Here is one simple setup
      #JA_FWD_SENDMAIL    = "tee $HOME/test.mail" # Uncomment if testing
      JA_FWD_COPY         = no    # no copies stored while forwarding
      JA_FWD_PASSWORD_CASE= "D"   # case sensitive
      JA_FWD_PASSWORD     = "MyMagicString"
      JA_FWD_FROM         = $FROM # This is already known.
      INCLUDERC           = $PMSRC/pm-jafwd.rc

Comments from the author

Please realise that when you set the forwarding from a remote site, be very carefull when you type in the forward address or your mail ends up to somebody else's mailbox. Also I recommend that you keep JA_FWD_COPY to yes so that your local account always keep the copy of forwarded message.

A step furher would conventionally encrypt(1)'ing your forwarded messages. This way even your top secret messaes would be mostly safe even if they end up to someone else's mailbox.

File layout

tinybm.el/&tags and tinytab.el for the 4 tab text placement. See also unix what(1) and GNUS RCS ident(1).

Pm-jalist.rc -- Subroutine to detect mailing LIST from message.

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-06
Keywords: procmail subroutine list detect

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine tries to detect and derive the mailing list name as it appears in some of the know methods that ezlm, smarlist, listserv, majordomo etc normally use. After this subroutine has been applied to message the variable LIST contains the mailing list name. Subroutine adaptively finds new new mailing lists from the messages.

Quick start

If you just want to jump in and use this module and you see that some list isn't trapped, please set

If you want to make some list more unique, like if name "Alert" was detected as list name, please set

Sendmail plus method for list subscription

If you can use sendmail PLUS addressing capabillities, you may not be interested in this module, because you have an alternative way to handle mailing list messages. Let's suppose you want to subscribe to procmail maling list and want to save all messages to folser list.procmail, then you'd subribe with address:
      login+list.procmail@site.com

The extra information after "+" is available to your procmail scripts via $ARG pseudo variable when procmail is the LDA. If you fortunate to have new sendmail, you usually subscribe to mailing lists with regular email address:

      login@site.com

How do you detect the arriving mailing list messages? Traditionally, you would add a piece of recipe to .procmailrc to catch each list, but that's manual work every time. When you use this subroutine, you no longer need to write separate mailing list recipes to your .procmailrc every time you subscribe to a new mailing list. The detection of a new list happens in this subroutine for you.

What you need to know before using this module

There is lot of heuristics going on in this modules and one thing that you must do, if you're a member of tech support or if you get cron messages from your server. The rule is:
      If TO domain is same as FROM/SENDER/REPLY-TO domain
      then it is considered a mailing list message.

This causes certain messages landing to category LIST automatically. This module can't possibly know that the following is not from mailing list, because it doesn't know "what is mailing list", only "how it probably looks like it". This is definitedly categorized as maling list message, because From and even Reply-to has same domain foo.bar.net as in To.

      To: support@foo.bar.net
      From: messagepad@foo.bar.net
      Reply-to: support@foo.bar.net
      Subject: Vmail See message to Eric

You must prevent checking messages like this by surrounding the RC with if statement:

      #   Do not check these messages
      noList = "From.*(foo.bar.net|support.my.com)"
      :0
      *$ ! $noList
      {
          INCLLUDERC = $RC_LIST
      }

Ask for help

If you find maling lists that this subroutine does not detect, but which could have been detected by looking the headers in standard way, please send a email to maintainer. There may be cases where it is impossible to detect the mailing list and in those cases you just has to carve a new entry to your procmailrc.

When you keep your procmail log running, you may see message

       *** potential list ***

Which is an indication that some new recipe could be added to to this subroutine to detect that mailing list. If the message you received WAS from a mailing list, please send all the headers to the maintainer so that support can be added.

You can search for mailing list that interests you at:

      http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html
      http://www.netmeg.net/faq/internet/mail/mailing-lists/

Code note: Errors-To

Bill Houle sent me interesting headers which caused me to add more heuristical approach that I would have originally wanted. From these headers there really is impossible to derive the original list name. So, I tossed my own and derived the name by combining Reply-To's LOGIN with Errors-To fields first server name
      Reply-To: news@doodle.foo.net
      Errors-To: bounced@doodle.foo.net

The list name formed was "news-doodle". So, If you happen to see an odd name like this which doesn't remind your original list name, it may be due to poor headers that have no clue about the real name. No problem, check below how you would convert this name to better mailbox name.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include pm-javar.rc from there.

Variable JA_LIST_KILL_POSTFIX

If grabbed LIST match this regexp at the end of list name, then the postfix match will be removed. It is traditional that many lists name themself as list1-info, list2-beta, list3-l and you would prefer more names (for mbox) list1, list2 and list3. The default value will ditch "-(info|beta|l)".

Variable JA_LIST_KILL_PREFIX

Just like the postfix variable. If this string is matched at the beginning of the LIST, it is removed.

Variable JA_LIST_HEADER_REGEXP

This is optional variable, which you can set to match regexp of the mailing list domain address if it slipped through the tests in this module. There are some lists that send messages that don't carry enough information in headers to determine their list status. If you narrow the group by setting JA_LIST_HEADER_REGEXP, then for example lists like these, that identify themselves only through two headers, can be found:
      Reply-To: dispatch-faq@cnet.com
      From: CNET Digital Dispatch dispatch@cnet.com

For that list you would set

      JA_LIST_HEADER_REGEXP = "(@cnet\.com)"

Don't worry. all the other list detection recipes has already been tried, so this is last test that are carried out and variable JA_LIST_HEADER_REGEXP helps eliminating possible mishist

You don't need set this variable to include all mailing list domains. Only to those ones that were not trapped. The default value for this is:

      "(amazon\.com|bookpool\.com)"

Variable JA_LIST_MAKE_UNIQUE

If you're subscribed to many mailing lists, that simply tell that they are news or newsletter, it will be impossible to differiantiate A news from B news. This varaible holds regular expression that, if matched, prepend the first hostname to the beginning of listname, thus making the list unique:
      news@some.com       --> some-news
      news@here.com       --> here-news

The default value matches lists that are contain word news, but you may need to set this to more matches.

Variable JA_LIST_CONVERSION

Many times the grabbed LIST name is not what you would like to use for your mailbox name. You want to make the name perhaps more shorter, more descriptive or categorize the messages according to hierarchy. Let's say that you have subscribed to following mailing lists:
      LIST            LIST name    Description of mailing list
      (as grabbed)    you want
      jde             java.jde    Java Development Env
      java            java.prog   Java programming
      FLAMENCO        flamenco    Flamenco music
      tango-l         tango       Argentine Tango dancing
      tm-en-help      tm-en       Emacs TM mime package mailing list
      w3-beta         w3          Emacs WWW mailing list

First, remember that the variable JA_LIST_KILL_POSTFIX is applied, so the actual LIST appear as follows:

      jde, java, FLAMENCO, tango, tm-en, w3

Ok, Now we apply the conversion table by defining it as follows, where the grabbed LIST is first, then comes space(s), new name and terminating colon. Repeat this for each list you want to convert.

      LIST CONVERSION,LIST CONVERSION,

This gives us table below: Notice that antries tango-l, w3-beta were not included, because the JA_LIST_KILL_POSTFIX already got rid of the posfixes. Also note how the uppercase match FLAMENCO is converted to more suitable lowercase mailbox name. After you have set up this variable you can start saving messages to folders.

      JA_LIST_CONVERSION = "\
      jde       java.jde,\
      java      java.prog,\
      FLAMENCO  flamenco,\
      "

The list conversion is done with pure procmail means, so it is very fast. It also means that the conversion is limited to FROM-STRING TO-STRING syntax. No wildcards or regular expressions are allowed.

If you consider using an external process, like sed or perl to convert the grabbed list name to something else (when JA_LIST_CONVERSION method was not enough); think again. For each incoming mailing list message you launch external process. I get 700 messages from various mailing lists a day so you can imagine how much load any external process would cause. Just use the grabbed mailing list name and JA_LIST_CONVERSION table if you care about system load.

If you have many mailing lists that use uppercase names, it may be tedious to add each mailing list name to JA_LIST_CONVERSION. Possible alternative is to add conversion recipe: tr is most efficient here to convert name to lowercase. Again; think twice, extra process could be avoided if you use JA_LIST_CONVERSION.

      :0
      * ! LIST ?? ^^^^
      {
          :0 D            # still uppercase list name?
          * LIST ?? [A-Z]
          {
              LIST = `echo $LIST | tr A-Z a-z`
          }
          :0 :
          list.$LIST
      }

List name is not always the same

One important thing to keep in mind is that when mailing list manager sends out list messages, the headers may some times change. This means that the list name grabbed by previous calls changes, although the list in practise has not changed at all.

This is unfortunate, but it sometimes happens. Let's see an example. I was previously receiving messages from Cygwin mailing list named gnu-win32

      To: <gnu-win32@cygnus.com>, "Foo Bar" foo@example.com

However, one say that same list was grabbed under name "cygwin", due to new header

      Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help@sourceware.cygnus.com; run by ezmlm

Now I had two list names that both shuld be going to the same mailbox. No worries, just use the translate table to convert the list name to mailbox name:

      JA_LIST_CONVERSION = "\
      gnu-win32           cygwin32,\
      cygwin              cygwin32,\
      "

Example: basic installation

Here is recipe to save all your mailing list to separate folders. If you subsribe to new lists or unsubsribe to lists, you don't need to change anything.
      RC_LIST = $PMSRC/pm-jalist.rc   # name the subroutine
      ...
      #   Handle all mailing lists with one subroutine and recipe
      #   following it
      INCLUDERC = $RC_LIST
      :0                          # if list name was grabbed
      * LIST ?? [a-z]
      {
          dummy = "Saving mailing list: $LIST"
          :0 :
          list.$LIST
      }

Pm-jamime-decode.rc -- decode MIME body contents; quoted-printable, base64

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari Aalto
$Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com $
$Created: 1998-01 $
$Keywords: procmail recipe $

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Documentation

The original father of the decoding scheme used here was presented by Peter Galbraith galbraith@mixing.qc.dfo.ca in procmail mailing list somewhere at the end of 1997.

This includerc supposes that the header has MIME header Content-Type: text/plain and performs qp or base64 decoding on the whole message. Note, that if you receive messages that have many mime attachements, then this recipe is not suitable for it.

Procmail is not designed to handle mime attachements and this recipe only applies to whole body.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

(none)

Return values

(none)

Examples

Instead of testing the existense of text/plain in the body, you can force decoding by settings JA_MIME_DECODE_REGEXP to ".*".
      RC_MIME_DECODE = $PMSRC/pm-jamime-decode.rc
      :0
      * condition
      { JA_MIME_DECODE_REGEXP = ".*" }
      INCLUDERC = $RC_MIME_DECODE     # call subroutine.

Pm-jamime-kill.rc -- General MIME attachement killer (vcards, html)

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-12
Keywords: procmail MIME killer recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

Microsoft Explorer has a bad habbit of including 7k application/ms-tnef attachement to the end of message. The sample message is described in next section. If you don't want to see that additional ms-tnef attachement, then plug in this module and you no longer see MS Explorer cruft.

This recipe works like this: If email's structure is

      --boundary
      message-text (maybe quoted-printable)
      --boundary
      some-unwanted-mime-attachement
      --boundary

then the attachement is killed from the body. The message-text part is also decoded if it was quoted printable. This leaves clean text; with no MIME anywhere. MIME headers have been modified as needed (due to conversion from multipart and possibly quoted printable to plain text):

      message

But if email's structure was anything else, like if there were 3 mime sections:

      --boundary
      message-text (maybe quoted-printable)
      --boundary
      some-attachement
      --boundary
      some-unwanted-mime-attachement
      --boundary

then the "unwanted" part is emptyed by replacing area with one empty line. The message structure stays the same, but the killed "unwanted" part is labelled as text/plain so that your MUA will decode the MIME message correctly.

Applications for other mime attachements

All thse are covered when plug in the module.

Example of lotus notes attachement

      Subject: message
      From: foo@bar.com
      X-Lotus-FromDomain: XXX COMPANIES
      Mime-Version: 1.0
        Boundary="0__=cieg4oHxUNf2h3evyOXIsHTGDpFfaZilTDCFhpZSgsw"
      Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
        Boundary="0__=cieg4oHxUNf2h3evyOXIsHTGDpFfaZilTDCFhpZSgsw
      --0__=cieg4oHxUNf2h3evyOXIsHTGDpFfaZilTDCFhpZSgsw
      Content-type: application/octet-stream;
          name="PIC10898.PCX"
      Content-transfer-encoding: base64
      eJ8+IjsQAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAEIgAcA
      b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQ2ABAACAAAAAgACAAEEkAYAyAEAAAEAAAAQ
      <AND-THE-REST-OF-BASE64>
      --0__=cieg4oHxUNf2h3evyOXIsHTGDpFfaZilTDCFhpZSgsw--

Example of MS Explorer's ms-tnef message

      Subject: message
      From: foo@bar.com
      MIME-Version: 1.0
      Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
          boundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BD04D4.A5AC6B00"
      Lines: 158
      ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD04D4.A5AC6B00
      Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
      <MESSAGE ITSELF IS HERE>
      ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD04D4.A5AC6B00
      Content-Type: application/ms-tnef
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
      eJ8+IjsQAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAEIgAcA
      b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQ2ABAACAAAAAgACAAEEkAYAyAEAAAEAAAAQ
      <AND-THE-REST-OF-BASE64>
      ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD04D4.A5AC6B00--

Example of MS Express's html message

      MIME-Version: 1.0
      Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
          boundary="----=_NextPart_000_003A_01BD16E2.C97E27B0"
      X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4
      X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4
      This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
      ------=_NextPart_000_003A_01BD16E2.C97E27B0
      Content-Type: text/plain;
          charset="iso-8859-1"
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
      <ACTUAL TEXT>
      ------=_NextPart_000_003A_01BD16E2.C97E27B0
      Content-Type: text/html;
          charset="iso-8859-1"
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
      <SAME IN HTML>
      ------=_NextPart_000_003A_01BD16E2.C97E27B0--

Example of Netscape's html attachement

      X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.0.33 i686)
      MIME-Version: 1.0
      Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
          boundary="------------69D9D579CF587DC8BB26C49C"
      --------------69D9D579CF587DC8BB26C49C
      Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
      <ACTUAL TEXT>
      --------------69D9D579CF587DC8BB26C49C
      Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
      <SAME IN HTML>
      --------------69D9D579CF587DC8BB26C49C--

Example of Netscape's vcard attachement.

      Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="vcard.vcf"
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
      Content-Description: Card for Laird Nelson
      Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vcard.vcf"
      begin:          vcard
      fn:             Laird Nelson
      n:              Nelson;Laird
      org:            Perot Systems Corporation
      email;internet: ljnelson@unix.amherst.edu
      title:          Software Engineer
      tel;work:       (617) 303-5059
      tel;fax:        (617) 303-5293
      tel;home:       (978) 741-3126
      note;quoted-printable:Information is for reference only;=0D=0A=
              please do not abuse it.
      x-mozilla-cpt:  ;0
      x-mozilla-html: TRUE
      version:        2.1
      end:            vcard

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

First of all, this is primarily a framework recipe to kill any kind of attachement. If you do not set JA_MIME_TYPE before calling this recipe, recipe will try to determine the right value by itself. See if the automatic detection works for you or preset the JA_MIME_TYPE beforehand if it fails (I'd like to hear about the failure and add the conditions as default)

It may be possible that some messages are malformed and that they do not contain preper "boundary" definition string in the header. I have seen messages that have text/html attachements, but no proper Mime headers. For those cases there is additional variable that will kill all text up till matching line regardless of message content.

That is your last resort if the standard MIME detection failed. (there must have been some problem in the sender's MUA that composed message)

Possible conflict with your awk

If you see an error message in the logfile saying that awk failed:
      procmail: Executing "awk,
      ...
      procmail: Error while writing to "awk"
      procmail: Rescue of unfiltered data succeeded

it means that the system's standard awk doesn't support the variable passing syntax: do following test

      % awk '{print VAR; exit}' VAR="value" /etc/passwd

And it should print "value". If not, then see if you have nawk or gawk is your system, which should understand the variable passing syntax. In HP 9 and 10 the standard awk will do fine. The only change you need is

      AWK = "nawk"        # if that works better than standard "awk"

Somewhere at the top of your .procmailrc.

Warnings

You should know that the variable JA_MIME_KILL_RE is used to wipe any lines that match that regexp. This is due to MIME structure where continuing header lines exist in the body:
      ------=_NextPart_000_003A_01BD16E2.C97E27B0
      Content-Type: text/plain;
          charset="iso-8859-1"                << kill this line too

If you want to be absolutely sure that anything valuable won't be accidentally killed (like a code line in programming language scripts), you should set this variable to nonsense value that newer matches:

      JA_MIME_KILL_RE = "match_it_never_I_hope"

Usage example: Customizing the attachement killing

Suppose you receive new application/ms type attachement that the default settings doen't cover. This is a new mime type and you have to instruct this module to kill it. You do this:
      myCustomMimeType = "application/ms"     # must be all lowercase
      :0
      *$ $myCustomMimeType
      {
          PM_JA_MIME_TYPE = $myCustomMimeType
      }
      INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jamime-kill.rc

If you recive any other new types, just add similar recipes above INCLUDERC call.

Usage example

For default mime types mentined earlier, you just plug-in this module:
      INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jamime-kill.rc

If you want to do all by yourself, you can add all this to your ~/.procmailrc. This demonstrates how the correct type is detected

      # .....................................................
      # 1) Uncomment following line if your standard "awk" is broken
      # AWK = "gawk"
      # .....................................................
      #  2) Next set correct value for attachement killing
      #  Kill Lotus notes .pcx attachements [already included]
      :0
      * ^X-Lotus-FromDomain:
      {
          JA_MIME_TYPE = "application/octet-stream"
      }
      #   Kill all html attachements
      :0 B
      * ^Content-Type:.*text/html
      {
          JA_MIME_TYPE = "text/html"
      }
      # .....................................................
      #  3) And now handle the message
      #    by default kill MS Explorer's ms-tnef attachement.
      INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jamime-kill.rc

Pm-jamime-save.rc -- save message's MIME attachement (one file) to a file

File id

Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-01
Keywords: procmail recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Documentation

This module saves one simple file attachement (MIME) from he message. The message must define following MIME headers. If "filename=" does not exists, then the message will not be handled.
      Mime-Version: <version>
      Content-Type: <type>
      Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.txt"

Procmail is not very suitable for saving MIME attachements and you should not think that this the right tool for you. If you receive anything more than 1 attachement, this recipe does nothing, because that's out of our league and you need some more heavy weight mime tools. Eg. Perl CPAN has MIME libraries.

Note: When the attachement is in the body, it is simply written to a disk and the place is replaced with message

      Extracted to file:/users/jaalto/junk/file.txt.1998-03-30

The existing mime headers that surrounded the attachement are untouched, so don't try to press your Mail Agents MIME buttons at that point any more. 8There is no such file in that spot if you set JA_MIME_SAVE_DEL to yes).

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Core dump note

Because procmail uses LINEBUF when filtering messages, a core dump may happen if the attachement beeing filtered is bigger than the LINEBUF. The current setting accepts 524K attachements, buf if you expect to get bigger than that, you want to increase JA_MIME_SAVE_LINEBUF.

Possible conflict with your awk

Awk is used because it is much more system load friendly than perl. If you see an error message in the logfile saying that awk failed:
      procmail: Executing "awk,
      ...
      procmail: Error while writing to "awk"
      procmail: Rescue of unfiltered data succeeded

it means that the system's standard awk doesn't support the variable passing syntax: do following test

      % awk '{print VAR; exit}' VAR="value" /etc/passwd

And it should print "value". If not, then see if you have nawk or gawk is your system, which should understand the variable passing syntax. In HP 9 and 10 the standard awk will do fine. The only change you need is

      AWK = "nawk"        # if that works better than standard "awk"

Somewhere at the top of your .procmailrc

Return values (none)


Pm-jamime.rc -- subroutine to read mime boundary etc. variables

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-1999 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-12
Keywords: procmail MIME subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Documentation

This includerc reads MIME boundary string from the message if it exists. The boudary string is typically found from Content-Type header.
      Mime-Version: 1.0
      Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=9i9nmIyA2yEADZbW

In addition it will define few other mime variables. See the returned values. You use these variables later in your MIME message processing.

Mime Notes

1998-07-28 Brett Glass brett@lariat.org reported in PM-L that there was security exploit in long attachement filenames: http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/procmail/1998-07/msg00248.html

And here is the url to the matter:

http://www.sjmercury.com/business/microsoft/docs/security0728.htm

When you use this module to detect mime messages, you can check the filename length with recipe:

      #  Recipe after calling $RC_MIME, this module,
      re       = ".........."     # regexp with 10 matches
      too_long = "$re$re$re$re"   # allow 40 characters maximum
      :0
      *$ $SUPREME^0  MIME_H_ATTACHEMENT ?? $re
      *$ $SUPREME^0  MIME_B_ATTACHEMENT ?? $re
      {
          dummy = "** Dangerously long mime attachement filename"
          dummy = "** $MIME_H_ATTACHEMENT $MIME_B_ATTACHEMENT"
          :0 :
          /var/spool/mail/MimeDanger
      }

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source directory of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

(none)

Return values

Usage example

INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jamime-tag.rc

Pm-janetmind.rc -- handle http://minder.netmind.com/ messages

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari Aalto
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-01
Keywords: procmail netmind recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

http://minder.netmind.com/

...Netmind, or The URL-minder is a free, automatic Web-surfing robot that keeps track of changes to Web pages that are important to you. When the URL-minder detects changes in any of the Web pages you have registered, it sends you e-mail. an efective way to test if the address is known to internet. You could usethis information to see if some automated reply to a address can be sent.

In another words, if your're interested in some URL; say an FAQ page and any updates to them, you can tell Netmind to monitor the page changes for you and it send a message back every time page changes.

This recipe "pretty formats" the announcement sent by Netmind by stripping the message to bare minimum. You usually aren't interested in 4k message which includes "Note from our sponsors", "Try the free online demo" etc. The things saved from the announcement message are:

[Note]

Please let Netmind send you one "pure" message first so that you have a huch what it originally looks like. Then plug int his module and see how the original message is reduced.

[Thank you]

The Doctor What docwhat@holtje-christian-isdn.mis.tandem.com 1998-03-12 send me a patch, where a)body message is more informative b) Url is now included in the body for auto-click browsers c) mime headers were removed.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Usage example

      INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-janetmind.rc          # reformat the message
      :0:
      * netmind                                   # drop to folder
      url.mbox

Pm-janslookup.rc -- run nslookup on variable INPUT

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-11
Keywords: procmail nslookup subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine runs nslookup on given INPUT address. This may be an efective way to test if the address is known to internet. You could use this information to determine if some automated reply to a address can be sent. The know truth is that you can't validate whole email address
          to_someone@foo.com

but you can validate "foo.com"; that's the closest you get.

[Warning: If you don't use cache feature...]

Do not however use this module to regularly check all incoming from addresses with this subroutine for possible bogus UBE addresses, because calling nslookup

You can however check some messages that are likely UBE to verify your doubts.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

If the cache file can be read:

Return values

Following conditions trigger "maybe" and no "ns-error" is written into the cache.

Usage example

If you are going to check some header field, like From:, please explode the content with pm-jaaddr.rc first. Suppose you have string:
      "From: foo@ingrid.sps.mot.com (Yoshiaki foo)"

You have to derive the address from string and pass the site name: Read From: field and address from it.

      PMSRC       = $HOME/pm
      RC_NSLOOKUP = $PMSRC/pm-janslookup.rc   # name the subroutine
      :0
      * MAYBE_UBE ?? yes
      * ^From:\/.*
      {
          INPUT       = $MATCH
          INCLUDERC   = $RC_NSLOOKUP  #   to nslookup
          :0
          * ERROR ?? yes
          {
              #   Hmm, nslookup failed, can't send anything back to this
              #   address
          }
      }

Second example, check if the address is reachable before sending reply

      INPUT       = `$FORMAIL -rt -x To:`
      INCLUDERC   = $RC_NSLOOKUP
      :0
      *    ERROR ?? no
      {
          # okay, at least site address seems to be reachable
      }

Pm-jaorig.rc -- Extract embedded original message (simple recipe)

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-06
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail recipe extract original message

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Documentation

This subroutine digs embedded message from the body and replaces current message with it. Copy the message to folder before calling this subroutine if you need original.

NOTE: This is simple tool and the sole purpose is to derive simple embedded messages. Write full fledged perl script if you want better extracting features. The used AWK inside this procmail recipe will fail to find 30% of the cases, mostly duo to non-standard way of including the message. The recognized formats are as follows. Anything that differs from these are ignored or incorrectly parsed.

Where you would use this module

If you're subsribed to mailing lists that regularly sent copies of original message to the list, like forwarding spam to SPAM-L mailing list at http://bounce.to/dmuth, then you'd like to extract the original embedded message which you can then feed to your UBE filter to test if the shield holds.
      spam-l-request@peach.ease.lsoft.com
      subscribe SPAM-L <First name> <Last name>

This recipe takes simplistic approach and tries it's best to extract embedded message. Idea for this recipe comes from Era Eriksson's posting "recipe to turn list postings back into original spam" 1998-06-25 in Procmail mailing list.

How the message is extracted

When this recipe ends, the current message has been modified so that it is the original message. Like if you would receive:
      HEADER-1        # The poster
      body-1          # his comments
      HEADER-2        # The original embedded message
      body-2
      body-1          # And poster's signature or mailing list footer

The message now looks like

      HEADER-2
      body-2
      body-1

And you can save this as original message or feed it to your UBE filter and test if it detects it.

Code note: procmail or awk core dump

For some reason procmil kept dumpig core I write the code in more nicer format like below, but if I made it compact, then it didn't dymp core. Go figure. I'm not pleased that I had to sacrafice clarity, but there was no other way.
      [The good style]            [The forced compact style]
      if ()                       if () { statement }
      {
          statement
      }

I have no explanation why this happens, the same AWK code would work just fine most of the cases and then came this message x and caused dumping the code, if I feed some other messsage, I dind't get core dump. Total mystery to me. Don't let the log message fool you, this had nothing to do regexp "^[> ]*From:.*[a-zA-Z]". If I deletd one line from AWK script, it worked ok, if I added it back the core dump happened with that message x

      procmail: Assigning "pfx=[> ]*"
      procmail: No match on "^[> ]*From:.*[a-zA-Z]"
      Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail includerc code. This subroutine needs module(s):

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

(none)

Usage Example

Let's assume that you want to feed all forwarded UBE that is posted to spam-l maling list to your filter and see if it needs improving by checking the logs later. The forwarded UBE to the list is labelled "SPAM:" in the subject line.
      $RC_LIST = $PMSRC/pm-jalist.rc   # mailing list detector
      $RC_ORIG = $PMSRC/pm-jaorig.rc   # extract original
      $RC_UBE  = $PMSRC/pm-jaube.rc    # UBE filter
      ...
      INCLUDERC = $RC_LIST            # defines variable `LIST'
      :0
      * ! LIST ^^^^
      {
          :0                          # spam-l mailing list
          * LIST ?? spam
          * Subject: +SPAM:
          {
              INCLUDERC = $RC_ORIG    # Change it to UBE message
              #   Ok, next feed it to filetr, set some vars first
              #   Log = Short log; What filters were applied to message
              #   mbx = If message was tarpped, save it here
              JA_UBE_LOG      = "$PMSRC/pm-ube.log"
              JA_UBE_MBOX     = "junk.ube.ok.mbox"
              INCLUDERC = $RC_UBE
              :0 :            # If comes here, filter failed
              junk.ube.nok.mbx
          }
          :0 :                    # save normal list messages
          list.$LIST
      }

Pm-japing.rc -- reply shortly to message "Subject: ping"; account ok

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-1999 Jari Aalto
Created: 1997-12
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail ping auto-ack recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

When I'm on remote site and I don't seem to get throught with telnet or even with Unix ping(1), I want to know if the at least the mailserver is up. I can send a ping message and the auto responder will reply immediately.

Sometimes, when you send a message to a person, it would be nice, if you could test that the destination address is valid, before sending a message to a black hole. If the receiver had ping service running; like this, then you would know that you spelled the the right address. (after wondering two weeks; why you don't get response). Nowadays finger(1) command seems to be blocked many times.

This recipe answers to simple ping message like this:

      To: you@site.com
      Subject: ping

Recipe sends a short message back to the sender.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

(see Usage)

Usage example

JA_PING_MBOX = $HOME/Mail/spool/ping.spool INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-japing.rc

Pm-japop3.rc -- Remotedly download messages by mail command request

File id

Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-01
Keywords: procmail pop3 emulation recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

Ahem, that pop3 is just to draw your attention. This module has nothing to do with pop3. The idea may resemble it though. This module listena pop3 requests, and when it gets one, it sends the whole mailbox content as separate forwarded messages to the account from where you sent the request.

This is kinda "empty my mailbox in account X and send the messages to account Y"

You might have permanent forwarding on in account X, but if that is your socondary account, you can ask what messages has been arrived there with this recipe.

After you have configured your magic pop3 command, which is your password, simply send a message to account X, and this module initiates emptying the mailbox. Here is an example:

      Subject: pOp3-send [mailbox] [kill]

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Return value

STATUS will contain mailbox name if valid pop3 request was received. You may wish to save the pop3 requests to separate folder. See example below.

Example usage

You install this same setup for each site where you have account. This is the account X, from where you want to empty the mailboxes.
      RC_POP3             = $PMSRC/pm-japop3.rc
      .. somewhere in your .procmailrc ..
      JA_POP3_SUBJECT_CMD = myPoPcmd
      INCLUDERC           = $RC_POP3
      #   Save all pop3 requests to folder
      :0 :
      * STATUS ?? [a-z]
      mail.pop3-req.mbox

In account Y, from where you send the pop3 requests. Following code stores

The received messages to separate folder

      #   The MATCH wil lhave the host name from where the messages
      #   were moved
      :0 :
      *$ X-Loop-Fwd:.*\.rc +\/$NSPC+
      mail.fwd.$MATCH.mbox

Pm-jarandf.rc -- pick (rand)om line from (f)ile

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
$Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com $
$Created: 1997-12 $
$keywords: procmail subroutine random GetLine $

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

Return random line or a line from a file. This subroutine uses shell command awk and possily wc to be as small burden to the system as possible.

Required settings

You must have awk that supports VAR=value assignment syntax outside the code block: that is, in the input line. I know no awk that would not have this feature, but at least you know now what it takes.
      % awk '{print VAR; exit;}' VAR=1 /etc/passwd

Try using GNU awk, if your standard awk didn't print 1 in above test. (Put this line to the top of your .procmailrc)

      AWK = "gawk"

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

If intend to call this subroutine many times, then please calculate the number of lines beforehand and pass it to this subroutine. If the MAX is not set, then wc is called every time to find your the line count.

Returned value

variable LINE

Example usage

      # Select random line from a file
      $RC_RANDF = $PMSRC/pm-jarand.rc
      $COOKIE   = $HOME/txt/cookie.lst
      ...somewhere..
      MAX=20 FILE=$COOKIE    INCLUDERC=$RC_RANDF
      #  LINE contains randomly read line

Pm-jasrv-check.rc -- check FILE validity, subroutine for File Server

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto
Created: 1998-01
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail FileServer subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine is part of the TPFS or MPFS file server. Check FILE for nonvalid filenames or other access problems.

Input

Output


Pm-jasrv-daemon.rc -- server request check, subroutine for File Server

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-01
Keywords: procmail FileServer subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine is part of the MPFS file server. Handle BOUNCES to mail server messages, eg if delivery failed due to maximum byte limit.
      552 foo@site.com... Message is too large; 100000 bytes max

Input

(none) This recipe examines headers and body to see if it's daemon bounce.

Output


Pm-jasrv-err.rc -- send message, subroutine for File Server

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto
Created: 1998-01
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail FileServer subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This module is part of the MPFS file server. Ssnd error notice: file didn't exist.

Input

Output


Pm-jasrv-from.rc -- compose reply, subroutine for File Server

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-1999 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto
Created: 1997-09
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail FileServer subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine is part of the MPFS file server. Compose headers for reply message using formail -rt.

Here is dry run example to test this module

      % procmail DEFAULT=/dev/null VERBOSE=on LOGABSTRACT=all         \
          FORMAIL=/opt/local/bin/formail                              \
          JA_SRV_FORMAIL_FROM=me@here                                 \
          JA_SRV_CONTENT_TYPE=content-type                            \
          JA_SRV_XLOOP=xloop                                          \
          $HOME/pm/pm-jasrv-from.rc                                   \
          < $HOME/any-sample.email

Input

Output

(none)

Pm-jasrv-msg.rc -- send message, subroutine for File Server

File id

Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto
Created: 1998-01
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail FileServer subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine is part of the TPFS or MPFS file server. Run $CODE and return resutls to to user. Subroutine is meant to be used for informational messages.

Input


Pm-jasrv-multi.rc -- send multipart MIME message, subroutine for FileSrv

File id

Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto
Created: 1998-01
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail FileServer subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine is part of MPFS file server. Send out FILE as multipart MIME message. The message will always be base64 encoded before sending.

Input


Pm-jasrv-req.rc -- server request check, subroutine for File Server

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto
Created: 1998-01
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail FileServer subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine is part of the MPFS file server. Check if file server request is on the JA_SRV_SUBJECT and do case or incasensitive check.

To Dry run this module use following skeleton. Substitute keywods as needed to reflect your system setup:

      % procmail DEFAULT=/dev/null VERBOSE=on LOGABSTRACT=all     \
        PMSRC=$HOME/txt JA_SRV_CMD_STRING=send                    \
        JA_SRV_SUBJECT="send newbie_article.rtf noconv"           \
        txt/pm-jasrv-req.rc < ~/test.mail

Input

Output


Pm-jasrv-send.rc -- server request check, subroutine for File Server

File id

Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-01
Keywords: procmail FileServer subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine is part of the MPFS file server. Send the requested file. You can dry-run test this module with following command: a) make sure that $HOME/test conatins any simple email message b) define FORMAIL if it isnot found from path.
      % procmail DEFAULT=/dev/null VERBOSE=on LOGABSTRACT=all     \
        PMSRC=$HOME/txt JA_SRV_LOG=/dev/null                      \
        FORMAIL=/opt/local/bin/formail                            \
        file=$HOME/test FILE=test WORD=WORD JA_SRV_FROM=foo@bar   \
        SENDMAIL="tee -a $HOME/test.send" txt/pm-jasrv-send.rc < ~/test

Note:

The MIME headers here selected previously were:
      Content-type: application/octet-stream
      Content-transfer-encoding: x-gzip64

But Defining own CTE such as x-gzip64 is strongly discouraged by the MIME RFC's. Most e-mail clients would be at a loss on how to handle these. Many would just bomb out and not even give you the opportunity to save it to a file. a more correct MIME type is this, which is now used:

      Content-type: application/x-gzip
      Content-transfer-encoding: base64

Input

o FILE is the filename(chdir to directory is already done) `file' is _absolute_ filename `WORD' is next word from subject line after FILE word. o JA_SRV_CMD_STRING is flag o JA_SRV_F_SUBJ_NOTIFY is flag

Output


Pm-jasrv.rc -- Jari's MPFS (Mime Procmail 3.11+ File server)

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-09
Keywords: procmail FileServer

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

You can get newest version by sending email to Maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This is the MPFS (Mime Procmail File Server) and it can send MIME compliant messages with command
      "send <ITEM> [WORD1] [WORD2]"

Usually only the ITEM arg is used, and the rest of the words are for special uses like password and preventing file encoding. A typical request looks like:

      Subject: send help              # ask for file named 'help'

Overview of features

Install: server file directory

You have to create a directory for the server where the files are kept. Usually I don't put the files there, but whenever I want to make a file available, I draw a hard or softlink to the real file.
      % mkdir $HOME/pm-server
      # Repeat this as needed for files you want to put available
      % cd $HOME/pm-server
      % ln -s $HOME/txt/interesting-file.txt interesting-file.txt

You define the server directory by setting

      JA_SRV_FILE_DIR = $HOME/pm-server

The short server log is written to file pointed by this variable:

      JA_SRV_LOG = $HOME/pm-server.log

The incoming "send" requests are stored to mailbox pointed by following variable. The default value is /dev/null, but you may want to set it to ~/Mail/spool/log.srv.spool which can be used read as a newsgroup by Emacs Gnus [In Gnus create newsgroup with `G` m nnml log.srv]

      JA_SRV_MSG_MBOX

Install: special files

Tweak this variable to commands you want to allow shell to execute in server's directory. This tells when <ITEM> "ls" means command instead of file
      JA_SRV_SH_COMMAND = "^(ls|what)$"

That means that request like this:

      Subject: send ls            # run "ls" command and return results

Be sure that the commands exist in your system. See man pages for more if you want to know what these commands do. Commands cannot take switches currently for security reasons. Eg. if you want to give access to "ls -la" listing, put a file "ls-la.txt" available in the directory, user can get it with "send ls-la.txt"

      ls      -- list directory
      file    -- print file type information.
      what    -- prints all @(#) tags from files
      ident   -- print all $ $ tags from files

Install: file `help'

Users want to get a help file with message "send help" and the help is just a file in your server directory. Be sure to supply it prior to any other files. You can always draw a link to a file if you don't want to name it that way (eg. if you keep several server help files in a RCS tree)
      #   draw symlink to `help'
      % ln -s $HOME/txt/srv-public-hlp.txt $HOME/server/help

Basic usage in details

The server accepts command in format
      "send <ITEM> [CMD|PASSWORD]"

Where ITEM can be any name as long as it starts with [^ .]. The regexp says: Anything goes as long as FILE does not start with space or period. This gives you quite a much freedom to construct filenames. if you want to hand out file:

      .procmailrc

You can't. Instead make a link to point to plain "procmailrc" without the leading period. There is also additional checks against possible security threat "../" like below; user can't request such file.

      ../../../gotcha  or  dir/../../gotcha

The filename cannot contain special characters like [*?<>{}()].

Advanced usage

[conversions]

If some of your files are big, it makes sense to send them in compressed base64 format; which in MIME world is called content-type gzip. You can set a regexp to enforce encoding for your big files before they are sent to user. The following setting will send all text files in compressed format to user.

      JA_SRV_XGZIP_REGEXP = "\.txt"

When the message is composed a header is inserted into the message telling how the message is to be decoded, in case user doesn't have decent MUA that can handle the MIME type:

      X-comment: To decode, cat msg| mmencode -u| gzip -d > test.txt

[noconv and gz]

The WORD1 parameter after the FILE is optional and user can override base64 encoding and request plain file if he uses word "noconv".

      Subject: send <FILE> [noconv|gzip]

However, there are files where noconv must not be obeyed, like the compressed packages that you have put available in .zip, .gz, tar.gz or .tgz (GNU tar) format. Following variable controls
when file is always sent as base64:

      JA_SRV_BASE64_ALWAYS

If the WORD1 is "gz" or "gzip", then the gzip is explicitly requested, This may be desirable, because some of the text files in the server directory may be big and some accounts don't accept big messages. A typical bounce looks like:

      552 foo@site.com... Message is too large; 100000 bytes max
      554 foo@site.com Service unavailable

These kind of file server bounce messages are handled in separate module which notifies the user that his account didn't accept the sent file.

[case sensitivity]

By default the request word ("send") and ITEM (filename) are not case sensitive, unless you set these flags:

      JA_SRV_F_CMD_CASE_SENSITIVE  = "yes"
      JA_SRV_F_FILE_CASE_SENSITIVE = "yes"

If values are "no", then these are identical commands:

      Subject: Send Help
      Subject  SEND HELP

Multipart mime messages

If you want to deliver big files, you better be sure not to send them as a big file. That blocks the connection between every host along the path that the big file is transferred. The solution is to use MIME multiparts that can be assembled back in the receiving MUA. (In case you don't have multipart assembler at hand, send message "send mime+.pl" to $Contactid and you will receive Perl script to do it).

MIME multiparts are sent out if

When a file meets these criteria, it is read to the BODY of message and base64 encoded. This all happens in memory, so watch procmail logs to see if any problems with very big files. (>30Meg). Next, if the base64 conversion succeeded, the composed is handed to

      JA_SRV_MIME_MULTI_SEND

Which does the actual delivery and splitting. The default program used is splitmail. Make sure you have it or substitute the program with some equivalent one.

Stopping server

Sometimes you're making rearrangements in you file directory or doing some other maintenance and you are unable to respond to send requests. You can stop the server by setting
      JA_SRV_IN_USE = "no"

And when you want to enable the server again; just comment out the statement or assign yes. [The default is yes]. When this variable is set to no, the server sends a message from following variable as a response to any "send" request.

      JA_SRV_IN_USE_NO_MSG

Using password to validate file requests

You should be aware that this file server's implementation is public in nature. Anyone who asks for a file is allowed to get it. But it would be good if you could limit the access to documents with some simple way, like if you set up two file servers (see next chapter) where one is public and the other is interesting only to group of people. You can define a string that must be found in Subject field by setting the following variable
      JA_SRV_PASSWORD = ".*"    # default

The default value will match anything in the subject, thus making the server public. But if you set it like this

      JA_SRV_PASSWORD ".*123"

Then string "123" must be there somewhere in the line, like here

      Subject: send <FILE> 123

Yes, "123" is actually a CMD definition, but it doesn't matter because there is no CMD 123. Subject now matches password and the server can be accessed. Of course the following is valid too.

      Subject: send <FILE> noconv 123

If the password was wrong, server won't tell it. The message just lands to your mailbox in that case and you can investigate who tried to access the restricted server.

Changing server's command string (multiple servers)

The default command string is "send", but you can change it and thus create multiple services. Here is one example, where you have set up two file servers where each has its own directory.
      #   The public server
      JA_SRV_CMD_STRING           = "send"
      JA_SRV_FILE_DIR             = $HOME/server/public
      INCLUDERC                   = $HOME/procmail/pm-jasrv.rc
      #   Company server, only interests fellow workers.
      #   Here "xyz-send" is just magic server request string.
      #   Notice case sensitivity settings.
      JA_SRV_F_CMD_CASE_SENSITIVE = "yes"
      JA_SRV_CMD_STRING           = "xyz-send"
      JA_SRV_PASSWORD             = ".*12qw"
      JA_SRV_FILE_DIR             = $HOME/server/public/xyz-dir
      INCLUDERC                   = $HOME/procmail/pm-jasrv.rc

Notes from the author

[basic Mime type note]

All basic files that you send must be US-ASCII, 7bit. At least that is the default mime type used. See JA_SRV_CONTENT_TYPE. I once received following message back

      ----- Transcript of session follows -----
      554 foo@bar... Cannot send 8-bit data to 7-bit destination
      501 foo@bar... Data format error

because in the previous releases, the MIME type headers were not in the message saying that the content really was plain 7bit ascii.

[Sending the file as is]

Note, that the file is included "as is" without any extra start-of-file or end-of-file tags. This is possible, because the file is sent in MIME format.

[Using one line log entry]

It may look very spartan to print a single line log entry. You see messages like above in the file server log. Using one line entry instead of multiline announcements makes it possible to write a small perl tool to parse information from a single line. If you get many file server messages per day, it quicker to look at the single line entries too.

      [ja-srv1; sh file;  Foo Bar foo@site.com;]
      [ja-srv1; send xxx-file.txt; Foo Bar foo@site.com;]
                |
                Server's request keywords (you may have multiple servers)

[todo]

(*) MIME multipart message's mime headers may need some adjustments.

(*) I rely on simple regexp to send out base64 or gzip files. The natural extension would be to use file size threshold: if file is bigger than N bytes, send it out with gzip. And further: if file is more than NN bytes, send it out as multipart MIME.

(*) In fact there is a slight mime type errors: .zip files should be send as application/zip. If you have experience with the mime types, please contact me and help me to sort out proper mime headers.

If you have suggestions or ideas, please drop me am email.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to the source directory of procmail code. This subroutine will include many pm-jasrv-*.rc modules and other files from there.

Please test the File Server in your environment before you start using it for every day. For example I had some weird local problem where PATH had /usr/contrib/bin/ where gzip was supposed to be, but in spite of my tries procmail didn't find it along the path. Don't ask why. I now use absolute binary name:

      GZIP = /usr/contrib/bin/gzip

In addition, if your messages are not sent to recipient, but you get daemon message:

      ... Recipient names must be specified

That's because you have setting SENDMAIL="sendmail"; which is not enough. It must be

      SENDMAIL = "sendmail -oi -t"

Usage example

This is my .procmailrc installation. Notice that the file server code is used only if you get "send" request. On the other hand, this double wrapping is not all necessary, you could as well rely on the File server's capability to detect SEND request.
      PMSRC   = $HOME/pm      # directory where the procmail rc files are
      RC_FSRV = $PMSRC/pm-jasrv.rc
      mySavedLOGFILE = $LOGFILE   # record file server actions elsewhere
      LOGFILE        = $PMSRC/pm-jasrv.log
      #   Listen "send" requests.
      :0
      *   ^Subject: +send\>
      {
          JA_SRV_FILE_DIR = $HOME/fsrv      # Where to get the files
          JA_SRV_LOG      = $HOME/fsrv.log  # Write log here
          INCLUDERC       = $RC_FSRV        # Use file server now
      }
      LOGFILE = $mySavedLOGFILE

Pm-jastore.rc -- Store messagee to inbox or gzip inbox

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-11 $
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail storing subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This subroutine stores the message to file pointed by MBOX. This subroutine is meant to be used with the the other general purpose includerc files. This makes it possible to have a centralized file storage handling for all your rc files.

Regular user doesn't get much out of this rc unless he mixes both gz and regular files in his .procmailrc

R e p e a t: This module is basis for general purpose procmail rc plug-ins to strre message to mailbox pointed by some rc configuration variable. Normal user can simply say in his .procmailrc:

      :0:
      mail.private

Required settings

(none)

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

MBOX must have been set to point to message storage.

if MBOX_MH is set to "yes"

otherwise

Example usage

      $RC_MBOX   = $PMSRC/pm-jastore.rc
      :0
      * condition
      {
          MBOX = $HOME/Mail/spool/junk.mbox   INCLUDERC = $RC_MBOX
      }

Pm-jasubject.rc -- Subject field cleaner and canonicalizer (Re:)

File id

Copyright (C) 1998 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1998-01
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail SubjectClean recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

There are many different Email programs out there that add their own reply characters to the subject field. The most sad programs come usually from PC platform. Eg. Microsoft has gained a lot of bad reputation due to it's own standards.

There already is a de facto standard where message should contain only single Re: if message has been replied to (no matter how many times). This makes it possible to do efficient message threading by only using Subject and date fields. And grepping same subjects is lot easier than from this horrible mess. Note that all text is on one line, the subject has been broken only for visual reasons:

      Subject: re- Re^2: Re[32]: FW: Re: Re(15) Sv: Re[9]: -reply
               (fwd) [fwd] <fwd> fw: [FWD:  [FWD:]]
               -subj subj: subj: subj-
               test

This recipe standardizes any subject (like above) that has been replied to, to de facto format below. That is: "Any number of RE will be converted to single RE and any number of FWD will be converted to single FWD."

       Subject: Re: test (fwd)

About In-Reply-To header

If there is In-Reply-to header in the message, but there is not Re: in the subject line, one is added automatically. Some broken Mailers forget to add the Re: to the Subject line.

Variable JA_SUBJECT_SAVE

This is by default yes which makes the original subject saved under header field Old-Subject. If you don't want that extra header generated, set this variable to no

Variable JA_SUBJECT_FWD_KILL

This is by default yes, which will kill extra forwarding indication words like (fwd) [fwd] <fwd> <f>. If you set this to no, then all the fowarding words are preserved. The de facto forwad format is:
      Subject: This subject (fwd)

Code note

This subroutine's intention is to make your Subject like more expressive by deleting redundant information. I have taken a simplistic aproach where the Subject consists of list of WORDS whose each attribute can be either ok or delete. There is no attempt made to investigate the structire of the Subject. I'll explain this better with examples:
      Re: New subject (was Re: Old subject)

should be treated syntactically like "New subject" and forgetting anything between parenthesis. This is however not respected and not even tried. The rule applied here is "One Re: is tolerated", so the subject won't change. It doesn't matter where "Re:" is.

But here the subjject is changed. The rule applied is "Delete all unwanted words and then add one Re: to the beginning if OLD content had any Reply indications"

          Re: New subject (was Re: Old subject)
      --> Re: New subject (was Old subject)

Now you understand how the Subject changing works.

IMPORTANT notice

Please check that your SHELL variable setting for procmail is sh derivate, /bin/sh or /bin/bash. This module won't work well with other shells.

Awk usage note

awk is a small, efective and much smaller than perl for little tasks. See the verbose log and make sure your awk understands VAR="value" passing syntax. Change it to nawk or gawk if they work better than your standard awk.
      AWK = "nawk"        # you may need this, try also gawk

Example usage

You need nothing special, just include this recipe before you save message to folder.
      INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-jasubject.rc

Customizations: Let's say Polish M$Outlook uses ODP: instead of standard re: and you want to handle that too: Then set:

      JA_SUBJECT_KILL = "ODP:"
      JA_SUBJECT_SAVE = "no"
      INCLUDERC       = $PMSRC/pm-jasubject.rc

You ca use JA_SUBJECT_KILL to kill any additional words from the subject line. Eg. if you have good newsreader, you don't need the mailing list prefixes that some mailing lists add to the beginning

      Subject: [LIST-xxx] the subject here

to remove that list prefix, you simply match it

      JA_SUBJECT_KILL = "(list-xxx|list-yyy)"

Inportant: The regexp must be all lowercase, because when match happens, the word has been converted to lowercase.

Debugging

You can dry-run test this module with following command and wathing output. Substitute variables as they are in your system. You feed the content of entire example mail where the Subject thatt needs correction is found.
      % procmail SHELL=/bin/sh AWK=gawk VERBOSE=on LOGABSTRACT=all \
        PMSRC=txt JA_SUBJECT_KILL="(ace-users)" txt/pm-jasubject.rc  \
        < ~/test.mail

Pm-jatime.rc -- "hh:mm:ss" time parser from variable INPUT

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
Maintainer: Jari Aalto
Created: 1997-11
$Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com $
$URL: ftp://cs.uta.fi/pub/ssjaaa/ $
$Keywords: procmail subroutine date parsing $

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

You can get newest version by sending email to Contactid with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This includerc parses date from variable INPUT which has string
      "hh:mm:ss"

Example input

      "Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:43:23 +0200"

Returned values

      hh      = 2 digits
      mm      = 2 digits
      ss      = 2 digits

Variable ERROR is set to "yes" if it couldn't recognize the INPUT and couldn't parse all hh, mm, ss variables.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This subroutine will include pm-javar.rc from there.

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

      INPUT = string-to-parse

The INPUT can be anything as long as it contains NN:NN:NN

Usage example

Get the time of received message. The From_ header will always have the standard time stamp.
      PMSRC           = $HOME/pm
      RC_DATE_TIME    = $PMSRC/pm-jatime.rc
      :0 c
      *  ^From +\/.*
      {
          INPUT = $MATCH
          #  Turn off the logging while executing this part
          VERBOSE=off   INCLUDERC = $RC_DATE_TIME   VERBOSE=on
          :0
          * ERROR ?? yes
          {
             # Should not ever happen, you have broken From_
          }
      }

Pm-jaube.rc -- Jari's Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) filter.

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
Created: 1997-09
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail UBE filter recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Warning

Put all your UBE (aka spam) filters towards the end of your procmailrc. The idea is that valid messages are filed
first (mailing lists, your work and private mail, bounces) and only the uncategorized messages are checked.

Overview of features

Remember: this is not 100%, there is always some mishits, so don't just junk messages to /dev/null. Instead set JA_UBE_MBOX to the appropriate mailbox where you want to store the messages.

Description

My life changed when Daniel smith posted his spam.rc, where he had gathered many tips and heuristics to filter UBE email. The filter expressed work of many Procmail usears including [phil] and [dan]. You can get the original file by sending email with subject pm-dsspam.rc to maintainer.

I modified the filtering rules a bit, took out some rules that catched false email messages and made the package look a bit more general so that it could be included via INCLUDERC in the standard way. Not all ideas here are mine; many of them are directly from Dan's original filter with slight modifications.

Thanks to Daniel and others, the UBE bomb days are gone, when this filter is active. Couple of UBE email may still lurk into my mailbox, but that's life; no shield is 100% proof.

Logging the events

The default subroutine pm-jaube1.rc does nothing fancy, but writes a short log to JA_UBE_LOG and stores the message into JA_UBE_MBOX, which is sort of a brief biff log, where information about incoming mail and what happened to it is stored. When message arrives; date, from and subject should be written to the log and when message gets filed; you should write the folder and reason. Eg. my biff log looks like this:
      1997-12-08 Foo bar@x.com  send pm-tips.txt
          [ja-srv1; sent ema-keys.txt; Foo bar@x.com ;]
      1997-12-08 work@home.com  Extra Holiday $$$$$
          [jaube; Marketing-Big-ExitCode; LEGAL, MONEY-MAKING PHENOMENON]
      1997-12-09 Denizen logger@california.com  [RePol] hiding
      1997-12-09 david X dx@a.com  Re: Send list to incoming folder
      1997-12-09 david X dx@a.com  Re: Send list to incoming folder
      1997-12-09 OMC manager omcman@foo.fi "Environments updated"
          [my; work-localenv]
      1997-12-09 doodle@gruppe.org  Re: Gnus (Emacs Newsreader) FAQ
          [my; emacs;   Re: Gnus (Emacs Newsreader) FAQ ]

First, I got a message to my fileserver and it responded. Then came a UBE message that was identified and saved to UBE folder. Next 3 messages vere ones, that were filed to mailing-list folders and there was no [] action displayed for them (left out due to high volume of these messages). Second Last; that was internal work message, Lastly someone mailed me about Emacs and that message was filed to emacs folder.

The basic timestamp recipe in my .procmailrc is as follows. Variable TODAY is $YYYY-$MM-$DD which you get from pm-jadate.rc. The LISTS exclude mailing lists. I don' want to see their activity. Variables FROM SUBJECT are read header fields from the message

      BIFF    = $HOME/tmp/pm.biff
      :0 hwic:
      *$ ! $LISTS
      |echo "$TODAY $FROM $FSUBJECT" >> $BIFF

Here is small perl script to print summary of trapped UBE messages. It gives nice overview which recipes trap most of the UBE messages.

      perl5 -ne '/jaube; (\S+)/; $s{$1}++;                        \
           END {  $s = (map{$x += $_; $_= $x} values %s)[-1];     \
                  $i = int $s{$_}/$s *100;                        \
                  for (keys %s) { printf "$s{$_} $i $_\n" }       \
               }'                                                 \
           pm-hdr.log                                             \
           sort -nr

Here is sample results of mine during 1998-08-16 - 1998-10-04. There are total of 3248 UBE messages trapped.

count % type ------------------------------------------ 554 17 Marketing-CountBigLetterWords; 457 14 Marketing; 422 12 Marketing-SelectedBigLetterWords; 349 10 AddrBogus-ToFrom; 263 8 ReceivedFrom-Mismatch; 223 6 NoDirectAddress-ToCc; 216 6 HdrForgedPegasus; 164 5 AddrBogus-To; 151 4 MessageId; 121 3 FromReceived-Mismatch; 102 3 BodyHtml; 73 2 Received-IPError; 63 1 Identical-FromTo; 53 1 AddrInvalid; 15 0 From-nslookup; 9 0 HdrReceivedTime; 7 0 HdrX-UIDL; 4 0 Marketing-headers;

About bouncing message back with exitcode 67 or 77

The gneral concensus is, that you should not send bounches, the UBE sender is not there, because the address is usually forged. Do not increase the network traffic. Instead save the messages to folders and periodically send complaints to postmasters that you find in Received headers. If you decide to bounce anyway, be sure to do FROM_DAEMON and mailing list tests before sending anything back. It's not nice to be forced to apologize about boounces to a wrong destination.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This recipe file will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Return values

If you use your own JA_UBE_RC then you can read these values, when your script is called. They are also set after recipe if JA_UBE_MBOX is empty "".

The UBE reason ERROR is also seen in the separate header.

Usage example

It is best, that the UBE filterings are put last to your .procmailrc. Handle all legimate messages at the beginning and save them to folders. Only messages that didn't fit to previous categories shgould be feed to to this recipe.
      # - All legimite messages already handled and saved before this
      # - Activate the filter only for messages that are not from
      #   daemon and not from valid senders: like from "my" domain
      #   and mailing lists and from soemwhere else. Define your
      #   favourite VALID_FROM regexp.
      RC_UBE     = $PMSRC/pm-jaube.rc
      VALID_FROM = "(my_domain|my_mailinglist)"
      :0
      *$ ! ^From:.*$VALID_FROM
      *$ ! $from_daemon
      {
          JA_UBE_MBOX = "junk.ube"
          INCLUDERC   = $RC_UBE
      }

I have also received UBE messages that fool FROM_DAEMON test, so you could also consider using this condition. The standard daemon error message almost always has sentence "Transcript of session follows" in the body.

      *   -1^0       ^FROM_DAEMON
      * !  2^1  B ?? Transcript of session follows

Intead of simple daemon test:

      *$ ! $from_daemon

File layout

tinybm.el/&tags and tinytab.el for the 4 tab text placement. See also unix what(1) and GNU RCS ident(1).

Bug reports or updates

1998-08-24 Gregory Sutter sent update to his recipe.

1998-02-27 bochmann@TUDURZ.urz.tu-dresden.de (Henryk Bochmann) reported that the ReceivedFrom test triggered all htmail messages. Now Fiexed.


Pm-jaube1.rc -- Jari's UBE filter. Subroutine 1

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-09 $
Maintainer: Jari Aalto jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Keywords: procmail UBE filter subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Documentation

This file is part of the "pm-jaube.rc". This subroutine is called when likely UBE message has been triggered.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source direcry of procmail code. This recipe file will include


Pm-javac.rc -- Procmail: Vacation framework recipe (id-cache)

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-98 Jari Aalto
Created: 1997-11
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
keywords: procmail vacation framework recipe

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

Framework for all programs that need to reply to messages only once. Usually known as "vacation" feature. If you cahnge th cache file, you can attach this recipe to any messages that you want to deal with only once.

Required settings

PMSRC must point to source directory of procmail code. This subroutine will include

Call arguments (variables to set before calling)

Usage example

To turn on the vacation feature, create ~/.vac file and recipe below activates vacation. If the vacation is not active, then cache file is removed. (automatic cleanup). The VERBOSE is also turned off when you're on vacation; so that your procmail log will not get filled.

So when you go to vacation, you 'touch ~/.vac' and update ~/vacation.msg. When you come back, you 'rm ~/.vac'. That's it.

IMPORTANT: If you are subscribed to mailing lists, be sure to file messages from those services first and put the vacation recipe only after the list or bot messages. Also add sufficent "!" conditions in order not to reply to other "bot" service messages.

      JA_VAC_ID_CACHE = $HOME/.pm-vac.cache
      :0
      *$ ? $IS_EXIST $HOME/.vac
      {
          VERBOSE     = off
          JA_VAC      = "yes"
          JA_VAC_RC   = $PMSRC/pm-myvac.rc        # my vacation recipe
          INCLUDERC   = $PMSRC/pm-javac.rc        # framework
      }
      :0 E                                        # else
      * ? $IS_EXIST $JA_VAC_ID_CACHE
      {
          dummy = `$RM -f $JA_VAC_ID_CACHE`
      }

Here is example of pm-myvac.rc recipe

      #  Change subject
      :0 fhw
      * ^Subject: *\/[^ ].*
      | $FORMAIL -I "Subject: vacation (was: $MATCH)"
      :0 fb           # put message to body
      | $CAT $HOME/.vacation.msg
      :0              # Send it
      | $SENDMAIL

Pm-javar.rc -- Jari's global variable definitions

File id

Copyright (C) 1997-1999 Jari Aalto
Contactid: jari.aalto@poboxes.com
Created: 1997-12
Keywords: procmail variableDEFS subroutine

This code is free software in terms of GNU Gen. pub. Lic. v2 or later You can get newest version by sending email to maintainer with subject "send <FILENAME>"

Description

This file defines common variables that you can use in the recipe's condition line. Procmail does not know scape sequences like \t or \n and it is therefore much more readable to use variables for common regular expression matches. Pay attention that the line with "*$ ", where "$" expands the variables:
      :0
      *$ $s+something+$s+$d+$a+

The equivalent without variables (you don't see the tabs and spaces)

      :0
      #  Space + tab
      * [         ]something[     ][0-9]+[a-z]+

In addition all system dependent variables are defined in this module. For example if you have Gnu awk, I stringly suggest that you set:

      AWK = "path/to/gawk"

Also if your perl binary still runs the perl 4, then please set

      PERL = "path/to/perl5"

You can define these variables before or after the module, just make sure the binaries reflect your system settings.

Standard variables defined

See pm-tips.txt file for full explanation or look at the source code.
      SPC WSPC NSPC SPCL       # Whitespace, NonWhitespace, Whitespc+linefeed
      \s \d \D \w \W and \a \A # perl styled variables

Special variable from_daemon

In order to boost procmail and to save extra CU cycles, this module defines variable from_daemon that caches the information of ^FROM_DAEMON. You can refer to from_daemon as you would to big brother FROM_DAEMON. This has the advantage that procmail has already computed the result and the variable from_daemon is used as a cache, thus avoiding repeated FROM_DAEMON regexp tests, which are expensive. Variable from_daemon_match contains "" or the result of matched daemon text.
      *$ $from_daemon

or the familiar

      *$ ! $from_daemon

Instead of using the regexp parsing with

      * ^FROM_DAEMON

and

      * ! ^FROM_DAEMON

Special variable from_mailer

Works like from_daemon variable but in respect to FROM_MAILER. The matches text is in from_mailer_match

Usage example

Put this as a first line in you includerc. It checks if WSPC is does not include space --> load the variable definitions. If the variable is already defined, the file is not loaded. This is something like #ifdef -- #endif in C language.
      :0
      * ! WSPC ?? ( )
      {
          INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-javar.rc
      }

For your .procmailrc, you can simply put this, because you want to load the variables at startup

      INCLUDERC = $PMSRC/pm-javar.rc

Defined modules

After this file loads, you can refer to any module with $RC_MODULE. Eg. to call email spit module in your code you would use following. See at the end of this file for all defined modulenames.
      INCLUDERC = $RC_EMAIL

End


Copyright (C) Jari Aalto. All rights reserved. This material can be publically distributed and copied with the permission of Author, provided that you mention the Author's name and email address or http reference where to get the original document.

This file has been automatically generated from plain text file with perl script t2html.pl 1.174
Document author: Jari Aalto
Url: http://www.procmail.org/jari/pm-code.txt
Contact: <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>
Html date: 1999-04-30 12:11