Question about procmail and exim4
 

I am running fetchmail, exim4, and procmail on a standard Lenny
installation. It all seems to be working as intended but I noticed
something while reading procmail documentation about which I am
puzzled:

The documentation says that to get an MTA (exim4?) to forward email to
procmail for processing, I need to have a .forward file in ~/ and that
it needs a certain magic string in it. But I don't have a .forward
file in my home directory, and it _is_ working, so how is the link-up
established in Debian?

And, as always, where should I have looked to find this in the
documentation?

TIA
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net


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Question about procmail and exim4
 

On Thu, Feb 05, 2009 at 10:20:35AM -0700, Paul E Condon wrote:
> The documentation says that to get an MTA (exim4?) to forward email to
> procmail for processing, I need to have a .forward file in ~/ and that
> it needs a certain magic string in it. But I don't have a .forward
> file in my home directory, and it _is_ working, so how is the link-up
> established in Debian?
>
> And, as always, where should I have looked to find this in the
> documentation?

In /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template, I have the following blurb.

################################################## ###
### router/700_exim4-config_procmail
################################################## ###

procmail:
debug_print = "R: procmail for $local_part@$domain"
driver = accept
domains = +local_domains
check_local_user
transport = procmail_pipe
# emulate OR with "if exists"-expansion
require_files = ${local_part}:
${if exists{/etc/procmailrc}
{/etc/procmailrc}{${home}/.procmailrc}}:
+/usr/bin/procmail
no_verify
no_expn

In short, I think procmail is called (by default) on all your
mails. The default action for procmail (if you don't have a
procmailrc) is to put the mail in /var/mail/<username>, and if you do
have a procmailrc, it is used by procmail.

Someone who understands exim better may be able to acknowledge or
correct the above statement.

Thanks.

Kumar
--
Kumar Appaiah

Question about procmail and exim4
 

Paul E Condon <pecondon@mesanetworks.net>:
> I am running fetchmail, exim4, and procmail on a standard Lenny
> installation. It all seems to be working as intended but I noticed
> something while reading procmail documentation about which I am
> puzzled:
>
> The documentation says that to get an MTA (exim4?) to forward email to
> procmail for processing, I need to have a .forward file in ~/ and that
> it needs a certain magic string in it. But I don't have a .forward
> file in my home directory, and it _is_ working, so how is the link-up
> established in Debian?

This is on etch, but otherwise the same. I'm not sure how you have it
all setup. procmail has been the default system Mail Delivery Agent
on Linux for a while. Whether you also have a personal procmail setup
which incoming mail triggers is another thing. I do call it
personally and I have a ~/.forward:

|/usr/bin/procmail

At the least, make yourself a minimal ~/.procmailrc with:

PMDIR = ${HOME}/procmail
MAILDIR = ${HOME}/Mail
DEFAULT = ${MAILDIR}/00.mbox
LOGFILE = ${PMDIR}/log
LOGABSTRACT = yes
VERBOSE = yes

(you'll have to mkdir procmail). That should produce a log showing if
it's doing anything.

I would "man procmail", procmailrc, procmailex.


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(*) http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html Linux Counter #80292
- - http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html Please, don't Cc: me.


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Question about procmail and exim4
 

On 2009-02-05_17:32:08, Kumar Appaiah wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 05, 2009 at 10:20:35AM -0700, Paul E Condon wrote:
> > The documentation says that to get an MTA (exim4?) to forward email to
> > procmail for processing, I need to have a .forward file in ~/ and that
> > it needs a certain magic string in it. But I don't have a .forward
> > file in my home directory, and it _is_ working, so how is the link-up
> > established in Debian?
> >
> > And, as always, where should I have looked to find this in the
> > documentation?
>
> In /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template, I have the following blurb.
>
> ################################################## ###
> ### router/700_exim4-config_procmail
> ################################################## ###
>
> procmail:
> debug_print = "R: procmail for $local_part@$domain"
> driver = accept
> domains = +local_domains
> check_local_user
> transport = procmail_pipe
> # emulate OR with "if exists"-expansion
> require_files = ${local_part}:
> ${if exists{/etc/procmailrc}
> {/etc/procmailrc}{${home}/.procmailrc}}:
> +/usr/bin/procmail
> no_verify
> no_expn
>
> In short, I think procmail is called (by default) on all your
> mails. The default action for procmail (if you don't have a
> procmailrc) is to put the mail in /var/mail/<username>, and if you do
> have a procmailrc, it is used by procmail.
>
> Someone who understands exim better may be able to acknowledge or
> correct the above statement.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Kumar
> --
> Kumar Appaiah

Thanks, Kumar.
It puzzled me. My system was, and is, working. I know I am actually
using procmail, because I see the results of making changes in my
.procmailrc but ... the procmail man page said I have to use .forward
to do this --- not quite true, just one way of doing it.

--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net


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Question about procmail and exim4
 

On Thu, Feb 05, 2009 at 07:46:31PM -0700, Paul E Condon wrote:
> It puzzled me. My system was, and is, working. I know I am actually
> using procmail, because I see the results of making changes in my
> .procmailrc but ... the procmail man page said I have to use .forward
> to do this --- not quite true, just one way of doing it.

The procmail FAQ, http://partmaps.org/era/procmail/mini-faq.html, includes
this hint:

Q: ...
A: First off, for the record, you don't need a .forward if Procmail
is your local MDA. Ask your admin.

If Procmail is not your local MDA, you need something more or less like
what the manual suggests. Look at the NOTES section of the procmail(1)
manual page -- this ...

There might be some information in there to answer your question.

Ken

--
Ken Irving


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