[I posted this question a week, or so ago, in comp.sys.hp.hpux and
comp.mail.misc. I got no response so I decided to try again adding one
additional ng, comp.mail.sendmail, to the mix. No response still, so now
I'm resorting to the procmail mailing list and hoping that it's not
inappropriate. -- jrr]
Howdy All,
I've been piping my email through the filter program, procmail, for a
fairly long time now. Generally things have worked well. But, from time
to time, I'll get a slew of messages targeted for me that get bounced and
thus must get resent and it makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong
in how I've got things set up---and, perhaps more importantly, how it's
interacting with my mail subsystem software.
As an example, here's an SMTP snippet from a bounced message that was
re-forwarded to me:
550 qfAA246117854: line 7: "|/usr/local/bin/procmail -f- #jrredho"...
Cannot mail directly to programs
554 qfAA246117854: line 7: "|/usr/local/bin/procmail -f- #jrredho"...
aliasing/forwarding loop broken
Now, this message implies to me that it's an SMTP problem and that it is
unrelated to the program that the message is to be piped to, but I'm
inexperienced at these sorts of things so here is some additional
information:
(1) The system-related stuff
bash(112)> uname -a
HP-UX sahp046 A.09.05 A 9000/755 2005154417 two-user license
(2) One verbose sendmail response (here is where one can see specifically
which shell we slate for sendmail use)
bash(111)> /usr/lib/sendmail -v jrredho
jrredho... aliased to jrredho(_at_)sahp046(_dot_)jal(_dot_)sandia(_dot_)gov
/home/jrredho/.forward: line 1: forwarding to "|/usr/local/bin/procmail
-f- #jrredho"
hello this is a test
"|/usr/local/bin/procmail -f- #jrredho"... Connecting to local host
(prog)... "|/usr/local/bin/procmail -f- #jrredho"... Executing
"/usr/local/bin/smrsh -c /usr/local/bin/procmail -f- #jrredho"
"|/usr/local/bin/procmail -f- #jrredho"... Sent
(3) An SMTP EXPN for me on the system in question
bash(102)> telnet sahp046 smtp
Trying...
Connected to sahp046.jal.sandia.gov.
Escape character is '^]'.
220-sahp046.jal.sandia.gov HP Sendmail (1.37.109.16/16.2) ready at Wed,
25 Oct 1995 14:53:10 -0600
220 ESMTP spoken here
expn jrredho
250 John Red-Horse <"|/usr/local/bin/procmail -f-
#jrredho"@sahp046.jal.sandia.gov>
(4) The version number of the HP sendmail configuration file
##### @(#)$Revision: 1.28.109.3 $
(5) Finally, my ~/.procmailrc file:
---------------------------begin included file-------------------------
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail #you'd better make sure it exists
#DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/mbox #completely optional, leaving unset (as it is
#now sends mail back to system folder)
LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/procmaillog #recommended
#VERBOSE=on #for debugging purposes, uncomment this one
#####
# copy any calendar-generated messages to my personal account (on universe)
:0 Hc
* ^Subject: reminder-.*
! jrredho(_at_)universe(_dot_)digex(_dot_)net
:0
* ^Newsgroups:.*comp\.sys\.hp\.hpux
Hpux
:0
* ^Newsgroups:.*sci\.math\.num-analysis
Num-analysis
:0
* ^Newsgroups:.*news\.software\.readers
Trn
-------------------------------end included file--------------------------
What I'm trying to achieve is fairly low-level: I have a couple of things
that I truly try to filter. Everything else, I want to go to my system
mailbox. Am I encountering a lockfile problem in doing this?
Well, I'm hoping that someone out there is experienced enough to be able
to help me with this troublesome little problem.
thanks,
john red-horse
sandia national laboratories
albuquerque, nm