procmail
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Re: problem distributing mail from a POP mailbox :((

1996-01-24 17:17:50
Michel Coste (mic(_at_)MiCMAC(_dot_)COM) wrote:
For me all he was succeding was to receive with his pop client (no big
deal) but he failed to do anything with his newmail file and procmail
(for the evident reason that usually procmail works with sendmail and
that when using pop there is no use of sendmail...)
That's what I've read... For me it's clear that he doesn't know how to
launch procmail.

That was my impression too. The problem is that the procmail manpages
tell you that if procmail is not in "sendmail.cf", then
you can put it in ".forward". Now, the standard popclient will not be
bothered by .forward, and procmail will never be invoked. My script 
combines the two actions of receiving mail and procmailing them 
afterwards (which of course may include splitting to various users).

The problem is that you assume the central problem is the use of pop
because you use a "really nasty" popclient.

That wasn't meant to be my main point. But it *is* a problem. To clarify,
the normal popclient is nasty when delivering to a mailbox file because:

        Note that  the  folder specified with -o is not locked or
        otherwise protected from other  processes  writing  to it
        while popclient is writing to it.

This may very easily mess up the mail if someone is using a mail program
when popclient is running. My script fixes that, and also handles multiple
invocations in case that happens.

I'm sure there are serveral other ways of doing this, and I hope I 
haven't been misleading someone here???

Egil

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Email: egilk(_at_)sn(_dot_)no  Voice: +47 22523641, 92022780 Fax: +47 22525899
Snail: Egil Kvaleberg, Husebybakken 14A, 0379 Oslo, Norway
URL:   http://www.sn.no/~egilk/