procmail
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: procmail newbie question

1998-04-30 12:09:14
When Chuan Wang <chuan(_at_)sift(_dot_)com> asked:

| > I am wondering if someone can tell me hwo to specify in the .procmailrc
| > file something to the effect of:
| >
| >    "After all the above (bounces and others) processing, the unprocessed
| > email goes to this folder"

Several people -- I believe Era was the first -- recommended a recipe at the
end of .procmailrc along the lines of

 :0:
 catchallfolder

Matt Armstrong added,

| You can set the DEFAULT variable anywhere in your .procmailrc and it
| will become the default destination folder (where stuff goes when no
| other recipie delivers it).
| 
| DEFAULT=foo.folder

What kept me from making the same recommendation was Chuan Wang's use of
the term "newbie" in the question.  To someone truly new to procmail, I
wouldn't suggest changing the value of DEFAULT (and certainly not that
of ORGMAIL) just yet.

With a specific catchall recipe, procmail can have two chances to recover
if the catchall fails: first to $DEFAULT and, should that fail, to $ORGMAIL.
By reassigning DEFAULT you give one up.

Now, for most of us this entire post has been a silly waste of resources,
because almost always $DEFAULT starts out the same as $ORGMAIL, so there is
only one backup opportunity anyway whether you change the value of DEFAULT or
not.  But just in case $DEFAULT is changed in /etc/procmailrc and the user
is really that new, maybe a catchall recipe can be safer than changing
$DEFAULT.

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>