procmail
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Re: Processing /etc/procmailrc first?

2002-06-06 15:09:42
At 15:17 2002-06-06 -0500, Shane Williams did say:
I read the passage you quoted (which is actually in the procmail man
page not procmailrc)

A overtypo on my part.

The -p option preserves the old environment, but says nothing about the order in which things are processed.

Q: Are you even USING the -p option?

If not, why are you concerned with it, because the passage SPECIFICALLY says that if -p IS NOT specified, and if an rc file isn't specified (i.e. you're not running a manual script invocation), THEN the global rc file will be used.

I'm guessing you haven't considered just making an /etc/procmailrc and putting little more than a LOGFILE and LOG statement in it, then delivering some email and noting the order? Seeing as you have an interest in using the global procmailrc, I'd figure you'd already have a script you were thinking of using, so conducting this simple test wouldn't take much.

And the passage below doesn't make it clear whether in the absence of a named rcfile or -p, it processes the global rc first and then the user rc, or just processes the global and delivers.

From the quoted passage:

> >>procmail will, prior to reading $HOME/.procmailrc, interpret commands
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                    **********************************
> >>from /etc/procmailrc (if  present). Care must be
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
          *****************************

I've misplaced my yellow hiliter, so hopefully the above identifies the key parts of the small relevant passage.

Once the message is *DELIVERED*, it is delivered - so if your global rc tosses it off to /dev/null (or someplace else), it won't end up showing up at the user's .procmailrc -- just as it wouldn't be showing up at the recipe following the one that you delivered with if you had two consecutive recipies in one file and delivered in the first one.

And, despite the warning about root permissions, the full implications
aren't spelled out.  If this situation processes the global rc first
and then the user rc, does this also mean that the user rc runs as
root also?

> >>will  be  executed  with  root
> >>privileges  (contrary  to  the  $HOME/.procmailrc  file of course).

Lower English translation: "of course, $HOME/.procmailrc IS NOT invoked as root" [since allowing anyone with a keyboard to write a script which would be executed as root would be VERY BAD]. I trust that the multitude of reasons that this would be bad should not need to be published in a bulleted list.

---
 Sean B. Straw / Professional Software Engineering

 Procmail disclaimer: <http://www.professional.org/procmail/disclaimer.html>
 Please DO NOT carbon me on list replies.  I'll get my copy from the list.

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