There's some real irony here. I could see somebody worrying about security,
but I know procmail itself is pretty secure... although there are some
pretty insecure things you can do with it, like most of unix (don't even
get me started on some other OS.. I like VMS though, leave it at that). I
can see somebody moving from a "barely adequate" mail server to something
better, but I don't see how they make such an evaluation without an
understanding of the technology; and I've never heard of the Barely
Adequate product, what operating system does it run on, and how do you like
it? The A Patchy web server is well-respected, venerable even. I see people
writing to this list when they have questions, and I see them complain
about this or that, or even the answers they get, which I know is pointless
but perhaps is human nature; they could start their own mailing list, of
course. I understand that the man pages are dense, even if that's how I
learned to use procmail; but I don't understand how somebody who can get it
together to subscribe to this list can't search the list archives or find
the FAQ or any of the excellent beginners guides which have been written
since I wrote mine.
I can believe that somewhere on the internet is somebody who will complain
that the procmail-users list doesn't put [procmail-list] or something in
the subject line like a Cobalt Qube; but it surprises me that the person
who does so can't appreciate the irony in an answer like this:
Someone whom I won't name because this isn't a personal attack wrote:
:0:
* ^TOprocmail
procmail
Any message with 'procmail' somewhere in its destination address is
put into the procmail folder.
Simple! :-)
I am also considering staying away from Procmail as the help
provided
from this list is most often in the form above; cryptic commands listed
with no explanation as to why and how they do the things that they do.
What kind of help and assistance is that?
It's the assistance which somebody who probably has other things to do felt
they could give. For free. (Or they could use the List-ID line, or maybe
they could have started yet another iteration of the thread about why
mailing list software doesn't have some standard headers.)
Somehow, for me, procmail came with the territory of doing practical things
on a mail server running on Unix. Nobody paid me to learn it, I just wanted
to/had to. I wrote a guide to make it easier for other subscribers at the
ISP I used at the time to set it up (because I got tired of answering
questions) and nobody said thanks. These days, procmail is just one of the
many (and least digestive-sounding) utilities/commands/programs/scripts
that I have to deal with on a .*n.*x box.
I have never been hired for any position because of my knowledge of
procmail (or sendmail for that matter); not that I haven't had to deal with
them often enough, and have cursed my lot on several occasions when
procmail was nowhere to be found.
There are plenty of unix sysadmins who can help you with procmail, or
anything else, if you want to pay.
Or maybe I'm not appreciating the irony of a thread named "Re: Kind of
annoying.": gwan, ya hoser!
Alright then, you know what I don't like about this list? The Received
Headers Which Eat Themselves: looks like a bad spam forgery! I mean look at
this:
Received: from r220-1.rz.rwth-aachen.de (134.130.3.31)
by inwa.net with SMTP; 13 Jun 2002 15:18:59 -0000
Received: from r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (relay2.RWTH-Aachen.DE [134.130.3.1])
by r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.10.1/8.11.3-2) with ESMTP id
g5DFIW220907;
Thu, 13 Jun 2002 17:18:32 +0200 (MEST)
Received: from nets2.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (nets2.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE
[137.226.144.243])
by r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.10.1/8.11.3/7) with ESMTP id
g5DFIUd20881;
Thu, 13 Jun 2002 17:18:30 +0200 (MEST)
Received: from nets2.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by nets2.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.9.1a/8.9.1/1) with ESMTP id RAA04786;
Thu, 13 Jun 2002 17:18:14 +0200 (MET DST)
Received: from r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE
[134.130.3.31])
by nets2.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.9.1a/8.9.1/1) with ESMTP id RAA04775
for <procmail(_at_)lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE>; Thu, 13 Jun 2002
17:17:55
+0200 (MET DST)
Received: from r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (relay2.RWTH-Aachen.DE [134.130.3.1])
by r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.10.1/8.11.3-2) with ESMTP id
g5DFHs220331
for <procmail(_at_)lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE>; Thu, 13 Jun 2002
17:17:55
+0200 (MEST)
Received: from mails.rz.rwth-aachen.de (mails.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE
[134.130.1.251])
by r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.10.1/8.11.3/7) with ESMTP id
g5DFHrd20305
for <procmail(_at_)lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE>; Thu, 13 Jun 2002
17:17:53
+0200 (MEST)
Received: from r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE
("port 55095"@r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE [134.130.3.31])
by mails.rz.rwth-aachen.de
(Sun Internet Mail Server sims.4.0.2000.10.12.16.25.p8)
with ESMTP id <0GXN008BEH5RVL(_at_)mails(_dot_)rz(_dot_)rwth-aachen(_dot_)de>
for
procmail(_at_)lists(_dot_)RWTH-Aachen(_dot_)DE
(ORCPT rfc822;procmail(_at_)informatik(_dot_)rwth-aachen(_dot_)de); Thu,
13 Jun 2002 17:17:51 +0200 (MET DST)
Received: from r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (relay2.RWTH-Aachen.DE [134.130.3.1])
by r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.10.1/8.11.3-2) with ESMTP id
g5DFHp220275 for
<procmail(_at_)informatik(_dot_)rwth-aachen(_dot_)de>; Thu, 13 Jun 2002
17:17:51 +0200 (MEST)
Received: from hera.cuci.nl (hera.cuci.nl [212.125.128.1])
by r220-1.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.10.1/8.11.3/7) with ESMTP id
g5DFHnd20241 for
<procmail(_at_)informatik(_dot_)rwth-aachen(_dot_)de>; Thu, 13 Jun 2002
17:17:49 +0200 (MEST)
Received: from impelind.com ([63.99.209.9]) by hera.cuci.nl (BuGless_3.01)
with ESMTP id g5DFHgnt028365 for <procmail-users(_at_)procmail(_dot_)org>;
Thu,
13 Jun 2002 17:17:43 +0200
Received: from admin [67.37.66.82] by impelind.com wit
That is truly a work of art by someone who knows their mail system! LOL! My
hat goes off to the BOFH who 0wnz rz.rwth-aachen.de. Maybe we should start
a collection to buy them a BOFH shirt from _The Register_. Or maybe we
should just PETITION _The Register_ to send them a shirt!
Bye now, gotta get back to work.
--
Fred Morris
m3047(_at_)inwa(_dot_)net
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