NAME
          procmailex - procmail rcfile examples

     SYNOPSIS
          $HOME/.procmailrc examples

     DESCRIPTION
          For a description of the rcfile format see procmailrc(5).

          The weighted scoring technique is described in detail in the
          procmailsc(5) man page.

          This man page shows several example recipes.   For  examples
          of  complete  rcfiles  you  can  check  the NOTES section in
          procmail(1), or look at the  example  rcfiles  part  of  the
          procmail                 source                 distribution
          (procmail*/examples/?procmailrc).

     EXAMPLES
          Sort out all mail coming from the  scuba-dive  mailing  list
          into   the  mailfolder  scubafile  (uses  the  locallockfile
          scubafile.lock).

               :0:
               * ^TOscuba
               scubafile

          Forward all mail from peter about compilers to william  (and
          keep a copy of it here in petcompil).

               :0
               * ^From.*peter
               * ^Subject:.*compilers
               {
                  :0 c
                  ! william@somewhere.edu

                  :0
                  petcompil
               }

          An equivalent solution that accomplishes the same:

               :0 c
               * ^From.*peter
               * ^Subject:.*compilers
               ! william@somewhere.edu

                  :0 A
                  petcompil

          An   equivalent,   but   slightly   slower   solution   that
          accomplishes the same:

               :0 c
               * ^From.*peter
               * ^Subject:.*compilers
               ! william@somewhere.edu

               :0
               * ^From.*peter
               * ^Subject:.*compilers
               petcompil

          If you are fairly new to procmail and plan to  experiment  a
          little bit it often helps to have a safety net of some sort.
          Inserting the following two recipes above all other  recipes
          will  make sure that of all arriving mail always the last 32
          messages will be preserved.  In order  for  it  to  work  as
          intended,  you  have to create a directory named `backup' in
          $MAILDIR prior to inserting these two recipes.

               :0 c
               backup

               :0 ic
               | cd backup & rm -f dummy `ls -t msg.* | sed -e 1,32d`

          If your  system  doesn't  generate  or  generates  incorrect
          leading  `From  '  lines  on every mail, you can fix this by
          calling up procmail with the -f- option.  To  fix  the  same
          problem  by  different  means,  you  could have inserted the
          following two  recipes  above  all  other  recipes  in  your
          rcfile.   They  will  filter  the header of any mail through
          formail  which  will  strip  any  leading   `From   ',   and
          automatically regenerates it subsequently.

               :0 fhw
               | formail -I "From " -a "From "

          Add the headers of all messages that didn't  come  from  the
          postmaster to your private header collection (for statistics
          or mail debugging); and use the lockfile  `headc.lock'.   In
          order  to  make  sure  the lockfile is not removed until the
          pipe has finished, you have to specify option `w'; otherwise
          the  lockfile  would  be  removed  as  soon  as the pipe has
          accepted the mail.

               :0 hwc:
               * !^FROM_MAILER
               | uncompress headc.Z; cat >>headc; compress headc

          Or, if you would use the  more  efficient  gzip  instead  of
          compress:
               :0 hwc:
               * !^FROM_MAILER
               | gzip >>headc.gz

          Forward all mails shorter than 1000 bytes to my home address
          (no lockfile needed on this recipe).

               :0
               * < 1000
               ! myname@home

          Split up incoming digests from the surfing mailing list into
          their  individual  messages,  and  store  them into surfing,
          using surfing.lock as the locallockfile.

               :0:
               * ^Subject:.*surfing.*Digest
               | formail +1 -ds >>surfing

          Store everything coming from the postmaster or mailer-daemon
          (like bounced mail) into the file postm, using postm.lock as
          the locallockfile.

               :0:
               * ^FROM_MAILER
               postm

          A simple autoreply recipe.  It makes sure that neither  mail
          from  any  daemon  (like bouncing mail or mail from mailing-
          lists),  nor  autoreplies  coming  from  yourself  will   be
          autoreplied  to.   If  this  precaution  would not be taken,
          disaster could result (`ringing' mail).  In order  for  this
          recipe  to autoreply to all the incoming mail, you should of
          course insert it before all other recipes  in  your  rcfile.
          However,  it  is  advisable to put it after any recipes that
          process the mails from subscribed mailinglists; it generally
          is  not  a good idea to generate autoreplies to mailinglists
          (yes, the !^FROM_DAEMON regexp should already  catch  those,
          but  if the mailinglist doesn't follow accepted conventions,
          this might not be enough).

               :0 h c
               * !^FROM_DAEMON
               * !^X-Loop: your@own.mail.address
               | (formail -r -A"Precedence: junk" \
                   -A"X-Loop: your@own.mail.address" ; \
                  echo "Mail received.") | $SENDMAIL -t

          A more complicated  autoreply  recipe  that  implements  the
          functional equivalent of the well known vacation(1) program.
          This recipe is based on the same principles as the last  one
          (prevent  `ringing'  mail).  In addition to that however, it
          maintains a vacation database by extracting the name of  the
          sender  and  inserting  it in the vacation.cache file if the
          name was new  (the  vacation.cache  file  is  maintained  by
          formail  which  will  make  sure that it always contains the
          most recent names, the size of the  file  is  limited  to  a
          maximum  of  aproximately 8192 bytes).  If the name was new,
          an autoreply will be sent.

               SHELL=/bin/sh    # for other shells, this might need adjustment

               :0 Whc: vacation.lock
               * !^FROM_DAEMON
               * !^X-Loop: your@own.mail.address
               | formail -rD 8192 vacation.cache

                 :0 ehc         # if the name was not in the cache
                 | (formail -rA"Precedence: junk" \
                      -A"X-Loop: your@own.mail.address" ; \
                    echo "I received your mail,"; \
                    echo "but I won't be back until Monday."; \
                    echo "-- "; cat $HOME/.signature \
                   ) | $SENDMAIL -oi -t

          Store  all  messages  concerning  TeX  in  separate,  unique
          filenames,  in a directory named texmail (this directory has
          to exist); there is no need to use lockfiles in  this  case,
          so we won't.

               :0
               * (^TO|^Subject:.*)TeX[^t]
               texmail

          The same as above, except now we store the mails in numbered
          files (MH mail folder).

               :0
               * (^TO|^Subject:.*)TeX[^t]
               texmail/.

          Or you could file the mail in several directory  folders  at
          the  same  time.  The following recipe will deliver the mail
          to two MH-folders and one directory folder.  It is  actually
          only one file with two extra hardlinks.

               :0
               * (^TO|^Subject:.*)TeX[^t]
               texmail/. wordprocessing dtp/.

          Store all the messages about meetings in a folder that is in
          a  directory  that  changes  every  month.   E.g. if it were
          January 1994, the folder would have the name `94-01/meeting'
          and the locallockfile would be `94-01/meeting.lock'.
               :0:
               * meeting
               `date +%y-%m`/meeting

          The same as above, but, if the  `94-01'  directory  wouldn't
          have existed, it is created automatically:

               MONTHFOLDER=`date +%y-%m`

               :0 ic
               * ? test ! -d $MONTHFOLDER
               | mkdir $MONTHFOLDER

               :0:
               * meeting
               ${MONTHFOLDER}/meeting

          The same as above, but now by slightly different means:

               MONTHFOLDER=`date +%y-%m`
               DUMMY=`test -d $MONTHFOLDER || mkdir $MONTHFOLDER`

               :0:
               * meeting
               ${MONTHFOLDER}/meeting

          If you are subscribed to  several  mailinglists  and  people
          cross-post  to  some  of  them,  you usually receive several
          duplicate mails (one from every list).  The following simple
          recipe eliminates duplicate mails.  It tells formail to keep
          an 8KB cache file in which it will store the Message-IDs  of
          the  most  recent mails you received.  Since Message-IDs are
          guaranteed to be unique for every new mail, they are ideally
          suited   to  weed  out  duplicate  mails.   Simply  put  the
          following recipe at the top of your rcfile, and no duplicate
          mail will get past it.

               :0 Wh: msgid.lock
               | formail -D 8192 msgid.cache

          When delivering to emacs folders (i.e.  mailfolders  managed
          by  any  emacs mail package, e.g. RMAIL or VM) directly, you
          should use emacs-compatible lockfiles.   The  emacs  mailers
          are  a bit braindamaged in that respect, they get very upset
          if someone delivers to mailfolders which they  already  have
          in  their  internal  buffers.   The following recipe assumes
          that $HOME equals /home/john.

               MAILDIR=Mail

               :0:/usr/local/lib/emacs/lock/!home!john!Mail!mailbox
               * ^Subject:.*whatever
               mailbox

          Alternatively, you can have procmail deliver  into  its  own
          set of mailboxes, which you then periodically empty and copy
          over to your emacs  files  using  movemail.   Movemail  uses
          mailbox.lock local lockfiles per mailbox.

          To extract certain headers from a mail  and  put  them  into
          environment  variables  you  can  use  any  of the following
          constructs:

               SUBJECT=`formail -xSubject:`    # regular field
               FROM=`formail -rt -xTo:`        # special case

               :0 h                            # alternate method
               KEYWORDS=| formail -xKeywords:

          If you are using temporary files in a procmailrc  file,  and
          want to make sure that they are removed just before procmail
          exits, you could use something along the lines of:

               TEMPORARY=$HOME/tmp/pmail.$$
               TRAP="/bin/rm -f $TEMPORARY"

          The TRAP keyword can also be used to change the exitcode  of
          procmail.   I.e.  if you want procmail to return an exitcode
          of `1' instead of its regular exitcodes, you could use:

               EXITCODE=""
               TRAP="exit 1;"   # The trailing semi-colon is important
                                # since exit is not a standalone program

          Or, if the exitcode does not need to depend on the  programs
          run from the TRAP, you can use a mere:

               EXITCODE=1

          The following recipe prints every incoming mail  that  looks
          like a postscript file.

               :0 Bb
               * ^^%!
               | lpr

          The following recipe does  the  same,  but  is  a  bit  more
          selective.   It  only prints the postscript file if it comes
          from the print-server.  The first condition matches only  if
          it  is  found  in  the  header.   The  second condition only
          matches at the start of the body.

               :0 b
               * ^From[ :].*print-server
               * B ?? ^^%!
               | lpr

          The same as above, but now by slightly different means:

               :0
               * ^From[ :].*print-server
               {
                 :0 B b
                 * ^^%!
                 | lpr
               }

          Likewise:

               :0 HB b
               * ^^(.+$)*From[ :].*print-server
               * ^^(.+$)*^%!
               | lpr

          Suppose  you  have  two  accounts,  you  use  both  accounts
          regularly,  but  they  are in very distinct places (i.e. you
          can only read  mail  that  arrived  at  either  one  of  the
          accounts).   You  would  like  to  forward  mail arriving at
          account one to account two, and the other way  around.   The
          first  thing  that  comes to mind is using .forward files at
          both sites; this won't work of course,  since  you  will  be
          creating  a  mail  loop.   This  mail loop can be avoided by
          inserting the following recipe in front of all other recipes
          in  the  $HOME/.procmailrc files on both sites.  If you make
          sure that you add the same X-Loop: field at both sites, mail
          can now safely be forwarded to the other account from either
          of them.

               :0 c
               * !^X-Loop: yourname@your.main.mail.address
               | formail -A "X-Loop: yourname@your.main.mail.address" | \
                  $SENDMAIL -oi yourname@the.other.account

          If someone sends you a mail with the word `retrieve' in  the
          subject,  the  following  will  automatically  send back the
          contents of info_file to the sender.  Like  in  all  recipes
          where we send mail, we watch out for mail loops.

               :0
               * !^From +YOUR_USERNAME
               * !^Subject:.*Re:
               * !^FROM_DAEMON
               * ^Subject:.*retrieve
               | (formail -r ; cat info_file) | $SENDMAIL -oi -t

          Now  follows  an  example  for  a  very  simple   fileserver
          accessible  by  mail.   For  more  demanding applications, I
          suggest you take a look at  SmartList  (available  from  the
          same  place  as the procmail distribution).  As listed, this
          fileserver sends back at  most  one  file  per  request,  it
          ignores the body of incoming mails, the Subject: line has to
          look like "Subject: send file the_file_you_want" (the blanks
          are  significant),  it does not return files that have names
          starting with a dot, nor does it allow files to be retrieved
          that  are  outside  the  fileserver  directory  tree (if you
          decide  to  munge  this  example,  make  sure  you  do   not
          inadvertently loosen this last restriction).

               :0
               * ^Subject: send file [0-9a-z]
               * !^X-Loop: yourname@your.main.mail.address
               * !^Subject:.*Re:
               * !^FROM_DAEMON
               * !^Subject: send file .*[/.]\.
               {
                 MAILDIR=$HOME/fileserver # chdir to the fileserver directory

                 :0 fhw                   # reverse mailheader and extract name
                 * ^Subject: send file \/[^ ]*
                 | formail -rA "X-Loop: yourname@your.main.mail.address"

                 FILE="$MATCH"            # the requested filename

                 :0 ah
                 | cat - ./$FILE 2>&1 | $SENDMAIL -oi -t
               }

          The  following  example  preconverts  all  plain-text   mail
          arriving in certain encoded MIME formats into a more compact
          8-bit format which can be used and displayed more easily  by
          most   programs.    The  mimencode(1)  program  is  part  of
          Nathaniel Borenstein's metamail package.

               :0
               * ^Content-Type: *text/plain
               {
                 :0 fbw
                 * ^Content-Transfer-Encoding: *quoted-printable
                 | mimencode -u -q

                    :0 Afhw
                    | formail -I "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit"

                 :0 fbw
                 * ^Content-Transfer-Encoding: *base64
                 | mimencode -u -b

                    :0 Afhw
                    | formail -I "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit"
               }

          The following one is rather exotic, but it  only  serves  to
          demonstrate a feature.  Suppose you have a file in your HOME
          directory called ".urgent", and the (one)  person  named  in
          that file is the sender of an incoming mail, you'd like that
          mail to be stored in $MAILDIR/urgent instead of  in  any  of
          the  normal  mailfolders it would have been sorted in.  Then
          this is  what  you  could  do  (beware,  the  filelength  of
          $HOME/.urgent   should  be  well  below  $LINEBUF,  increase
          LINEBUF if necessary):

               URGMATCH=`cat $HOME/.urgent`

               :0 B:
               * $^From.*${URGMATCH}
               urgent

          An entirely different application for procmail would  be  to
          conditionally  apply filters to a certain (outgoing) text or
          mail.  A typical example would be a filter through which you
          pipe  all  outgoing mail, in order to make sure that it will
          be MIME encoded only if it needs to be.  I.e. in  this  case
          you could start procmail in the middle of a pipe like:

               cat newtext | procmail ./mimeconvert | mail chris@where.ever

          The mimeconvert rcfile could  contain  something  like  (the
          =0x80=  and =0xff= should be substituted with the real 8-bit
          characters):

               DEFAULT=|     # pipe to stdout instead of
                             # delivering mail as usual
               :0 Bfbw
               * [=0x80=-=0xff=]
               | mimencode -q

                 :0 Afhw
                 | formail -I 'MIME-Version: 1.0' \
                    -I 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1' \
                    -I 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable'

     SEE ALSO
          procmail(1), procmailrc(5), procmailsc(5), sh(1), csh(1),
          mail(1), mailx(1), binmail(1), uucp(1), aliases(5),
          sendmail(8), egrep(1), grep(1), biff(1), comsat(8),
          mimencode(1), lockfile(1), formail(1)

     AUTHOR
          Stephen R. van den Berg at RWTH-Aachen, Germany
               berg@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de