Debugging procmail (Duane Morin)

[Louis Rouleau]

I ran into a similar problem when setting up procmail initially
and found that I did not need the .forward; 
Local mail delivery (Sendmail) config may already be set to invoke 
procmail (which looks for your $HOME/.procmailrc);
Procmail log can be set with the "LOGFILE" variable.
Make sure any dir's named in variables actually exist or are created before .procmail is set to run;

So .procmailrc could look something like the following:

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/export/home/IMeMine
MAILDIR=/export/home/IMeMine/Mail
MBOXDIR=/var/mail/IMeMine
LOGFILE=$HOME/procmaillog
LOCKFILE=$HOME/procmail/.lockmail
CURMONTH=`date +%Y%m`
# VERBOSE=ON

# 4 Lines below are extra; they create a numeric name for a directory for each 
# month under your $HOME/Mail dir - named like: yearmonth
# (yyyymo); 
# Still have to cleanup periodically;  Nice thing: each month has 
# a separate log - so the file size doesnt get excessive...

:0 Wic
* ? test ! -d $MAILDIR/$CURMONTH
|mkdir $MAILDIR/$CURMONTH
DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/$CURMONTH

LOGFILE=$DEFAULT/procmaillog

:0 BHh
* ^Content-Type: multipart/(mixed|alternative)
* ^Content-Type:.*(audio/x-|application|x-rasmol)
* name=.*\.(scr|com|bat|pif|lnk|exe)
{
	:0
	$HOME/sobig.f
}
.
.   (various and sundry recipe lines...)	
.
# Catch-all recipe just in case - at the end...
:0
* .
{
	:0
	$MBOXDIR
}
	


Hope this helps...
-Louis


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Duane Morin wrote:


 Message: 2
 Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 22:43:33 -0400 (EDT)
 From: Duane Morin <dmorin at lear.morinfamily.com>
 To: discuss at blu.org
 Subject: Debugging procmail
 
 I'm trying to get procmail running (thanks for the recipes!) but nothing's 
 happening.  I know that my .forward file is being invoked because if I 
 make it equal to just another email account, email is forwarded.
 So, .forward equals:
 
 "|IFS=' ' && exec /usr/bin/procmail -f- || exit 75 #dmorin"
 
 
 So far so good?  I know that procmail is in /usr/bin/procmail.
 
 The thing is that nothing seems to be happening with procmail at all.
 I can't even really tell if i have a syntax error.  Here's the file, it's 
 an assortment of things I'm trying to get some evidence that it's working:
 
 # Copy all incoming messages to backup folder
 :0 c
 backup
 
 # If message is to Microsoft anything, move to spam
 :0:
 * ^TO*icrosoft
 spam
 
 # Got these from the list, sobig/swen killers.
 # http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/spamblock.html
 # gaaaah!
 :0 BHh
 * ^Content-Type: multipart/(mixed|alternative)
 * ^Content-Type:.*(audio/x-|application|x-rasmol)
 * name=.*\.(scr|com|bat|pif|lnk|exe)
 $HOME/sobig.f
 
 I am still regularly getting mail with MS attachments.  There's nothing in 
 my backup directory, nor is there a sobig.f file or directory.
 
 Clues?  Is procmail dumping its output someplace I can look?
 
 Duane
 
 
 
 --__--__--
 
 Message: 3
 Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 00:01:38 -0400 (EDT)
 From: Chris Devers <cdevers at pobox.com>
 Reply-To: Chris Devers <cdevers at pobox.com>
 To: Duane Morin <dmorin at lear.morinfamily.com>
 Cc: discuss at blu.org
 Subject: Re: Debugging procmail
 
 On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Duane Morin wrote:
 
 > Clues?  Is procmail dumping its output someplace I can look?
 
 I think we may need more information about your set up -- what mail server
 software are you using, and are you sure it is invoking things properly,
 etc. Without knowing a little bit more, the most I can do is guess -- but
 maybe others can glean more than I can :-)
 
 That said, one of the best things you can do in your ~/.procmailrc is to
 generate a log file. That'll at least tell you if procmail is being
 invoked in the first place. It's great for debugging, and personally I
 like leaving a `tail -f` running on my log file to let me know what mail I
 have coming in & where it's getting filed away.
 
 My ~/.procmailrc was written mostly by reading Nancy McGough's tutorials
 at <http://www.ii.com/internet/robots/procmail/qs>. (Note: url is LONG,
 not very well organized, occasionally repetitive, etc -- but there is a
 lot of decent information there.) I've pasted the relevant bits from my
 ~/.procmailrc below; feel free to use & adapt it as you see fit:
 
     # Next may be needed if you invoke programs from your procmailrc
     # Details in Check Your $SHELL and $PATH in Troubleshooting below
     SHELL=/usr/bin/bash
 
     # Directory for storing procmail configuration and log files
     # You can name this environment variable anything you like
     # or, if you prefer, don't set it (but then don't refer to it!)
     PMDIR=$HOME/.procmail
 
     # Put ## before LOGFILE if you want no logging (not recommended)
     LOGFILE=$PMDIR/log
 
     # To insert a blank line between each message's log entry,
     # uncomment next two lines (this is helpful for debugging)
     LOG="
     "
 
     # Set to yes when debugging
     VERBOSE=no
 
     # Remove ## when debugging; set to no if you want minimal logging
     ##LOGABSTRACT=all
 
     # Replace $HOME/Msgs with your mailbox directory
     # Mutt and elm use $HOME/Mail
     # Pine uses $HOME/mail
     # Netscape Messenger uses $HOME/nsmail
     # Some NNTP clients, such as slrn & nn, use $HOME/News
     # Mailboxes in maildir format are often put in $HOME/Maildir
     # NOTE: Upon reading the next line, Procmail does a chdir to
     #       $MAILDIR and relative paths are relative to $MAILDIR
     MAILDIR=$HOME/mail
 
     # Everything above has been "infrastructure", setting up how the
     # procmail system will work for me. The next few lines call in
     # the actual recipes. Once nice thing about doing it this way is
     # that it's easy to comment out a whole block of rules if needed,
     # or rearrange the order in which they get called, etc.
     INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/personal_mail
     INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/antispam
     INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/work
     INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/mailing_lists
 
     # Messages that fall through all your procmail recipes are delivered
     # to your default INBOX
 
 If you don't see anything useful to you here, you may want to look at
 samples from dotfiles.com too. There is a decent collection of config
 files for various tools there, including procmail.
 
 
 
 -- 
 Chris Devers
 
 --__--__--