Table of Contents
Advertisement
quits. Alternatively, the MUA can be configured to execute Procmail any time a message is
received so that messages are moved into their correct mailboxes. By default, the presence of
or of a
/etc/procmailrc
invokes Procmail whenever an MTA receives a new message.
Whether Procmail acts upon an email message depends upon whether the message matches a
specified set of conditions or recipes in the
email is placed in a specified file, is deleted, or is otherwise processed.
When Procmail starts, it reads the email message and separates the body from the header
information. Next, Procmail looks for
directory for default, system-wide, Procmail environmental variables and recipes. Procmail then
searches for a
.procmailrc
files for Procmail that are referred to within the
rc
By default, no system-wide
any user's home directory. Therefore, to use Procmail, each user must construct a
file with specific environment variables and rules.
.procmailrc
4.1. Procmail Configuration
The Procmail configuration file contains important environmental variables. These variables
specify things such as which messages to sort and what to do with the messages that do not
match any recipes.
These environmental variables usually appear at the beginning of
format:
<env-variable>="<value>"
In this example,
<env-variable>
There are many environment variables not used by most Procmail users and many of the more
important environment variables are already defined by a default value. Most of the time, the
following variables are used:
•
— Sets the default mailbox where messages that do not match any recipes are
DEFAULT
placed.
The default
DEFAULT
•
— Specifies additional
INCLUDERC
checked against. This breaks up the Procmail recipe lists into individual files that fulfill
different roles, such as blocking spam and managing email lists, that can then be turned off or
on by using comment characters in the user's
For example, lines in a user's
file (also called an rc file) in the user's home directory
.procmailrc
rc
/etc/procmailrc
file in the user's home directory. Many users also create additional
files exist in the
rc
is the name of the variable and
value is the same as
$ORGMAIL
files containing more recipes for messages to be
rc
.procmailrc
file. If a message matches a recipe, then the
and
files in the
rc
file in their home directory.
.procmailrc
directory and no
/etc/
.procmailrc
<value>
.
file.
.procmailrc
file may look like this:
Procmail Configuration
/etc/procmailrcs
files exist in
.procmailrc
in the following
defines the variable.
201
Advertisement
Table of Contents
