Jörgen Cederlöf: maildird

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Index Photos Hacks/ Wotsap Overslack maildird verifygpgmail jcbt jcfilesize typesetpy zeno.qcl brainfuck.xslt Noid Patches Cryptography	maildird Maildird is a small Python program I use to sort my email. Download maildird version 0.9 (sig) Maildird attempts to solve the problem of sorting mail that has already been delivered to a Maildir. When Procmail wants to be inserted in the middle of the delivery chain, Maildird calmly waits until the mail is delivered, notices that a new mail has arrived in the Maildir it monitors, writes something useful in the log that (hopefully) is connected to stdout, runs some tests and moves the mail safely to the correct Maildir. On the other hand it is nothing more than a few lines of Python, so it performs no magic. Safety is first priority. Maildird is designed to avoid getting in situations where mail might be lost. But of course it comes WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, see below. This is currently something of a hack. It should work safely and reliably, but there is no separate configuration file, command line arguments or even external documentation. Configure by changing the source. I use Maildird like this: .forward directs mail to /home/jc/mail/unsorted/ Maildird is running on another computer which mounts that directory through NFS. A cron job runs once every hour and runs exec /home/jc/config/maildird >>/home/jc/logs/maildird.log 2>&1 & if it notices that Maildird is not running. If a mail is received, Maildird notices within a second, logs and moves the mail to the right place. There is not much that can go wrong. If the mail server ignores .forward every mail is stored in the inbox. If Maildird is not running every mail is left in the unsorted folder until Maildird is restarted. If a mail is sorted incorrectly, I teach Bogofilter or update the rules and then simply move the mail back to the unsorted mailbox to let Maildird process it again. Mostly relevant for Lysator users: The script I use to start maildird looks like this: #!/bin/bash uname -n \|grep -v koeberg && echo "Run on koeberg." %% exit 1 ps -ef \|egrep '^ jc ./home/jc/config/maildir[d]' >/dev/null && exit 0 export PATH=/home/jc/bin/koeberg/bin/:$PATH # Contains Bogofilter exec /home/jc/config/maildird >>/home/jc/logs/maildird.log 2>&1 & and my crontab on koeberg contains 05 * * * * /home/jc/config/startmaildird . /var/mail/jc/.forward contains the single line /var/mail/jc/Maildir/.unsorted/ . Note: Some programs like MUAs and mail syncing programs might add headers, which will make the mails SHA-1 not match the ones in the log. For me, running the mail through sed '1,/^$/{/^\(X-OfflineIMAP\\|Content-Length:\)/d}' before calculating the SHA-1 makes the hash identical to the logged one. YMMV. The latest version of maildird is probably available somewhere around http://www.lysator.liu.se/~jc/hacks/maildird . Changelog: Version 0.9: First public release This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Jörgen Cederlöf <jc@lysator.liu.se>

Maildird attempts to solve the problem of sorting mail that has already been delivered to a Maildir. When Procmail wants to be inserted in the middle of the delivery chain, Maildird calmly waits until the mail is delivered, notices that a new mail has arrived in the Maildir it monitors, writes something useful in the log that (hopefully) is connected to stdout, runs some tests and moves the mail safely to the correct Maildir. On the other hand it is nothing more than a few lines of Python, so it performs no magic.

Safety is first priority. Maildird is designed to avoid getting in situations where mail might be lost. But of course it comes WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, see below.

This is currently something of a hack. It should work safely and reliably, but there is no separate configuration file, command line arguments or even external documentation. Configure by changing the source.

I use Maildird like this: .forward directs mail to /home/jc/mail/unsorted/ Maildird is running on another computer which mounts that directory through NFS. A cron job runs once every hour and runs

  exec /home/jc/config/maildird >>/home/jc/logs/maildird.log 2>&1 &

if it notices that Maildird is not running. If a mail is received, Maildird notices within a second, logs and moves the mail to the right place. There is not much that can go wrong. If the mail server ignores .forward every mail is stored in the inbox. If Maildird is not running every mail is left in the unsorted folder until Maildird is restarted.

If a mail is sorted incorrectly, I teach Bogofilter or update the rules and then simply move the mail back to the unsorted mailbox to let Maildird process it again.

Mostly relevant for Lysator users: The script I use to start maildird looks like this:

  #!/bin/bash
  uname -n |grep -v koeberg && echo "Run on koeberg." %% exit 1
  ps -ef |egrep '^ *jc .*/home/jc/config/maildir[d]' >/dev/null && exit 0
  export PATH=/home/jc/bin/koeberg/bin/:$PATH # Contains Bogofilter
  exec /home/jc/config/maildird >>/home/jc/logs/maildird.log 2>&1 &

and my crontab on koeberg contains

  05 * * * * /home/jc/config/startmaildird

. /var/mail/jc/.forward contains the single line

  /var/mail/jc/Maildir/.unsorted/

Note: Some programs like MUAs and mail syncing programs might add headers, which will make the mails SHA-1 not match the ones in the log. For me, running the mail through

  sed '1,/^$/{/^\(X-OfflineIMAP\|Content-Length:\)/d}'

before calculating the SHA-1 makes the hash identical to the logged one. YMMV.

The latest version of maildird is probably available somewhere around http://www.lysator.liu.se/~jc/hacks/maildird .

Changelog:

 Version 0.9: First public release

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

maildird

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