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Annotation of 43BSD/contrib/mh/conf/doc/maildelivery.5, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1: .tr ~
        !             2: .de NP
        !             3: .IP "\fI\\$1\fP" 10
        !             4: ..
        !             5: .de II
        !             6: .nr P- \\n()P   \" save the preceeding IP space
        !             7: .nr )P 0       \" now set it to 0
        !             8: .NP "\\$1\fP"
        !             9: .nr )P \\n(P-   \" restore the preceeding IP space
        !            10: ..
        !            11: .ds M \fI.maildelivery\fP
        !            12: .TH MAILDELIVERY 5 "1 October, 1985"
        !            13: .SH NAME
        !            14: maildelivery
        !            15: .SH SYNOPSIS
        !            16: User delivery specification file
        !            17: .SH DESCRIPTION
        !            18: The delivery of mail by the local channel can run through various
        !            19: courses, including using a user tailorable file.
        !            20: The delivery follows the following strategy, giving up at any point
        !            21: it considers the message delivered.
        !            22: .RS
        !            23: .IP "1)" 4
        !            24: If the address indicates a pipe or file default
        !            25: then that is carried out.
        !            26: .IP "2)" 4
        !            27: The file \*M
        !            28: (or something similar) in the home directory is read if it exists
        !            29: and the actions in it are followed.
        !            30: .IP "3)" 4
        !            31: A system-wide file is consulted next, such as
        !            32: .I /usr/lib/maildelivery
        !            33: and the actions are similar to 2.
        !            34: .IP "4)" 4
        !            35: If the message still hasn't been delivered, then it is put into
        !            36: the user's normal mailbox 
        !            37: .RI ( .mail
        !            38: or
        !            39: .IR mailbox )
        !            40: depending on the system.
        !            41: .RE
        !            42: .PP
        !            43: The format of the \*M file is
        !            44: .RS
        !            45: .B field
        !            46: .I <FS>
        !            47: .B pattern
        !            48: .I <FS>
        !            49: .B action
        !            50: .I <FS>
        !            51: .B result
        !            52: .I <FS>
        !            53: .B string
        !            54: .RE
        !            55: where
        !            56: .br
        !            57: .NP field
        !            58: is name of a field that is to be searched for a pattern.
        !            59: This is any header field that you might find in a message.
        !            60: The most commonly used headers are usually
        !            61: From, to, cc, subject and sender.
        !            62: As well as the standard headers, there are some psuedo-headers
        !            63: that are can also be used. These are :-
        !            64: .RS
        !            65: .II source
        !            66: The out of band sender information. This is the address MMDF would
        !            67: use for reporting delivery problems with the message.
        !            68: .II addr
        !            69: the address that was used to mail to you, normally 'yourname' or 
        !            70: 'yourname=string' (see below).
        !            71: .II default
        !            72: if the message hasn't been delivered yet, this field is matched.
        !            73: .II *
        !            74: this case is always true regardless of any other action.
        !            75: .RE
        !            76: .NP pattern
        !            77: is some sequence of characters that may be matched in the
        !            78: above
        !            79: .IR field .
        !            80: Case is not significant.
        !            81: .IP \fIaction\fP 10
        !            82: is one of the mail delivery actions supported by the
        !            83: local channel.  Currently the supported actions are
        !            84: .B file
        !            85: or
        !            86: .BR > ,
        !            87: which
        !            88: appends the message to the given file, with delimiters;
        !            89: .B pipe
        !            90: or
        !            91: .BR | ,
        !            92: which starts up a process with the message
        !            93: as the standard input;
        !            94: and
        !            95: .B destroy
        !            96: which throws the message away.
        !            97: There is also
        !            98: .B qpipe
        !            99: or
        !           100: .BR ^ ,
        !           101: which fakes a pipe command and is quicker than the standard pipe,
        !           102: but does not do header reformatting.
        !           103: .br
        !           104: For piped commands, the exit status of the command is significant.
        !           105: An exit status of 0 implies that the command succeeded and everything
        !           106: went well. An exit status of octal 0300-0377 indicates that a permanent
        !           107: failure occured and the message should be rejected, these error codes
        !           108: are given in mmdf.h. Any other exit
        !           109: status indicates a temporary failure and the delivery attempt will
        !           110: be aborted and restarted at a later time.
        !           111: .NP result
        !           112: is one of the letters A, R or ? which stand for
        !           113: Accept, Reject and "Accept if not delivered yet".
        !           114: They have the following effects:
        !           115: .RS
        !           116: .II A
        !           117: If the result of this line's action is OK, then the message can be
        !           118: considered delivered.
        !           119: .II R
        !           120: The message is not to be considered delivered by this action.
        !           121: .II ?
        !           122: This is equivalent to
        !           123: .I A
        !           124: except that the action is not carried
        !           125: out if the message has already been accepted.
        !           126: .RE
        !           127: .PP
        !           128: The file is always read completely so that several matches
        !           129: can be made, and several actions taken.
        !           130: As a security check, the \*M file must be owned by either
        !           131: the user or root, and must not have group or general
        !           132: write permission. In addition the system delivery file has the above
        !           133: restrictions but must also be owned by root.
        !           134: If the field specified does not need a pattern a dash (\-)
        !           135: or similar symbol is usually inserted to show that the field is present
        !           136: but not used.
        !           137: The field separator character can be either a tab, space or comma (,).
        !           138: These characters can be included in a string by quoting them with
        !           139: double quotes (") (double quotes can be included with a backslash '\e').
        !           140: .PP
        !           141: MMDF treats local addresses which contain an equals sign ('=')
        !           142: in a special manner.  Everything in a local address
        !           143: from an equals sign to the '@' is ignored and passed on to the
        !           144: local channel.  The local channel will make the entire string available
        !           145: for matching against the
        !           146: .I addr
        !           147: string of the \*M file.
        !           148: For example, if you were to
        !           149: subscribe to a digest as "[email protected]",
        !           150: .B submit
        !           151: and the local channel will verify
        !           152: that it is legal to deliver
        !           153: to "foo", but then the entire string "foo=digest" will be available
        !           154: for string matching against the \*M file for the
        !           155: .B addr
        !           156: field.
        !           157: .SH ENVIRONMENT
        !           158: The environment in which piped programs are run
        !           159: contains a few standard features, specifically:
        !           160: .ne 5
        !           161: .sp
        !           162: .nf
        !           163: HOME is set to the user's home directory.
        !           164: USER is set to the user's login name.
        !           165: SHELL is set to the user's login shell (defaults to /bin/sh).
        !           166: .sp
        !           167: .fi
        !           168: The default umask is set up to 077, this gives a very protective
        !           169: creation mask.
        !           170: Initgroups is called if 4.2 version of UNIX is running.
        !           171: If further requirements are needed, then a shell script
        !           172: can be run first to set up more complex environments.
        !           173: .PP
        !           174: There are certain built-in variables that you can give to
        !           175: a piped program.  These are
        !           176: .IR $(sender) ,
        !           177: .IR $(address) ,
        !           178: .IR $(size) ,
        !           179: .I $(reply-to)
        !           180: and
        !           181: .IR $(info) .
        !           182: .I $(sender)
        !           183: is set to the return address for the message.
        !           184: .I $(address)
        !           185: is set to the address that was used to mail to you, normally `yourname'
        !           186: or `yourname=string'.
        !           187: .I $(size)
        !           188: is set to the size in bytes of this message.
        !           189: .I $(reply-to)
        !           190: is set to the Reply-To: field (or the From: field if the former is
        !           191: missing) and so can be used for automatic replies.
        !           192: .I $(info)
        !           193: is the info field from the internal mail header and is probably only
        !           194: of interest to the system maintainers.
        !           195: .SH EXAMPLE
        !           196: .PP
        !           197: Here is a rough idea of what a \*M file looks like:
        !           198: .ne 12
        !           199: .nf
        !           200: .sp
        !           201: # lines \fIstarting\fP with a '#' are ignored.
        !           202: # as are blank lines
        !           203: # file mail with mmdf2 in the "To:" line into file mmdf2.log
        !           204: To~~~~mmdf2~~~~file~~~~A~~~~mmdf2.log
        !           205: # Messages from mmdf pipe to the program err-message-archive
        !           206: From~~~~mmdf~~~~pipe~~~~A~~~~err-message-archive
        !           207: # Anything with the "Sender:" address "uk-mmdf-workers"
        !           208: # file in mmdf2.log if not filed already
        !           209: Sender~~~~uk-mmdf-workers~~~~file~~~~?~~~~mmdf2.log
        !           210: # "To:" unix \- put in file unix-news
        !           211: To~~~~Unix~~~~>~~~~A~~~~unix-news
        !           212: # if the address is jpo=mmdf \- pipe into mmdf-redist
        !           213: Addr~~~~jpo=mmdf~~~~|~~~~A~~~~mmdf-redist
        !           214: # if the address is jpo=ack \- send an acknowledgement copy back
        !           215: Addr~~~~jpo=ack~~~~|~~~~R~~~~resend~~\-r~~$(reply-to)
        !           216: # anything from steve \- destroy!
        !           217: from~~~~steve~~~~destroy~~~~A~~~~\-
        !           218: # anything not matched yet \- put into mailbox
        !           219: default~~~~\-~~~~>~~~~?~~~~mailbox
        !           220: # always run rcvalert
        !           221: *~~~~\-~~~~|~~~~R~~~~rcvalert
        !           222: .sp
        !           223: .fi
        !           224: .SH FILES
        !           225: $HOME/.maildelivery
        !           226: \- the files normal location.
        !           227: .br
        !           228: /usr/lib/maildelivery \-
        !           229: the system file. This should be protected against attack.  It
        !           230: may contain contents such as:
        !           231: .ne 4
        !           232: .sp
        !           233: .nf
        !           234: default~~~~\-~~~~pipe~~~~A~~~~stdreceive
        !           235: *~~~~\-~~~~|~~~~R~~~~ttynotify
        !           236: .fi
        !           237: .sp
        !           238: This alows interfacing to non-standard mail systems,
        !           239: ones that don't believe in delimiter-separated mailboxes
        !           240: .SH "SEE ALSO"
        !           241: rcvtrip(1)
        !           242: .SH BUGS
        !           243: And why not?

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