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PROCMAIL(1)							   PROCMAIL(1)

NAME
       procmail - autonomous mail processor

SYNOPSIS
       procmail [-ptoY] [-f fromwhom]
	    [parameter=value | rcfile] ...
       procmail [-toY] [-f fromwhom] [-a argument] ...
	    -d recipient ...
       procmail [-ptY] -m [parameter=value] ...	 rcfile
	    [argument] ...
       procmail [-toY] [-a  argument] -z
       procmail -v

DESCRIPTION
       For a quick start, see NOTES at the end.

       Procmail	 should be invoked automatically over the .forward file mecha‐
       nism as soon as mail arrives.  Alternatively, when installed by a  sys‐
       tem administrator (and in the standard Red Hat Linux configuration), it
       can be invoked from within the mailer immediately.   When  invoked,  it
       first sets some environment variables to default values, reads the mail
       message from stdin until an EOF, separates the body  from  the  header,
       and  then,  if no command line arguments are present, it starts to look
       for a  file  named  $HOME/.procmailrc.	According  to  the  processing
       recipes	in this file, the mail message that just arrived gets distrib‐
       uted into the right folder (and more).  If no rcfile is found, or  pro‐
       cessing	of  the rcfile falls off the end, procmail will store the mail
       in the default system mailbox.

       If no rcfiles and no -p have been specified on the command line,	 proc‐
       mail  will, prior to reading $HOME/.procmailrc, interpret commands from
       /etc/procmailrc	(if  present).	 Care  must  be	 taken	when  creating
       /etc/procmailrc,	 because, if circumstances permit, it will be executed
       with  root  privileges  (contrary  to  the  $HOME/.procmailrc  file  of
       course).

       If  running suid root or with root privileges, procmail will be able to
       perform as a functionally enhanced, backwards compatible mail  delivery
       agent.

       Procmail	 can also be used as a general purpose mail filter, i.e., pro‐
       visions have been made to enable procmail to be invoked	in  a  special
       sendmail rule.

       The rcfile format is described in detail in the procmailrc(5) man page.

       The  weighted  scoring  technique  is  described in detail in the proc‐
       mailsc(5) man page.

       Examples for rcfile recipes can be looked up in the  procmailex(5)  man
       page.

   Signals
       TERMINATE   Terminate prematurely and requeue the mail.

       HANGUP	   Terminate prematurely and bounce the mail.

       INTERRUPT   Terminate prematurely and bounce the mail.

       QUIT	   Terminate prematurely and silently lose the mail.

       ALARM	   Force a timeout (see TIMEOUT).

       USR1	   Equivalent to a VERBOSE=off.

       USR2	   Equivalent to a VERBOSE=on.

OPTIONS
       -v   Procmail  will  print its version number, display its compile time
	    configuration and exit.

       -p   Preserve any old environment.  Normally procmail clears the	 envi‐
	    ronment upon startup, except for the value of TZ.  However, in any
	    case: any default values will override any preexisting environment
	    variables, i.e., procmail will not pay any attention to any prede‐
	    fined environment variables, it will happily overwrite  them  with
	    its	 own  defaults.	  For  the  list of environment variables that
	    procmail will preset see the procmailrc(5) man page.  If  both  -p
	    and	 -m  are  specified,  the list of preset environment variables
	    shrinks to just: LOGNAME, HOME, SHELL, ORGMAIL and MAILDIR.

       -t   Make procmail fail softly, i.e., if procmail  cannot  deliver  the
	    mail  to  any  of  the  destinations  you  gave, the mail will not
	    bounce, but will  return  to  the  mailqueue.   Another  delivery-
	    attempt will be made at some time in the future.

       -f fromwhom
	    Causes  procmail  to  regenerate  the  leading  `From  ' line with
	    fromwhom as the sender (instead of -f one could use the  alternate
	    and	 obsolete  -r).	  If fromwhom consists merely of a single `-',
	    then procmail will only update the timestamp on the `From  '  line
	    (if present, if not, it will generate a new one).

       -o   Instead of allowing anyone to generate `From ' lines, simply over‐
	    ride the fakes.

       -Y   Assume traditional Berkeley mailbox format,	 ignore	 any  Content-
	    Length: fields.

       -a argument
	    This  will	set  $1	 to  be equal to argument.  Each succeeding -a
	    argument will set the next number variable ($2, $3, etc).  It  can
	    be used to pass meta information along to procmail.	 This is typi‐
	    cally done by passing along the $@x information from the  sendmail
	    mailer rule.

       -d recipient ...
	    This  turns	 on  explicit  delivery	 mode, delivery will be to the
	    local user recipient.  This, of course, only is possible if	 proc‐
	    mail  has  root privileges (or if procmail is already running with
	    the recipient's euid and  egid).   Procmail	 will  setuid  to  the
	    intended recipients and delivers the mail as if it were invoked by
	    the recipient with no arguments (i.e.,  if	no  rcfile  is	found,
	    delivery is like ordinary mail).  This option is incompatible with
	    -p.

       -m   Turns procmail into a general purpose mail filter.	In  this  mode
	    one	 rcfile	 must  be  specified  on  the command line.  After the
	    rcfile, procmail will accept an unlimited number of arguments.  If
	    the	 rcfile	 is  an	 absolute path starting with /etc/procmailrcs/
	    without backward references (i.e. the parent directory  cannot  be
	    mentioned)	procmail  will,	 only  if  no  security violations are
	    found, take on the identity of the owner of the  rcfile  (or  sym‐
	    bolic  link).   For	 some advanced usage of this option you should
	    look in the EXAMPLES section below.

       -z   This turns on LMTP mode, wherein procmail acts as an RFC2033  LMTP
	    server.   Delivery	takes  place in the same  manner and under the
	    same restrictions as the delivery mode  enabled   with  -d.	  This
	    option is incompatible with -p and -f.


ARGUMENTS
       Any  arguments containing an '=' are considered to be environment vari‐
       able assignments, they will all be evaluated after the  default	values
       have been assigned and before the first rcfile is opened.

       Any  other  arguments are presumed to be rcfile paths (either absolute,
       or if they start with `./' relative to the current directory; any other
       relative	 path  is  relative  to	 $HOME,	 unless the -m option has been
       given, in which case all relative paths are  relative  to  the  current
       directory); procmail will start with the first one it finds on the com‐
       mand line.  The following ones will only be  parsed  if	the  preceding
       ones  have  a not matching HOST-directive entry, or in case they should
       not exist.

       If no rcfiles are specified, it looks for  $HOME/.procmailrc.   If  not
       even  that  can	be  found,  processing	will continue according to the
       default settings of the environment variables and the ones specified on
       the command line.

EXAMPLES
       Examples	 for  rcfile recipes can be looked up in the procmailex(5) man
       page.  A small sample rcfile can be found in the NOTES section below.

       Skip the rest of this EXAMPLES section unless you are a system adminis‐
       trator who is vaguely familiar with sendmail.cf syntax.

       The  -m	option is typically used when procmail is called from within a
       rule in the sendmail.cf file.  In order to be able to  do  this	it  is
       convenient  to  create  an  extra `procmail' mailer in your sendmail.cf
       file (in addition to the perhaps already present	 `local'  mailer  that
       starts  up  procmail).	To create such a `procmail' mailer I'd suggest
       something like:

	      Mprocmail, P=/usr/bin/procmail, F=mSDFMhun, S=11, R=21,
		      A=procmail -m $h $g $u

       This enables you to use rules like the following (most likely in	 rule‐
       set  0)	to  filter  mail  through the procmail mailer (please note the
       leading tab to continue the rule, and the  tab  to  separate  the  com‐
       ments):

	      R$*<@some.where>$*
		      $#procmail $@/etc/procmailrcs/some.rc $:$1@some.where.procmail$2
	      R$*<@$*.procmail>$*
		      $1<@$2>$3	      Already filtered, map back

       And /etc/procmailrcs/some.rc could be as simple as:

	      SENDER = "<$1>"		      # fix for empty sender addresses
	      SHIFT = 1			      # remove it from $@

	      :0			      # sink all junk mail
	      * ^Subject:.*junk
	      /dev/null

	      :0 w			      # pass along all other mail
	      ! -oi -f "$SENDER" "$@"

       Do watch out when sending mail from within the /etc/procmailrcs/some.rc
       file, if you send mail to addresses which match the first  rule	again,
       you could be creating an endless mail loop.

FILES
       /etc/passwd	      to  set  the recipient's LOGNAME, HOME and SHELL
			      variable defaults

       /var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME
			      system mailbox; both the system mailbox and  the
			      immediate	 directory  it	is  in will be created
			      every time procmail starts and either one is not
			      present

       /etc/procmailrc	      initial global rcfile

       /etc/procmailrcs/      special privileges path for rcfiles

       $HOME/.procmailrc      default rcfile

       /var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME.lock
			      lockfile	for  the system mailbox (not automati‐
			      cally used by procmail, unless  $DEFAULT	equals
			      /var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME	and procmail is deliv‐
			      ering to $DEFAULT)

       /usr/sbin/sendmail     default mail forwarder

       _????`hostname`	      temporary `unique' zero-length files created  by
			      procmail

SEE ALSO
       procmailrc(5), procmailsc(5), procmailex(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), lockfile(1), formail(1), cron(1)

DIAGNOSTICS
       Autoforwarding mailbox found
			      The system mailbox had its suid or sgid bit set,
			      procmail terminates with EX_NOUSER assuming that
			      this mailbox must not be delivered to.

       Bad substitution of "x"
			      Not a valid environment variable name specified.

       Closing brace unexpected
			      There  was no corresponding opening brace (nest‐
			      ing block).

       Conflicting options    Not all option combinations are useful

       Conflicting x suppressed
			      Flag x is not compatible with some other flag on
			      this recipe.

       Couldn't create "x"    The   system   mailbox  was  missing  and	 could
			      not/will not be created.

       Couldn't create maildir part "x"
			      The maildir folder "x" is missing	 one  or  more
			      required	subdirectories	and procmail could not
			      create them.

       Couldn't create or rename temp file "x"
			      An error occurred in the mechanics of   deliver‐
			      ing to the directory folder "x".

       Couldn't determine implicit lockfile from "x"
			      There  were no `>>' redirectors to be found, us‐
			      ing simply `$LOCKEXT' as locallockfile.

       Couldn't read "x"      Procmail was unable to open an rcfile or it  was
			      not a regular file, or procmail couldn't open an
			      MH directory to find the highest numbered file.

       Couldn't unlock "x"    Lockfile was already gone, or  write  permission
			      to  the directory where the lockfile is has been
			      denied.

       Deadlock attempted on "x"
			      The locallockfile specified on  this  recipe  is
			      equal to a still active $LOCKFILE.

       Denying special privileges for "x"
			      Procmail	will  not  take	 on  the identity that
			      comes with the rcfile because a security	viola‐
			      tion was found (e.g.  -p or variable assignments
			      on the command line) or  procmail	 had  insuffi‐
			      cient privileges to do so.

       Descriptor "x" was not open
			      As procmail was started, stdin, stdout or stderr
			      was not connected (possibly an attempt  to  sub‐
			      vert security)

       Enforcing stricter permissions on "x"
			      The system mailbox of the recipient was found to
			      be unsecured, procmail secured it.

       Error while writing to "x"
			      Nonexistent subdirectory, no  write  permission,
			      pipe died or disk full.

       Exceeded LINEBUF	      Buffer overflow detected, LINEBUF was too small,
			      PROCMAIL_OVERFLOW has been set.

       MAILDIR is not an absolute path

       MAILDIR path too long

       ORGMAIL is not an absolute path

       ORGMAIL path too long

       default rcfile is not an absolute path

       default rcfile path too long
			      The specified item's full path,  when  expanded,
			      was  longer  than LINEBUF or didn't start with a
			      file separator.

       Excessive output quenched from "x"
			      The program or filter "x" tried to  produce  too
			      much  output  for	 the current LINEBUF, the rest
			      was discarded  and  PROCMAIL_OVERFLOW  has  been
			      set.

       Extraneous x ignored   The  action  line	 or other flags on this recipe
			      makes flag x meaningless.

       Failed forking "x"     Process table is full (and NORESRETRY  has  been
			      exhausted).

       Failed to execute "x"  Program not in path, or not executable.

       Forced unlock denied on "x"
			      No write permission in the directory where lock‐
			      file "x" resides, or more than one procmail try‐
			      ing to force a lock at exactly the same time.

       Forcing lock on "x"    Lockfile "x" is going to be removed by force be‐
			      cause of a timeout (see also: LOCKTIMEOUT).

       Incomplete recipe      The start of a recipe was found, but it stranded
			      in an EOF.

       Insufficient privileges
			      Procmail	either	needs root privileges, or must
			      have the right (e)uid and (e)gid to run  in  de‐
			      livery mode.  The mail will bounce.

       Invalid regexp "x"     The regular expression "x" contains errors (most
			      likely some missing or extraneous parens).

       Kernel-lock failed     While trying to use the kernel-supported locking
			      calls,  one of them failed (usually indicates an
			      OS error), procmail ignores this error and  pro‐
			      ceeds.

       Kernel-unlock failed   See above.

       Lock failure on "x"    Can  only	 occur	if you specify some real weird
			      (and illegal) lockfilenames or if	 the  lockfile
			      could  not  be  created  because of insufficient
			      permissions or nonexistent subdirectories.

       Lost "x"		      Procmail tried to clone  itself  but  could  not
			      find  back  rcfile "x" (it either got removed or
			      it was a relative path and you changed directory
			      since procmail opened it last time).

       Missing action	      The current recipe was found to be incomplete.

       Missing closing brace  A nesting block was started, but never finished.

       Missing name	      The -f option needs an extra argument.

       Missing argument	      You specified the -a option but forgot the argu‐
			      ment.

       Missing rcfile	      You specified the -m  option,  procmail  expects
			      the name of an rcfile as argument.

       Missing recipient      You  specified  the -d option or called procmail
			      under a different name, it expects one  or  more
			      recipients as arguments.

       No space left to finish writing "x"
			      The  filesystem  containing  "x"	does  not have
			      enough free space to permit delivery of the mes‐
			      sage to the file.

       Out of memory	      The  system is out of swap space (and NORESRETRY
			      has been exhausted).

       Processing continued   The unrecognised options on the command line are
			      ignored, proceeding as usual.

       Program failure (nnn) of "x"
			      Program  that  was  started by procmail returned
			      nnn instead of EXIT_SUCCESS (=0); if nnn is neg‐
			      ative,  then this is the signal the program died
			      on.

       Quota exceeded while writing "x"
			      The filesize quota  for  the  recipient  on  the
			      filesystem containing "x" does not permit deliv‐
			      ering the message to the file.

       Renaming bogus "x" into "x"
			      The system mailbox of the recipient was found to
			      be bogus, procmail performed evasive actions.

       Rescue of unfiltered data succeeded/failed
			      A filter returned unsuccessfully, procmail tried
			      to get back the original text.

       Skipped: "x"	      Couldn't do anything  with  "x"  in  the	rcfile
			      (syntax error), ignoring it.

       Suspicious rcfile "x"  The owner of the rcfile was not the recipient or
			      root, the file was world writable, or the direc‐
			      tory  that  contained  it was world writable, or
			      this was the default rcfile  ($HOME/.procmailrc)
			      and either it was group writable or the directo‐
			      ry that contained it was group writable (the rc‐
			      file was not used).

       Terminating prematurely whilst waiting for ...
			      Procmail	received a signal while it was waiting
			      for ...

       Timeout, terminating "x"
			      Timeout has occurred on program or filter "x".

       Timeout, was waiting for "x"
			      Timeout has occurred on program, filter or  file
			      "x".   If	 it  was  a program or filter, then it
			      didn't seem to be running anymore.

       Truncated file to former size
			      The file could not be delivered to successfully,
			      so the file was truncated to its former size.

       Truncating "x" and retrying lock
			      "x"  does not seem to be a valid filename or the
			      file is not empty.

       Unable to treat as directory "x"
			      Either the suffix on "x" would indicate that  it
			      should  be  an  MH  or maildir folder, or it was
			      listed as an second folder into which  to	 link,
			      but it already exists and is not a directory.

       Unexpected EOL	      Missing closing quote, or trying to escape EOF.

       Unknown user "x"	      The  specified  recipient does not have a corre‐
			      sponding uid.

EXTENDED DIAGNOSTICS
       Extended diagnostics can be turned on and off through setting the  VER‐
       BOSE variable.

       [pid] time & date      Procmail's pid and a timestamp.  Generated when‐
			      ever procmail logs a diagnostic and at  least  a
			      second has elapsed since the last timestamp.

       Acquiring kernel-lock  Procmail	now  tries to kernel-lock the most re‐
			      cently opened file (descriptor).

       Assigning "x"	      Environment variable assignment.

       Assuming identity of the recipient, VERBOSE=off
			      Dropping all  privileges	(if  any),  implicitly
			      turns off extended diagnostics.

       Bypassed locking "x"   The  mail	 spool directory was not accessible to
			      procmail, it relied solely on kernel locks.

       Executing "x"	      Starting program "x".  If it is started by proc‐
			      mail  directly  (without an intermediate shell),
			      procmail will show where it separated the	 argu‐
			      ments by inserting commas.

       HOST mismatched "x"    This  host  was called "x", HOST contained some‐
			      thing else.

       Locking "x"	      Creating lockfile "x".

       Linking to "x"	      Creating a hardlink between directory folders.

       Match on "x"	      Condition matched.

       Matched "x"	      Assigned "x" to MATCH.

       No match on "x"	      Condition didn't match, recipe skipped.

       Non-zero exitcode (nnn) by "x"
			      Program that was started by procmail as a condi‐
			      tion  or	as the action of a recipe with the `W'
			      flag returned nnn instead of EXIT_SUCCESS	 (=0);
			      the usage indicates that this is not an entirely
			      unexpected condition.

       Notified comsat: "$LOGNAME@offset:file"
			      Sent comsat/biff a notice that mail arrived  for
			      user $LOGNAME at `offset' in `file'.

       Opening "x"	      Opening file "x" for appending.

       Rcfile: "x"	      Rcfile changed to "x".

       Reiterating kernel-lock
			      While attempting several locking methods, one of
			      these failed.   Procmail	will  reiterate	 until
			      they all succeed in rapid succession.

       Score: added newtotal "x"
			      This  condition scored `added' points, which re‐
			      sulted in a `newtotal' score.

       Unlocking "x"	      Removing lockfile "x" again.

WARNINGS
       You should create a shell script that uses lockfile(1) before  invoking
       your  mail shell on any mailbox file other than the system mailbox (un‐
       less of course, your mail shell uses the same lockfiles (local or glob‐
       al) you specified in your rcfile).

       In  the unlikely event that you absolutely need to kill procmail before
       it has finished, first try and use the regular kill command (i.e.,  not
       kill  -9,  see  the subsection Signals for suggestions), otherwise some
       lockfiles might not get removed.

       Beware when using the -t option, if procmail repeatedly	is  unable  to
       deliver	the  mail  (e.g.,  due	to  an	incorrect  rcfile), the system
       mailqueue could fill up.	 This could aggravate both the local  postmas‐
       ter and other users.

       The  /etc/procmailrc file might be executed with root privileges, so be
       very careful of what you put in it.  SHELL will be equal to that of the
       current recipient, so if procmail has to invoke the shell, you'd better
       set it to some safe value first.	 See also: DROPPRIVS.

       Keep in mind that if chown(1) is permitted on files  in	/etc/procmail‐
       rcs/,  that  they can be chowned to root (or anyone else) by their cur‐
       rent owners.  For maximum security, make sure this  directory  is  exe‐
       cutable to root only.

       Procmail	 is  not  the  proper  tool for sharing one mailbox among many
       users, such as when you have one POP account for all mail to  your  do‐
       main.  It  can  be done if you manage to configure your MTA to add some
       headers with the envelope recipient data in order to tell Procmail  who
       a  message is for, but this is usually not the right thing to do.  Per‐
       haps you want to investigate if your MTA offers `virtual user  tables',
       or check out the `multidrop' facility of Fetchmail.

BUGS
       After removing a lockfile by force, procmail waits $SUSPEND seconds be‐
       fore creating a new lockfile so that another process  that  decides  to
       remove  the  stale  lockfile  will not remove the newly created lock by
       mistake.

       Procmail uses the regular TERMINATE signal  to  terminate  any  runaway
       filter, but it does not check if the filter responds to that signal and
       it only sends it to the filter itself, not to any of the filter's chil‐
       dren.

       A continued Content-Length: field is not handled correctly.

       The  embedded  newlines	in  a  continued header should be skipped when
       matching instead of being treated as a single space as they are now.

MISCELLANEOUS
       If there is an existing Content-Length: field in the header of the mail
       and the -Y option is not specified, procmail will trim the field to re‐
       port the correct size.  Procmail does not change the fieldwidth.

       If there is no Content-Length: field or the -Y option has  been	speci‐
       fied and procmail appends to regular mailfolders, any lines in the body
       of the message that look like postmarks are prepended with `>' (disarms
       bogus  mailheaders).  The regular expression that is used to search for
       these postmarks is:
	      `\nFrom '

       If the destination name used  in	 explicit  delivery  mode  is  not  in
       /etc/passwd, procmail will proceed as if explicit delivery mode was not
       in effect.  If not in explicit delivery mode and should the  uid	 proc‐
       mail  is	 running  under, have no corresponding /etc/passwd entry, then
       HOME will default to /, LOGNAME will default to #uid,  SHELL  will  de‐
       fault to /bin/sh, and ORGMAIL will default to /tmp/dead.letter.

       When  in explicit delivery mode, procmail will generate a leading `From
       ' line if none is present.  If one is  already  present	procmail  will
       leave  it intact.  If procmail is not invoked with one of the following
       user or group ids: root,	 daemon,  uucp,	 mail,	x400,  network,	 list,
       slist, lists or news, but still has to generate or accept a new `From '
       line, it will generate an additional `>From ' line to help  distinguish
       fake mails.

       For  security reasons procmail will only use an absolute or $HOME-rela‐
       tive rcfile if it  is  owned  by	 the  recipient	 or  root,  not	 world
       writable,  and  the directory it is contained in is not world writable.
       The $HOME/.procmailrc file has the additional constraint of  not	 being
       group-writable or in a group-writable directory.

       If  /var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME  is a bogus mailbox (i.e., does not belong
       to the recipient, is unwritable, is a symbolic link or is a hard link),
       procmail	 will  upon startup try to rename it into a file starting with
       `BOGUS.$LOGNAME.' and ending in an inode-sequence-code.	If this	 turns
       out  to	be  impossible,	 ORGMAIL will have no initial value, and hence
       will inhibit delivery without a proper rcfile.

       If /var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME already is a valid mailbox, but has got too
       loose  permissions on it, procmail will correct this.  To prevent proc‐
       mail from doing this make sure the u+x bit is set.

       When delivering to directories, MH folders,  or	maildir	 folders,  you
       don't  need  to	use  lockfiles to prevent several concurrently running
       procmail programs from messing up.

       Delivering to MH folders is slightly more time consuming than  deliver‐
       ing  to normal directories or mailboxes, because procmail has to search
       for the next available number (instead of having the  filename  immedi‐
       ately available).

       On  general failure procmail will return EX_CANTCREAT, unless option -t
       is specified, in which case it will return EX_TEMPFAIL.

       To make `egrepping' of headers more consistent,	procmail  concatenates
       all  continued header fields; but only internally.  When delivering the
       mail, line breaks will appear as before.

       If procmail is called under a name not starting with `procmail'	(e.g.,
       if  it  is  linked to another name and invoked as such), it comes up in
       explicit delivery mode, and expects the recipients'  names  as  command
       line arguments (as if -d had been specified).

       Comsat/biff  notifications  are done using udp.	They are sent off once
       when procmail generates the regular logfile  entry.   The  notification
       messages have the following extended format (or as close as you can get
       when final delivery was not to a file):
	      $LOGNAME@offset_of_message_in_mailbox:absolute_path_to_mailbox

       Whenever procmail itself opens a file to deliver	 to,  it  consistently
       uses the following kernel locking strategies: fcntl(2).

       Procmail is NFS-resistant and eight-bit clean.

NOTES
       Calling	up procmail with the -h or -? options will cause it to display
       a command-line help and recipe flag quick-reference page.

       There exists an excellent newbie FAQ about mailfilters (and procmail in
       particular);  it is maintained by Nancy McGough <nancym@ii.com> and can
       be obtained by sending a mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the fol‐
       lowing in the body:
	      send usenet/news.answers/mail/filtering-faq

       If  procmail  is	 not  installed	 globally as the default mail delivery
       agent (ask your system administrator), you have to make sure it is  in‐
       voked  when  your  mail arrives.	 In this case your $HOME/.forward (be‐
       ware, it has to be world readable) file should contain the line	below.
       Be  sure	 to  include the single and double quotes, and unless you know
       your site to be running smrsh (the SendMail Restricted SHell), it  must
       be an absolute path.

       "|exec /usr/bin/procmail"

       Some  mailers  (notably exim) do not currently accept the above syntax.
       In such case use this instead:

       |/usr/bin/procmail

       Procmail can also be invoked to postprocess an  already	filled	system
       mailbox.	  This	can  be	 useful	 if  you  don't want to or can't use a
       $HOME/.forward file (in which case the following script could  periodi‐
       cally  be  called  from	within	cron(1), or whenever you start reading
       mail):

	      #!/bin/sh

	      ORGMAIL=/var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME

	      if cd $HOME &&
	       test -s $ORGMAIL &&
	       lockfile -r0 -l1024 .newmail.lock 2>/dev/null
	      then
		trap "rm -f .newmail.lock" 1 2 3 13 15
		umask 077
		lockfile -l1024 -ml
		cat $ORGMAIL >>.newmail &&
		 cat /dev/null >$ORGMAIL
		lockfile -mu
		formail -s procmail <.newmail &&
		 rm -f .newmail
		rm -f .newmail.lock
	      fi
	      exit 0

   A sample small $HOME/.procmailrc:
       PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
       MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail      #you'd better make sure it exists
       DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/mbox   #completely optional
       LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/from   #recommended

       :0:
       * ^From.*berg
       from_me

       :0
       * ^Subject:.*Flame
       /dev/null

       Other examples for rcfile recipes can be looked up in the procmailex(5)
       man page.

SOURCE
       This  program  is  part of the procmail mail-processing-package (v3.22)
       available at http://www.procmail.org/ or ftp.procmail.org in  pub/proc‐
       mail/.

MAILINGLIST
       There exists a mailinglist for questions relating to any program in the
       procmail package:
	      <procmail-users@procmail.org>
		     for submitting questions/answers.
	      <procmail-users-request@procmail.org>
		     for subscription requests.

       If you would like to stay informed  about  new  versions	 and  official
       patches send a subscription request to
	      procmail-announce-request@procmail.org
       (this is a readonly list).

AUTHORS
       Stephen R. van den Berg
	      <srb@cuci.nl>
       Philip A. Guenther
	      <guenther@sendmail.com>

BuGless				  2001/08/27			   PROCMAIL(1)
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