417 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
417 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
TkRat mini-HOWTO
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Dave Whitinger, dave@linuxtoday.com
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v1.2, 15 September 1999
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This is the TkRat mini-HOWTO. This document is geared toward anyone
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interested in using their Linux computer to send and receive Internet
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E-Mail.
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______________________________________________________________________
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Table of Contents
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1. Introduction
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2. Installing TkRat
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3. Downloading your E-Mail
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4. Configuring TkRat
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5. Using TkRat
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6. Automatically sorting mail into folders
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7. Copyright
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8. Acknowledgements
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______________________________________________________________________
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1. Introduction
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This document is maintained by Dave Whitinger (dave@linuxtoday.com).
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Please mail me with any questions or ideas you have regarding this
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HOWTO.
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This document will attempt to describe the following four things:
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1. Installing the TkRat E-Mail program.
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2. Downloading mail from an Internet Service Provider.
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3. Reading, storing, and sending mail
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4. Sorting the mail into folders
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The document assumes that you are running Linux with the X Window
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System, have already established a connection to an Internet Service
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Provider, and have a POP account with that provider.
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Disclaimer: All usual disclaimers apply. The author cannot be held
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responsible for any (mis)use of the information given here. This
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document does not attempt to be authoritative in any way. The author
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voluntarily creates this document seperately from any entity with
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which he may be involved with. By reading this document, you agree to
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cause the author no grief or trouble. :)
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2. Installing TkRat
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I would like to stress that there are many excellent E-Mail programs
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available for Linux. It is always a matter of personal preference
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when selecting which one you will use. That said, I will tell you
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that I have been using a program called "TkRat" for over 2 years now -
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and I love it. It's a graphical program that has all the features you
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would expect from a quality mail program, it's easy to learn how to
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use, it's powerful, and it's free. For these reasons, I'll only be
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covering TkRat in this HOWTO.
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The first thing you need to do is download TkRat. You can either
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obtain the sources and compile them, or you can get the binaries.
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Here are some URLs for the software:
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<20> ftp://ftp.md.chalmers.se/pub/tkrat/tkrat-2.0b3.tar.gz
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<ftp://ftp.md.chalmers.se/pub/tkrat/tkrat-2.0b3.tar.gz> (Download
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via ftp)
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<20> http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~maf/ratatosk/tkrat-2.0b3.tar.gz
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<http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~maf/ratatosk/tkrat-2.0b3.tar.gz>
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(Download via http)
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<20> http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~maf/ratatosk/download.html
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<http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~maf/ratatosk/download.html> (Download
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page - check for the latest version!)
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When you have downloaded the tarfile, you are ready to install it on
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your system.
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To install the tar.gz source, use the commands:
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______________________________________________________________________
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tar -zcvpf tkrat-2.0b3.tar.gz
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cd tkrat-2.0b3
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./configure
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make
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make install
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______________________________________________________________________
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If anything fails, consult the INSTALL and README files located in the
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tkrat-2.0b3 directory. Note that you will need a version of tcl that
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is greater than 8.1 for this to compile. You can obtain the latest
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tcl from scriptics.com <http://www.scriptics.com/>.
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Congratulations - TkRat should now be installed on your system.
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3. Downloading your E-Mail
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In order to read E-Mail, it is usually best to download it using a
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program called "fetchmail". The following instructions are known to
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work perfectly for version 2.2 of fetchmail - although they should be
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applicable to any version.
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(Note: Fetchmail is almost certainly already installed on your system,
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as it is included in all Linux distributions that I know of - if
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anyone knows this to be untrue, please let me know!).
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Perform the following steps:
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______________________________________________________________________
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echo "server pop.com protocol pop3 username dave password foo" > ~/.fetchmailrc
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(Make sure to replace "pop.com" with the hostname to your ISP's pop server. Replace
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"dave" with your username, and replace "foo" with your username's password.)
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______________________________________________________________________
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Now, whenever you want to check your E-Mail, just type "fetchmail" at
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the prompt. Fetchmail will go off and download all your mail and
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store it in your local mail folder.
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4. Configuring TkRat
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>From the prompt, type "tkrat" and press enter. Click on "Create".
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Read the message it gives you, then click on "Continue". At this
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point, you are brought to the main TkRat program. The first thing you
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should do is customize it to your local system.
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1. Go the Admin menu, and select Preferences.
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2. Click on "Sending"
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3. Enter in your E-Mail address in the "Default Reply-To" field.
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4. Enter in your E-Mail address, followed by paranthesis in the "Use
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from address" field. e.g. dave@linuxtoday.com (Dave Whitinger)
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5. Enter your domain name in the "Domain" field. If your E-Mail
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address is "user@xyz.com" you'll enter "xyz.com".
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6. Click on "Apply".
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7. Click on "Method".
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8. For "Send Via" select "SMPT".
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9. In the SMTP host: field, enter the SMPT server address of your ISP
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(they should be able to provide you with this information).
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10.
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Click "Apply", then "Dismiss".
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5. Using TkRat
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Upon starting TkRat, You'll notice that you are in a folder called
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"INBOX". Use fetchmail to download any new mail. If you have any, it
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will appear in this INBOX folder.
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TkRat has an intuitive interface. The top half of the screen is the
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list of messages you have (Each line is a seperate E-Mail). The
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bottom half of the screen will be the actual content of the E-Mail.
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You can read E-Mails by simply clicking on any message in the list.
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When you are finished reading a message, you can move on the next
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message, reply to that message, compose a new message, or move the
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message to a different "Folder".
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Folders are a way of storing E-Mails into seperate "Folders". This
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way, you can keep several folders for different topics you may receive
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E-Mail about.
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Perform the following steps to create folders:
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1. Click on Admin, then New/Edit Folders
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2. You will see a box with a "INBOX" folder. Left-Click in that box.
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3. You are then presented with a menu, so select "New File Folder".
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4. You'll be given a dialogue box asking for information.
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5. In the first textbox - enter a name for the folder.
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6. In the second textbox - enter the filename you will use to store
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the messages in (Hint: Use something like
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/home/username/mail/name_of_folder. So, if the first field says
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"Personal", the second field would say something like
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"/home/dave/mail/personal" (assuming your username is dave).
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7. Click OK. You'll notice your new folder is now in the list of
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folders. So, go to "Window" and then "Close".
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You can now Move messages to the new folder - and switch to that
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folder by selecting the folder's name under the "Folders" menu.
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Sending mail is also easy. Click "Compose", type in the recipient's
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E-Mail address, type in a subject, and then write the message in the
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body.
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When you are finished, click on Send.
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6. Automatically sorting mail into folders
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If you're like me, you get about 3,500 messages a day. Each time you
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fetch your mail, you have to wade through all the messages looking for
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particular ones that interest you.
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This is not a problem anymore, thanks to Procmail.
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Procmail works like this: Procmail examines each message as it is
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downloaded, and will perform a series of tasks based upon certain
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rules that you've specified.
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Let's say, for example, that I get about 200 messages every day from a
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certain mailing list (in this example, I'm using the linux-foo list).
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Rather than have all those messages go directly into my main inbox, I
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would rather that they were automatically filtered into a box called
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"foo-list".
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The first step is to take an example mail message that came from that
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mailing list and examine the mail headers.
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I begin to notice a pattern. Every message that comes from that
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mailing list has a line that says:
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Sender: owner-linux-foo@bar.foogers.com
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I can now tell procmail to place every message that contains this line
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into a certain folder.
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The way I tell this to procmail is by way of a ".procmailrc" file.
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I will use my favorite text editor to create a text file in my home
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directory called ".procmailrc".
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The file will look something like this:
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______________________________________________________________________
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LOGFILE=$HOME/.pmlog
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MAILDIR=$HOME/mail
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VERBOSE
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# linux-foo list
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:0 Hw
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* ^.*[Ss]ender: owner-linux-foo@bar.foogers.edu
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foo-list
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# if it got to this point, put it in my new mail folder
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:0 Hw
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newmail
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______________________________________________________________________
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Examine the "[Ss]ender" line. You'll notice that that line is the one
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thing that all messages from that mailing list have in common.
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That section is telling procmail that when it sees a message come
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through with a header that looks like the above, to put it into the
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"foo-list" folder.
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The next section is saying that if the message matched nothing above,
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to just place it into newmail.
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Now, let's say that anytime I get a message from my good friend, EJ, I
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want it to go into a folder called "EJ".
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I'll just create a new section of my procmailrc file. See below:
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______________________________________________________________________
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LOGFILE=$HOME/.pmlog
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MAILDIR=$HOME/mail
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VERBOSE
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# linux-foo list
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:0 Hw
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* ^.*[Ss]ender: owner-linux-foo@bar.foogers.edu
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foo-list
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# Message from E.J.!
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:0 Hw
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* ^.*[Ff]rom: ej@mypal.com
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ej
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# if it got to this point, put it in my new mail folder
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:0 Hw
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newmail
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______________________________________________________________________
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Notice the new section for EJ. When a message comes in with his E-
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Mail address in the "From" field, it will automatically place it into
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my "ej" folder.
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Now, let's say that there's some lamer out there who keeps on E-
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Mailing me. I don't want to hear from him, but he's persistent. Once
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again - procmail to the rescue.
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So, let's say I don't ever want to see any mail from Bill Gates. I
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can setup a recipe to delete any mail that comes from him. Look at my
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new procmailrc:
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______________________________________________________________________
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LOGFILE=$HOME/.pmlog
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MAILDIR=$HOME/mail
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VERBOSE
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# Is it coming from Bill Gates? If yes, DELETE IT!!!
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:0 Hw
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* ^.*[Ff]rom: bgates@microsoft.com
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/dev/null
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# linux-foo list
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:0 Hw
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* ^.*[Ss]ender: owner-linux-foo@bar.foogers.edu
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foo-list
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# Message from EJ!
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:0 Hw
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* ^.*[Ff]rom: ej@mypal.com
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ej
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# if it got to this point, put it in my new mail folder
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:0 Hw
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newmail
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______________________________________________________________________
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Now I have a rather nice procmailrc file. Let's examine what procmail
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will do to each message as it comes in.
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At first, it checks the message to see if it is from
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"bgates@microsoft.com". If it is, delete it, and it's done.
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If the message made it through the first check, it will see if it has
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the "owner-linux-foo@bar.foogers.edu" in the headers. If it does, it
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will put it into the "foo-list" folder, and it's done.
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If the message still makes it past that, then it checks to see if it's
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from EJ. If it is, it places it into the "ej" folder.
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Now, if the message passes all those tests, then it should just place
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it into my newmail folder.
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Once you have these folders in place and procmail is properly
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filtering the mail, you can just go into TkRat, "Admin - New/Edit
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Folder" and create the folders for each filename. They will be
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located under /home/username/mail/foldername.
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7. Copyright
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This HOWTO is copyright 1998, 1999 by Dave Whitinger, and is a free
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document. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
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the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
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Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version.
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8. Acknowledgements
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Very special thanks go out to Martin Forsse'n (maf@dtek.chalmers.se)
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for authoring the TkRat mail user agent.
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Greetings go out to the North Texas Linux User's Group in Dallas, TX,
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for whom I originally wrote this document back in early 1998. Today
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no greetings go out to any user groups, as I live in the moutains of
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East Tennessee, where I believe I am the only Linux user (or computer
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user, for that matter) within 50 miles.
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Also of note: Nic Bernstein <mailto:nic@postilion.org> has forked the
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TkRat code to create a mailer called Postilion
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<http://www.postilion.org/>. It looks like a great mailer with a lot
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of new features that aren't in TkRat, but, nevertheless, I continue to
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use TkRat.
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