MAN page from Mandrake Other mh-6.8.4-7.i386.rpm

SLOCAL

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: MH.6.8
Index

NAME

slocal - special local mail delivery

SYNOPSIS

/usr/lib/mh/slocal [address info sender]
[-addr address][-info data][-sender sender]
[-user username][-mailbox mbox][-file file]
[-maildelivery deliveryfile][-verbose] [-noverbose][-debug][-help]

DESCRIPTION

Slocal is a program designed to allow you to haveyour inbound mail processed according to a complexset of selection criteria.You do not normally invoke slocal yourself,rather slocal is invoked on your behalf by your system's Message Transfer Agent.

The message selectioncriteria used by slocalis specified in the file .maildeliveryin the user's home directory. The format of this fileis given below.

The message delivery address and message sender aredetermined from the Message Transfer Agentenvelope information, if possible. Under SendMail,the sender will obtained from the UUCP ``From ''line, if present. The user may override these valueswith command line arguments, or arguments to the `-addr' and `-sender' switches.

The message is normally read from the standard input.The `-file' switch sets the name of the file from whichthe message should be read, instead of reading stdin.The `-user' switch tells slocalthe name of the user for whom it is delivering mail.The `-mailbox' switch tells slocal the nameof the user's maildrop file.

The `-info' switch may be used to pass an arbitraryargument to sub-processes which slocal mayinvoke on your behalf.The `-verbose' switch causes slocalto give information on stdout about its progress.The `-debug' switch produces more verbose debugging output on stderr.

If your MTA is SendMail,you should include the line

    ``| /usr/lib/mh/slocal -user username''

in your .forward file in your home directory.This will cause SendMail to invoke slocal on your behalf.

If your MTA is MMDF-I,you should (symbolically) link /usr/lib/mh/slocal to the filebin/rcvmail in your home directory.This will cause MMDF-I to invoke slocal on your behalfwith the correct ``address info sender'' arguments.

If your MTA is MMDF-II,then you should not use slocal.An equivalent functionality is already provided by MMDF-II;see maildelivery(5) for details.

The .maildelivery filecontrols how local delivery is performed.Each line of this fileconsists of five fields, separated by white-space or comma.Since double-quotes are honored,these characters may be included in a single argument by enclosing theentire argument in double-quotes.A double-quote can be included by preceding it with a backslash.Lines beginning with `#' are ignored.The format of each line in the .maildelivery file is:

header pattern action result string

header:
The name of a header field that is to be searched for a pattern.This is any field in the headers of the message that might be present.The following special fields are also defined:

source             the out-of-band sender information

addr               the address that was used to cause delivery to the recipient

default            this matches only if the message hasn't been delivered yet

*                  this always matches

pattern:
The sequenceof characters to match in the specified header field.Matching is case-insensitive, but does not use regular expressions.

action:
The action to take to deliver the message:

destroy This action always succeeds.

file or > Append
the message to the file named by string.The message is appended to the file in the maildrop format which is used by your message transport system.If the message can be appended to the file,then this action succeeds.When writing to the file,a ``Delivery-Date: date'' header is addedwhich indicates the date and time that message was appended to the file.

mbox Identical
to file,but always appends the message using the format used by packf(the MMDF mailbox format).

pipe or | Pipe
the message as the standard input to the command named by string,using the Bourne shell sh(1) to interpret the string.Prior to giving the string to the shell,it is expanded with the following built-in variables:

$(sender)          the out-of-band sender information

$(address)         the address that was used to cause delivery to the recipient

$(size)            the size of the message in bytes

$(reply-to)        either the ``Reply-To:'' or ``From:'' field
of the message
$(info)            the out-of-band information specified

qpipe or
<caret>            Similar to pipe,
but executes the command directly,after built-in variable expansion,without assistance from the shell.This action can be used to avoid quoting special characterswhich your shell might interpret.

result:
Indicates how the action should be performed:

A Perform the action.
If the action succeeds, then the message is considered delivered.

R Perform the action.
Regardless of the outcome of the action,the message is not considered delivered.

? Perform
the action only if the message has not been delivered.If the action succeeds, then the message is considered delivered.

N Perform
the action only if the message has not been deliveredand the previous action succeeded.If this action succeeds, then the message is considered delivered.

To summarize, here's an example:

#field   pattern      action  result string# lines starting with a '#' are ignored, as are blank lines## file mail with mmdf2 in the ``To:'' line into file mmdf2.logTo       mmdf2        file    A      mmdf2.log# Messages from mmdf pipe to the program err-message-archiveFrom     mmdf         pipe    A      /bin/err-message-archive# Anything with the ``Sender:'' address ``mh-workers''# file in mh.log if not filed alreadySender   mh-workers   file    ?      mh.log# ``To:'' unix - put in file unix-newsTo       Unix         >       A      unix-news# if the address is jpo=ack - send an acknowledgement copy backaddr     jpo=ack      |       R      ``/bin/resend -r $(reply-to)''# anything from steve - destroy!From     steve        destroy A      -# anything not matched yet - put into mailboxdefault  -            >       ?      mailbox# always run rcvtty*        -            |       R      /mh/lib/rcvtty

The file is always read completely,so that several matches can be made and several actions can be taken.The .maildelivery file must be owned either by the user or by root,and must be writable only by the owner.If the .maildelivery file cannot be found,or does not perform an action which delivers the message,then the file /usr/lib/mh/maildelivery is read according to the same rules.This file must be owned by the root and must be writable only by the root.If this file cannot be foundor does not perform an action which delivers the message,then standard delivery to the user's maildrop is performed.

When a process is invoked, its environment is:the user/group-ids are set to recipient's ids;the working directory is the recipient's home directory;the umask is 0077;the process has no /dev/tty;the standard input is set to the message;the standard output and diagnostic output are set to /dev/null;all other file-descriptors are closed;the envariables $USER, $HOME, $SHELL are setappropriately,and no other envariables exist.

The process is given a certain amount of time to execute.If the process does not exit within this limit,the process will be terminated with extreme prejudice.The amount of time is calculated as ((size x 60) + 300) seconds,where size is the number of bytes in the message.

The exit status of the process is consulted in determining the success of theaction.An exit status of zero means that the action succeeded.Any other exit status (or abnormal termination) means that the action failed.

In order to avoid any time limitations,you might implement a process that began by forking.The parent would return the appropriate value immediately,and the child could continue on,doing whatever it wanted for as long as it wanted.This approach is somewhat risky if the parent is going to return anexit status of zero.If the parent is going to return a non-zero exit status,then this approach can lead to quicker delivery into your maildrop.^/usr/lib/mh/mtstailor~^MH tailor file^$HOME/.maildelivery~^The file controlling local delivery^/usr/lib/mh/maildelivery~^Rather than the standard file^/var/spool/mail/$USER~^The default maildroprcvstore(1), mhook(1), mh-format(5)`-noverbose'`-maildelivery .maildelivery'`-mailbox /var/spool/mail/$USER'`-file' defaults to stdin`-user' defaults to the current userNoneSlocal is designed to be backward-compatible with themaildelivery facility provided by MMDF-II.Thus, the .maildelivery file syntax is limited,as is the functionality of slocal.

In addition to an exit status of zero,the MMDF values RP_MOK (32) and RP_OK (9)mean that the message has been fully delivered.Any other non-zero exit status,including abnormal termination,is interpreted as the MMDF value RP_MECH (200),which means ``use an alternate route''(deliver the message to the maildrop).Only two return codes are meaningful, others should be.

Slocal is designed to bebackwards-compatible with the maildelivery functionality providedby MMDF-II.

Versions of MMDF with the maildelivery mechanism aren'tentirely backwards-compatible with earlier versions of MMDF.If you have an MMDF-I old-style hook,the best you can do is to have a one-line.maildelivery file:

default - pipe A ``bin/rcvmail $(address) $(info) $(sender)''

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