CHAPTER FIVE - PowerMail
ClubCt.Com LLC has the sophisticated PowerMail(tm) mailing system. In addition to being able to have nearly unlimited infobots by simply adding text files to a directory, you can also redirect mail for everyone in your domain by simply modifying a text file. PowerMail is not set up automatically for new accounts, but you can go to the ClubCT Control Panel to do it.
Make a text (upload in ASCII or text mode) file in your home directory named redirect (or .redirect) that says:
Default yourusername@yourdomain.com eric 73452.452@compuserve.com susan susan.simpson@mci.com kim goddess@afterlife.com hellllp 73452.452@compuserve.com root@instant-answers.net john john default crazy@bob.comThis would redirect mail for eric@yourdomain.com to 73452.452@compuserve.com, etc. Mail for defined userids in your domain (that is, userids who can login to your domain) should be routed with .forwarding.
Mail to a user that was not in this list would be sent to the default user, crazy@bob.com. You are encouraged to have a default entry, if just to be sure you don't lose mail due to any other mistakes.
Once you have used the Control Panel to install PowerMail on your domain, you can create a file in your home directory named help which says:
We offer you help.
Mail to help@yourdomain.com will return the message "We offer you help".
Infobot files should not have upper case letters in them. Incoming mail addresses are normalized to lower case before the infobot directory(ies) is searched.
VERY IMPORTANT : You must create an alias in your redirect (.redirect) file for the filename (e.g., help) which indicates where the E-Mail sent to help should be forwarded. Otherwise this message will be lost! The default address will NOT be used!
PowerMail is configured through a text file which you may place in your home directory, called .soprc. If this file is not present, the default behavior corresponds to a .soprc like so:
BounceFile .redirect InfobotDir .
Please note that the above two directives are not defaults! A blank .soprc is not the same as a non-existent one. If you create a .soprc with no BounceFile directive, for example, .redirect will not be checked.
Think of that .soprc as a default in the absence of anything else, not of those two directives individually as defaults. Use the above as a starting point for any .soprc you make.
Most people don't need to create a .soprc or read the following because that default is meant to be the most useful configuration.
Also known as RedirectFile. Specifies a file which will be parsed for mail redirection. In that file, the first word on a line gives an alias for your domain, and the following word(s) give the destination. So the line:
rhd rhd@test.com
will redirect mail originally sent to rhd@yourdomain.com to rhd@test.com. And the line:
two-techs rhd@test.com roh@test.com
will redirect mail for that alias to the two addresses given.
The alias default (or *) is special. It will be used if and only if nothing else was done with the mail, whether redirection or infobot mailing. Note that if you don't give a default, there is no default.
This directive may appear multiple times and the files read will be merged. In case of conflict the file specified last wins.
InfobotDir specifies a directory to search for infobot data files. Persons who make use of their Unix accounts may want to make an infobot directory off of their home and specify
InfobotDir infobot
People who don't have any other particular clutter in their home directories can get by with
InfobotDir ~
which is also the default if no InfobotDir directive at all appears.
InfobotExt specifies extensions to use for infobots. The lack of this directive is equal to
InfobotExt "" .txt
Consider mail coming in for info@yourdomain.com. In this case, files named simply info will be sought out in the InfobotDir specified directories. If you had the line
InfobotExt .txt
in your .soprc, info would not be used, but info.txt would. If you had
InfobotExt .txt .html
both info.txt and info.html will be used.
In the last example, if both info.txt and info.html were found, both would be mailed in turn. This could be useful, or harmful. Look for more control in future versions of PowerMail.
InfobotExt may be specified more than once, or multiple extensions may be given on one line. In the absence of any InfobotExt line, first no extension is added to the mail address that comes in, then .txt is added. In its presence, the mail address without modification is not tried, unless the null extension "" is given.
Keeps a log of where infobots were sent. The log file must be world-writable. (It probably also needs to exist before you start, unless the directory it's going to be kept in is world-writeable.) For example, at a shell prompt,
touch infobot-access-log chmod 666 infobot-access-log
Then put in your .soprc:
InfobotAccessLog infobot-access-log
Format of log file: try it and see. (Recipient, date, file)
Only the last instance of this directive has effect. No user-visible logging is done if this directive is absent.
Writes the address that was on the envelope for this piece of mail into a header that you specify. For example:
SaveEnvelopeAddress X-Envelope-To
Notice the lack of a colon in the .soprc file. Using an X- header for this is of course recommended, but not enforced.
Allow slashes in infobot names, letting users go into subdirectories to specify the file they want returned. A leading slash is still dropped. NoAllowSlashes doesn't allow slashes in infobot names: it converts them to hyphens before looking up the infobot. The default is NoAllowSlashes.
This affects infobots, not redirection aliases.
Allow leading periods in infobot names. Probably not useful, though maybe not that harmful. NoAllowDotFiles drops leading dots in infobot names. The default is NoAllowDotFiles.
This affects infobots, not redirection aliases.
If the destination begins with a tilde (~), it will immediately be looked up again without the tilde. For example:
rhd rhd@test.com Rich_D ~rhd root ~rhd
This does not currently work with multiple destinations. You can do this:
the-list name1@dom1 name2@dom2 name3@dom3 alt1 ~the-list alt2 ~the-list
but you cannot (yet) do this:
sales-people name1@dom1 name2@dom2 support-people name3@dom3 name4@dom4 everyone ~sales-people ~support-people
Since that would obviously be useful it will probably be added soon.
AllowTildeRecursion is the default and may be overridden with NoAllowTildeRecursion.
long-list one@one.com two@two.net three@three.org four@four.chi.il.us \ five@five.co.uk syxx@nwowrestling.com seven@cia.gov
account1 account1 account2 account2
and then use their .forward files to send the mail where appropriate.