META: Russell instructs us on how to filter him

From: Joe Dees (joedees@addall.com)
Date: Thu Jan 11 2001 - 08:21:41 MST


('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is) >From: "Russell Whitaker" <russell_whitaker@hotmail.com>
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: META: tutorial: set up your own lunatic filter
>Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 07:57:32 -0000
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>Howdy. For those uninterested in having their mailboxes
>cluttered with lunatic rants, here's a tutorial on how
>to set up a lunatic filter.
>
>This assumes that you receive your list mail through an
>ISP running some flavor of Unix with a standard local MDA
>(mail delivery agent) such as /bin/mail or /usr/local/bin/procmail.
>(I do, but have it forwarded to Hotmail for convenience.)
>
>Make sure your shell account host has procmail available
>for use (do a "which procmail" at a shell prompt).
>If available:
>
>1.) Create directory ~/.procmail:
> % mkdir ~/.procmail
>
>2.) Create file ~/.procmailrc with these contents
>(modify with actual user values):
>
>PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/home/<username>/bin # example path
>PMDIR=$HOME/.procmail # literal directory name: location of filter
>rules and log file
>MAILDIR=$HOME/mail # example directory: filtered mail spooled here
>DEFAULT=$HOME/inbox # example default mailspool: could be
>/var/mail/<username> on some systems
>LOGFILE=$PMDIR/procmail.log # you'll want this for debugging
>VERBOSE=off
>SHELL=/bin/sh
>INCLUDERC=$PMDIR/rc.devnull # name of your procmail recipe file
>COMSAT=off
>
>3.) In directory ~/.procmail, create your procmail recipes
>file (in this case "rc.devnull"), with contents like this
>(the exact example here being merely theoretical):
>
># save mail filtered on the "From" line match to $MAILDIR/russellwhitaker,
># for future amusement, or evidence.
>:0
>* ^From:.*russellwhitaker@hotmail.com
>russellwhitaker
>
>or
>
># simply discard mail from example destination
>:0
>* ^From:.*russellwhitaker@hotmail.com
>/dev/null
>
>4.) Create or modify your ~/.forward file to contain:
>
><username>, # usually, your local username
>"|IFS=' '&&exec /usr/local/bin/procmail -f-||exit 75 #<username>"
>
>"/usr/local/bin/procmail" is a typical location; use the value of
>"which procmail" above or "/usr/bin/env procmail" if your
>system supports it.
>
>Some enlightened sysadmins actually have procmail
>set up as the local MDA, in which case step #4 above is
>unnecessary.
>
>At least one emotionally unbalanced person on this list
>has threatened to change email addresses if list members
>don't listen to his rants. That's OK. Once he shows
>up and engages in similar rants, it's easy to add recipe lines
>to ~/.procmail/rc.devnull. It takes much less effort to
>add the recipe than it does for that person to change email
>addresses. Let him waste time trying.
>
>Here's a reference if you're interested:
>"http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ian/procmail.html"
>
>Have fun,
>Russell
>_________________________________________________________________
>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

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