The README file M. Rose
Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
February 2002
The personal.tcl Mailbot
Abstract
The personal.tcl mailbot implements a highly-specialized filter for
personal messages. It MUST not be used by people who receive mailing
list traffic in their personal mailboxes.
Table of Contents
1. SYNOPSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1 Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Copyrights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 Guest Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. BEHAVIOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1 Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3 The Configuration File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3.1 Configuration Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3.2 Configurable Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
A. Impersonal Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
A.1 Configuration Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
A.1.1 foldersDirectory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
A.1.2 foldersFile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
A.1.3 announceMailboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
A.1.4 mappingFile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
A.2 Configurable Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
A.2.1 impersonalMail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
A.2.2 processFolder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
B. An Example configFile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
C. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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README The personal.tcl Mailbot February 2002
1. SYNOPSIS
Create a configuration file (Section 3.3) and add this line to your
".forward" file:
"| LIB/mbot-1.1/personal.tcl -config FILE -user USER"
where "LIB" is where the Tcl library lives, "FILE" is the name of
your configuration file, and "USER" is your username.
1.1 Requirements
This package requires:
o Tcl version 8.3 [1] or later
o tcl lib [2]
o TclX version 8.0 [3] or later
1.2 Copyrights
(c) 1999-2002 Marshall T. Rose
Hold harmless the author, and any lawful use is allowed.
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2. PHILOSOPHY
The mailbot's philosophy is simple:
o The mailbot receives all of your incoming personal mail.
o You ALWAYS copy yourself on every message you send, so that the
mailbot receives all of your outgoing personal mail.
o The mailbot performs six tasks, all optional:
* makes audit copies of your incoming and outgoing mail;
* performs duplicate supression;
* performs originator supression by rejecting messages from
people who aren't your friends or on a guest list;
* performs content supression by rejecting messages that contain
attachments with extensions on your prohibited list;
* sends a textual synopsis to your PDA; and,
* sends a copy to your remote mailbox.
Do NOT use the personal.tcl mailbot if you receive mailing list
traffic in your personal mailbox. When sending mail to a mailing
list, either:
o use a "From" address that the personal.tcl mailbot will process as
"impersonal" mail, (e.g., "[email protected]"); or,
o set the "Reply-To" for the message to the mailing list.
Consult Appendix A for information on how "impersonal" mail is
identified and processed.
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2.1 Guest Lists
Guest lists are an effective mechanism for cutting back on excessive
mail.
o when the mailbot receives a message from you, it adds any
recipients it finds to a permanent-guest list;
o when the mailbot receives a message from someone on a guest list,
it adds any recipients it finds to a temporary-guest list; but,
o when the mailbot receives a message from someone not on any guest
list, they get a rejection notice.
Note that in order to promote someone to the permanent-guest list,
you must send them a message (with a copy to yourself). In most
cases, simply replying to the original message accomplishes this. Of
course, if you don't want to promote someone to the permanent-guest
list, simply remove that address (or your address) from the list of
recipients in your reply.
Here are the fine points:
o rejection notices contain a passphrase that may be used at most
once to bypass the guest list mechanism (notices also contain the
original message to minimize type-in by the uninvited);
o a flip-flop is used to avoid mail loops; and,
o messages originated by an administrative address (e.g.,
"Postmaster") bypass the guest list mechanism (unless the message
refers to a previously-rejected message, in which case it is
supressed).
The rejection notice should be written carefully to minimize an
extreme negative reaction on the part of the uninvited. Of course,
by allowing a passphrase, this provides something of a CQ test for
the uninvited -- if someone can't pass the test...
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3. BEHAVIOR
3.1 Arguments
The mailbot supports the following command line arguments:
-config configFile: specifies the name of the configuration file
to use;
-debug boolean: enables debug output;
-file messageFile: specifies the name of the file containing the
message;
-originator orginatorAddress: specifies the email-address of the
originator of the message; and,
-user userName: specifies the user-identity of the recipient.
Note that if "-user" is given, then the working directory is set to
userName's home directory before configFile is sourced, and the umask
is set defensively.
The default values are:
personal.tcl -config .personal-config.tcl \
-debug 0 \
-file - \
-originator "derived from message"
Given the default values, only "-user" need be specified. The reason
is that if a message is being delivered to multiple local recipients,
and if any of the ".forward" files are identical in content, then
sendmail may not deliver the message to all of the local recipients.
A few other (sendmail related) tips:
o If sendmail is configured with smrsh, you'll need to symlink
personal.tcl into the /usr/libexec/sm.bin/ directory.
o Make sure that tclsh8.0 is in the path specified on the third-line
of personal.tcl.
o You should chmod your ".forward" file to 0600.
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3.2 Actions
The mailbot begins by parsing its arguments, sourcing configFile, and
then examining the incoming message:
1. If auditInFile (Section 3.3.1.3) is set, a copy of the message is
saved (Section 3.3.2.4) there.
2. If the message contains a previously-encountered "Message-ID",
processing terminates.
3. If the message's originator can not be determined, a copy of the
message is saved (Section 3.3.2.4) in the defaultMaildrop
(Section 3.3.1.2) and processing terminates.
4. The originator's email-address is examined:
1. If the originator appears to be an automated administrative
process (Section 3.3.2.1), and if a previously rejected
email-address is found in the message, processing terminates.
2. Otherwise, if the originator isn't the user (Section
3.3.2.3), or a friend (Section 3.3.2.2), or a permanent-
access guest, or a temporary-access guest, and if noticeFile
(Section 3.3.1.10) is set, then the message is rejected.
3. Otherwise, each recipient email-address in the message's
header is added to a guest list. (If the originator is the
user (Section 3.3.2.3), the permanent-guest list is used
instead of the temporary-guest list.)
5. If the originator is the the user (Section 3.3.2.3), then:
1. If auditOutFile (Section 3.3.1.4) is set, saved (Section
3.3.2.4) there.
2. Regardless, processing terminates.
6. If pdaMailboxes (Section 3.3.1.11) is set, and if any plaintext
is contained in the message, then the plaintext is sent to those
email-addresses.
7. If remoteMailboxes (Section 3.3.1.12) is set, and if the message
is successful resent to those email-addresses, then processing
terminates.
8. A copy of the message is saved (Section 3.3.2.4) in the
defaultMaildrop (Section 3.3.1.2) and processing terminates.
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3.3 The Configuration File
There are two kinds of information that may be defined in configFile:
configuration options (Section 3.3.1) and configurable procedures
(Section 3.3.2).
Here's a simple example of a configFile for a user named "example":
set options(dataDirectory) .personal
set options(defaultMaildrop) /var/mail/example
set options(logFile) [file join .personal personal.log]
set options(noticeFile) [file join .personal notice.txt]
3.3.1 Configuration Options
configFile must define dataDirectory (Section 3.3.1.1) and
defaultMaildrop (Section 3.3.1.2). All other configuration options
are optional.
3.3.1.1 dataDirectory
The directory where the mailbot keeps its databases. The
subdirectories are:
badaddrs: the directory of rejected email-addresses
inaddrs: the directory of originator email-addresses
msgids: the directory of Message-IDs
outaddrs: the permanent-guest list
phrases: the directory of at-most-once passphrases
tmpaddrs: the temporary-guest list
If you want to remove someone from a guest list, simply go to that
directory and delete the corresponding file.
3.3.1.2 defaultMaildrop
The filename where messages are saved (Section 3.3.2.4) for later
viewing by your user agent.
3.3.1.3 auditInFile
The filename where messages are saved (Section 3.3.2.4) for audit
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purposes.
3.3.1.4 auditOutFile
The filename where your outgoing messages are saved (Section 3.3.2.4)
for audit purposes.
3.3.1.5 dropNames
A list of filename extensions for attachments that automatically
cause the message to be rejected.
3.3.1.6 friendlyDomains
A list used by friendP (Section 3.3.2.2) giving the domain names
where your friends live.
3.3.1.7 friendlyfire
If present and true, then someone sending a message both to you and
someone you've previously sent mail to, is considered a friend.
3.3.1.8 logFile
The filename where the mailbot logs (Section 3.3.2.8) its actions.
3.3.1.9 myMailbox
Your preferred email-address with commentary text, e.g.,
Arlington Hewes <[email protected]>
3.3.1.10 noticeFile
The filename containing the textual notice sent when a message is
rejected. Note that all occurrances of "%passPhrase%" within this
file are replaced with an at-most-once passphrase allowing the
originator to bypass the mailbot's filtering. Similarly, any
occurrences of "%subject%" are replaced by the "Subject" of the
incoming message.
3.3.1.11 pdaMailboxes
The email-addresses where a textual synopsis of the incoming message
is sent.
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3.3.1.12 remoteMailboxes
The email-addresses where a copy of the incoming message is resent.
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3.3.2 Configurable Procedures
All of these procedures are defined in personal.tcl. You may
override any of them in configFile.
3.3.2.1 adminP
proc adminP {local domain}
Returns "1" if the email-address is an automated administrative
process.
3.3.2.2 friendP
proc friendP {local domain}
Returns "1" if the email-address is from a friendly domain (Section
3.3.1.6) or sub-domain.
3.3.2.3 ownerP
proc ownerP {local domain}
Returns "1" if the email-address refers to the user (as determined by
looking at myMailbox (Section 3.3.1.9), pdaMailboxes (Section
3.3.1.11), and remoteMailboxes (Section 3.3.1.12).
3.3.2.4 saveMessage
proc saveMessage {inF {outF ""}}
Saves a copy of the message contained in the file inF. If the
destination file, outF, isn't specified, it defaults to the
defaultMaildrop (Section 3.3.1.2).
3.3.2.5 findPhrase
proc findPhrase {subject}
Returns "1" if a previously-allocated passphrase is present in the
subject. If so, the passphrase is forgotten.
3.3.2.6 makePhrase
proc makePhrase {}
Returns an at-most-once passphrase for use with a rejection notice.
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3.3.2.7 pruneDir
proc pruneDir {dir type}
Removes old entries from one of the mailbot's databases (Section
3.3.1.1). The second parameter is one of "addr", "msgid", or
"phrase".
3.3.2.8 tclLog
proc tclLog {message}
Writes a message to the logFile (Section 3.3.1.8).
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References
[1] <http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcl/>
[2] <http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcllib/>
[3] <http://sourceforge.net/projects/tclx/>
Author's Address
Marshall T. Rose
Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
POB 255268
Sacramento, CA 95865-5268
US
Phone: +1 916 483 8878
Fax: +1 916 483 8848
EMail: [email protected]
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Appendix A. Impersonal Mail
If impersonalMail (Appendix A.2.1) returns a non-empty string then
the message is processed differently than the algorithm given in
Section 3.2. Specifically:
1. If the message contains a previously-encountered "Message-ID",
processing terminates.
2. If the message's originator can not be determined, processing
terminates.
3. The value returned by impersonalMail (Appendix A.2.1) is the
folder's name and is broken into one or more components seperated
by dots ("."). If there aren't at least two components, or if
any of the components are empty (e.g., the folder is named
"sys..announce"), then the message is bounced.
4. If mappingFile (Appendix A.1.4) exists, that file is examined to
see if an entry is present for the folder. If so, the message is
processed according to the value present, one of:
"ignore": the message is silently ignored;
"bounce": the message is noisily bounced; or,
otherwise: the message is resent to the address.
Regardless, if an entry was present for the folder, then
processing terminates.
5. The message is saved (Section 3.3.2.4) in a file whose name is
constructed by replacing each dot (".") in the folder name with a
directory seperator (e.g., if the folder is named "sys.announce",
then the file is called "announce" underneath the directory "sys"
underneath the directory identified by foldersDirectory (Appendix
A.1.1).
6. Finally, the file identified by foldersFile (Appendix A.1.2) is
updated as necessary.
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A.1 Configuration Options
If "impersonal" mail is received, then foldersFile (Appendix A.1.2)
and foldersDirectory (Appendix A.1.1) must exist.
A.1.1 foldersDirectory
The directory where the mailbot keeps private folders.
A.1.2 foldersFile
This file contains one line for each private folder.
A.1.3 announceMailboxes
The email-addresses where an announcement is sent when a new private
folder is created.
A.1.4 mappingFile
The file consulted by the mailbot to determine how to process
"impersonal" messages. Each line of the file consists of a folder
name and value, seperated by a colon (":"). There are three reserved
values: "bounce", "ignore", and "store".
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A.2 Configurable Procedures
All of these procedures are defined in personal.tcl. You may
override any of them in configFile.
A.2.1 impersonalMail
proc impersonalMail {}
If the message is deemed "impersonal", return the name of a
corresponding private folder; otherwise, return the empty-string.
Many mail systems have a mechanism of passing additional information
when performing final delivery using a program. With modern versions
of sendmail, for example, if mail is sent to a local user named
"user+detail", then, in the absense of an alias for either
"user+detail" or "user+*", then the message is delivered to "user".
The trick is to get sendmail to pass the "detail" part to the
mailbot.
At present, sendmail passes this information only if procmail is your
local mailer. Here's how I do it:
*** _alias.c Tue Dec 29 10:42:25 1998
--- alias.c Sat Sep 18 21:51:35 1999
***************
*** 813,818 ****
--- 813,821 ----
define('z', user->q_home, e);
define('u', user->q_user, e);
define('h', user->q_host, e);
+
+ setuserenv("SUFFIX", user->q_host);
+
if (ForwardPath == NULL)
ForwardPath = newstr("\201z/.forward");
This makes available an environment variable called "SUFFIX" which
has the "details" part. The drawback in this approach is that this
information is lost if the message is re-queued for delivery (what's
really needed is an addition to the .forward syntax to allow macros
such as $h to be passed).
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The corresponding impersonalMail procedure is defined as:
proc impersonalMail {} {
global env
return $env(SUFFIX)
}
A.2.2 processFolder
proc processFolder {folderName mimeT} { return $string }
If an entry for the folder exists in the mappingFile (Appendix
A.1.4), and if the value for that entry is "process", then this
procedure is invoked to return a string indicating what action to
take (cf., Appendix A).
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Appendix B. An Example configFile
Here is the ".forward" file for the user "hewes":
"|/usr/pkg/lib/mbot-1.1/personal.tcl
-config .personal/config.tcl -user hewes"
(Of course, it's all on one line.)
Here is the user's ".personal/config.tcl" file:
array set options [list \
dataDirectory .personal \
defaultMaildrop /var/mail/hewes \
auditInFile [file join .personal INCOMING] \
auditOutFile [file join .personal OUTGOING] \
friendlyDomains [list tcp.int example.com] \
logFile [file join .personal personal.log] \
myMailbox "Arlington Hewes <[email protected]>" \
pdaMailboxes [email protected] \
noticeFile [file join .personal notice.txt] \
foldersDirectory [file join .personal folders] \
foldersFile [file join .personal .mailboxlist] \
announceMailboxes [email protected] \
mappingFile [file join .personal mapping] \
friendlyFire 1 \
dropNames [list *.bat *.exe *.src *.pif *.wav *.vbs] \
]
proc impersonalMail {} {
global env
return $env(SUFFIX)
}
Note that because remoteMailboxes (Section 3.3.1.12) isn't defined,
personal messages are ultimately stored in the user's defaultMaildrop
(Section 3.3.1.2).
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Appendix C. Acknowledgements
The original version of this mailbot was written by the author in
1994, implemented using the safe-tcl package (Borenstein and Rose,
circa 1993).
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