README
1For installation instructions see the INSTALL file.
2----------------------
3Procmail & formail mail processing package.
4Copyright (c) 1990-1999, S.R. van den Berg, The Netherlands.
5Copyright (c) 1997-2001, Philip Guenther, The United States of America
6
7Some legal stuff:
8
9This package is open source software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
10it under the terms of either:
11- the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation
12 and can be found in the included file called "COPYING"; either version 2,
13 or (at your option) any later version, or
14- the "Artistic License" which can be found in the included file called
15 "Artistic".
16
17This package is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without
18any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness
19for a particular purpose. See either the GNU General Public License or the
20Artistic License for more details.
21
22For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License,
23my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no procmailrc
24script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put
25said script under the terms of the GPL yourself.
26
27-------------------------- SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS -------------------------------
28
29Any *NIX-alike (or POSIX compliant) system.
30
31Sendmail, ZMailer, smail, MMDF, mailsurr or compatible mailers (in effect any
32mailer that can process RFC-822 compliant mails).
33
34For a fairly complete list of all C-library references done in the programs
35see "src/includes.h".
36
37------------------------------ DESCRIPTION -----------------------------------
38
39The procmail mail processing program. (v3.22 2001/09/10)
40
41Can be used to create mail-servers, mailing lists, sort your incoming mail
42into separate folders/files (real convenient when subscribing to one or more
43mailing lists or for prioritising your mail), preprocess your mail, start
44any programs upon mail arrival (e.g. to generate different chimes on your
45workstation for different types of mail) or selectively forward certain
46incoming mail automatically to someone.
47
48Procmail can be used:
49 - and installed by an unprivileged user (for himself only).
50 - as a drop in replacement for the local delivery agent /bin/mail
51 (with biff/comsat support).
52 - as a general mailfilter for whole groups of messages (e.g. when
53 called from within sendmail.cf rules).
54
55The accompanying formail program enables you to generate autoreplies, split up
56digests/mailboxes into the original messages, do some very simple
57header-munging/extraction, or force mail into mail-format (with leading From
58line).
59
60----------------------
61
62We made the utmost effort to make procmail as robust as any program can be
63(every conceivable system error is caught *and* handled).
64
65Since procmail is written entirely in C, it poses a very low impact
66on your system's resources (under normal conditions, when you don't
67start other programs/scripts from within it, it is faster and more
68robust than the average /bin/mail you have on your system now).
69
70Procmail was designed to deliver the mail under the worst conditions
71(file system full, out of swap space, process table full, file table full,
72missing support files, unavailable executables; it all doesn't matter).
73Should (in the unlikely event) procmail be unable to deliver your mail
74somewhere, the mail will bounce back to the sender or reenter the mailqueue
75(your choice).
76
77For a more extensive list of features see the FEATURES file.
78
79----------------------
80
81However, as with any program, bugs cannot be completely ruled out. We
82tested the program extensively, and believe it should be relatively bug
83free. Should, however, anyone find any bugs (highly unlikely :-), we
84would be pleased (well, sort of :-) to hear about it. Please send us
85the patches or bug report; you can reach us by E-mail at
86<bug@procmail.org>.
87We'll look at them and will try to fix it in a future release.
88(BTW, if you should find any spelling or grammar errors in these files,
89don't hesitate to point them out; we like correct English just as much
90as you do).
91
92----------------------
93
94I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude in particular
95to these devoted users of the procmail-package. Without their constant
96feedback procmail would not have looked the same:
97
98 David W. Tamkin An excellent proofreader and betatester.
99 <dattier@Mcs.Net>
100 Josh Laff For stresstesting procmail (and me :-).
101 <jal@uiuc.edu>
102 Dan Jacobson For his many useful suggestions.
103 <Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM>
104 Rick Troxel Because I crashed his Convex way too often :-).
105 <rick@helix.nih.gov>
106 Roman Czyborra For his enthusiastic ideas.
107 <czyborra@cs.tu-berlin.de>
108 Ari Kornfeld The guardian angel of SmartList.
109 <ari@perspective.com>
110 Alan K. Stebbens For his endless creativity and suggestions.
111 <aks@sgi.com>
112 Philip Guenther Sometimes faster at repairing bugs than I can
113 <guenther@sendmail.com> write them :-) He's also the current main
114 coordinator of procmail/SmartList development.
115 Era Eriksson For maintaining the FAQ. He's also the
116 <era@iki.fi> current coordinator of the procmail volunteer
117 group.
118
119Philip Guenther would like to thank the following people:
120
121 David W. Tamkin For continued duty as procmail's star
122 <dattier@Mcs.Net> betatester.
123 Miquel van Smoorenburg For winning an argument with me.
124 <miquels@cistron.nl>
125 Tim Pierce SmartList's current guardian angel.
126 <twp@rootsweb.com>
127 Christopher P. Lindsey For thinking hard about real world usage.
128 <lindsey@mallorn.com>
129
130...and all the other members of the procmail-dev mailing list, for
131suggestions, testing, and being annoying (but in a good way).
132
133----------------------
134
135Please note that this program essentially is supposed to be static; that
136means no extra features (honouring the VNIX spirit) are supposed to be
137added (though any useful suggestions will be appreciated and evaluated if
138time permits).
139
140Cheers,
141 Stephen R. van den Berg of Cubic Circle, The Netherlands.
142
143Internet E-mail: <srb@cuci.nl>
144
145Snail-Mail: Procmail Foundation
146 P.O.Box 21074
147 6369 ZG Simpelveld
148 The Netherlands
149
150Procmail mailinglist: <procmail-users-request@procmail.org>
151Procmail updates and patches list (readonly):
152 <procmail-announce-request@procmail.org>
153SmartList mailinglist: <SmartList-users-request@procmail.org>
154SmartList updates and patches list (readonly):
155 <SmartList-announce-request@procmail.org>
156Development:
157 <procmail-dev-request@procmail.org> Development list for procmail
158 <SmartList-dev-request@procmail.org> Development list for SmartList
159 <bug@procmail.org> Coordinator of development
160 <volunteers-request@procmail.org> List to coordinate volunteers
161
162----------------------
163The most recent version can be obtained via http://www.procmail.org/
164or ftp://ftp.procmail.org/pub/procmail/
165You'll be able to find instructions there which direct you to suitable
166mirror sites around the world.
167
168The current list of mirror sites include:
169
170 ftp://ftp.psg.com/pub/unix/procmail/
171 ftp://ftp.ucsb.edu/pub/mirrors/procmail/
172 ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/packages/procmail/
173 ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/unix/mail/procmail/
174 ftp://ftp.net.ohio-state.edu/pub/networking/mail/procmail/
175 ftp://ftp.fdt.net/pub/unix/packages/procmail/
176 ftp://ftp.tamu.edu/pub/mirrors/procmail/
177 ftp://ftp.kfki.hu/pub/packages/mail/procmail/
178 ftp://giswitch.sggw.waw.pl/pub/unix/procmail/
179 ftp://ftp.solarisguide.com/pub/procmail/
180 ftp://ftp.win.ne.jp/pub/network/mail/procmail/
181 http://www.ring.gr.jp/archives/net/mail/procmail/
182 ftp://ftp.ring.gr.jp/pub/net/mail/procmail/
183 ftp://ftp.ayamura.org/pub/procmail/
184 ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/procmail/
185 ftp://ftp.gigabell.net/pub/procmail/
186 ftp://ftp.linja.net/pub/mirrors/procmail/
187 ftp://ftp.stealth.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.procmail.org/pub/procmail/
188 ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.procmail.org/pub/procmail/
189----------------------
190