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procmail......Process Mail
procmail option(s) argument(s)
PURPOSE
The procmail command works under the hood to process mail, usually through the .forward file mechanism as soon as mail arrives. It can also be installed to work immediately through the mail program.
The procmail command sets some environment variables to default values, reads the mail message from stdin until an end-of-file marker appears, separates the body from the header, and then, if no command-line arguments are present, looks for a file named $HOME/.procmailrc. This file routes the message to the correct folder.
Arguments containing = are considered to be environment-variable assignments. Any other arguments are presumed to be rcfile paths.
This is a complex command that can cause some damage to mail processing if not configured properly. Check the online-manual pages for more detailed information about procmail.
OPTIONS
| -d recipient | Turns on explicit delivery mode, where delivery will be to the local user recipient. Cannot be used with -p. |
| -f | Regenerates a leading From line with fromwhom as the sender (instead of -f one could use the alternate and obsolete -r). If fromwhom consists of a single -, then procmail will only update the timestamp on the From line. |
| -m | Turns procmail into a general-purpose mail filter. |
| -o | Overrides fake From lines. |
| -p | Preserves the old environment. |
| -t | Makes procmail fail softly; if procmail cannot deliver to any a destination, the mail will not bounce, instead returning to the mail queue with another delivery attempt made in the future. |
| -Y | Works with Berkeley mailbox format, ignoring Content-Length: fields. |
| -a argument | Sets $1 to argument. |
SIGNALS
| TERMINATE | Terminates prematurely and requeues the mail. |
| HANGUP | Terminates prematurely and bounces the mail. |
| INTERRUPT | Terminates prematurely and bounces the mail. |
| QUIT | Terminates prematurely and silently loses the mail. |
| ALARM | Forces a timeout. |
| USR1 | Equivalent to VERBOSE=off. |
| USR2 | Equivalent to VERBOSE=on. |
RELATED COMMANDS
readmsg......Read Message
readmsg option(s) selection folder
PURPOSE
The readmsg command extracts messages from a mail folder. You’ll usually do this when you’re preparing mail in a text editor and want to quote a specific, existing message from your mail folder.
You use the selection argument to specify which message to grab from your mail folder. A wildcard (*) means to pull all messages, while a number refers to a specific message (with 0 or $ referring to the last message in the mailbox). In addition, you can pull messages that contain a specific string; these strings don’t need to be enclosed in quotes. In this instance, the first message that contains the string will be returned. (This method, by the way, is case sensitive).
You can also use readmsg from within the elm newsreader instead of an external editor, but it works a little differently in that situation. The mailbox used for retrieving messages is the current mailbox, not your inbox; the current elm message will be pulled; and the numbering scheme is a little different.
OPTIONS
| -f folder | Uses folder instead of the incoming mailbox. This is useful when you want to search through mail you’ve already sent. |
| -h | Includes all header information, not just the default From:, Date:, and Subject: fields. |
| -n | Excludes all headers from retrieved messages. |
| -p | Places form feeds (Ctrl-L) between messages headers. |
| -a | Returns all messages that returns the string on the command line, not just the first. |
RELATED COMMANDS
richtext......View Rich Text Document
richtext option(s) filename
PURPOSE
The richtext displays “rich text” documents—usually mail messages—on an ASCII terminal, using termcap settings to highlight and underline text. Rich text is part of the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) for multimedia Internet mail not Microsoft’s Rich Text Format (RTF).
OPTIONS
| -c | Displays text with no formatting. |
| -f | Specifies termcap escape codes for bold and italic text. |
| -m | Interprets < in multibyte Japanese and Korean sequences as a true less-than symbol and not the start of a rich text command. |
| -n | Tells the command to perform no corrections on the raw rich text. |
| -o | Uses overstriking for underlining when appropriate. |
| -p | Summons system PAGER from environment variables. |
| -s charset | Uses specified charset when processing text. Charset can be one of us-ascii (the default), iso-2022-jp, and iso-2022-kr. |
| -t | Overrides termcap escape codes. |
RELATED COMMANDS
rmail......Remote UUCP Mail
rmail username
PURPOSE
The rmail command interprets incoming mail received via uucp. With the advent of the Internet, this command has lessened in usage.
RELATED COMMAND
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