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Re: aliasing mailing lists



On (00:11 20/05/06), cga2000 <cga2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> put forth the proposition:
> On Fri, May 19, 2006 at 10:08:50PM EDT, Cameron Simpson wrote:
> > On 19May2006 19:53, cga2000 <cga2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > | On Fri, May 19, 2006 at 07:36:11AM EDT, Rocco Rutte wrote:
> > | > >>Since I use procmail for local filtering, I put comments in 
> > .procmailrc 
> > | > >>which are converted via cronjob and shell to a mutt config file and 
> > | > >>committed to a git repository.
> > 
> > I go the other way; I have a file like this:
> > 
> >     mutt    Mutt-Users      sender:owner-mutt-users@xxxxxxxx
> 
> a very interesting idea.  ie. if you have to have the "master file" I
> was talking about, it makes good sense to go the whole hog and have
> *everything* re: your mailing lists generated from that one file. 

An alternative I've been playing with this morning is a shell script that auto
generates a separate procmail file from the files in my mail/lists folder. The
file is included in the main .procmailrc using the INCLUDERC function at an
appropriate place.

#!/bin/bash
fetchmail -q # stop daemon in case of incoming in middle of script
rm ~/.procmailrc-lists

for file in `ls ~/mail/lists`
do
        echo :0 >> ~/.procmailrc-lists
        echo "* ^(To|Cc).*$file*" >> ~/.procmailrc-lists
        echo lists/$file >> ~/.procmailrc-lists
        echo >> ~/.procmailrc-lists
done
fetchmail # restart daemon

And in .procmailrc:

INCLUDERC=$HOME/.procmailrc-lists

just after my spamassassin filters. This generates filters like

:0
* ^(To|Cc).*bug-bash@xxxxxxx*
lists/bug-bash@xxxxxxx

:0
* ^(To|Cc).*fluxbox-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx*
lists/fluxbox-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Now when I recieve a welcome message I save it to the list box (mutt will prompt
to create one) and run the script. Seems to work ok - at least so far.

> > 
> > and generate the .procmailrc from that. Column 1 is the folder name,
> > column 2 gets inserted as an X-Label header (I mix several lists in one
> > folder sometimes) and column 3 generates a procmail condition.
> > 
> > It makes maintaining a large .procmailrc much easier.
> > This is the converter:
> > 
> >   http://freshmeat.net/projects/cats2procmailrc/
> > 
> > [...]
> > | I don't know if it's possible in a reliable manner but I was thinking
> > | of maintaining a separate file that lists the addresses of all the
> > | mailing lists to which I am currently subscribed and having procmail:
> > | 
> > | 1. Add an entry to the list whenever it encounters a message that
> > |    confirms subscription to a mailing list 
> > | 
> > | 2. Delete entries upon receiving messages that confirm un-subscription
> > |    from mailing lists.
> > | 
> > | .. and naturally use this external file to generate the targets of the
> > | subscribe/mailboxes/alias commands in .muttrc.
> > 
> > It feels like a setup where someone could damage your mutt config just
> > be sending you email:-)
> 
> That's a general problem with automation.  You open yourself to
> potential abuse. On the other hand, malicious users would need to know
> how I set up my mutt to figure this out. More likely I'll shoot myself
> in the foot by not configuring it right in the first place.. If I ever
> find the time to embark upon such a project, that is.. :-)
> 
> > 
> > Personally I rarely both with step 2.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > -- 
> > Cameron Simpson <cs@xxxxxxxxxx> DoD#743
> > http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> cga

-- 
"Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat."
                -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340