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PROCMAIL(1) PROCMAIL(1)
NAME
procmail - autonomous mail processor
SYNOPSIS
procmail [-ptoY] [-f fromwhom]
[parameter=value | rcfile] ...
procmail [-toY] [-f fromwhom] [-a argument] ...
-d recipient ...
procmail [-ptY] -m [parameter=value] ... rcfile
[argument] ...
procmail [-toY] [-a argument] -z
procmail -v
DESCRIPTION
For a quick start, see NOTES at the end.
Procmail should be invoked automatically over the .forward file mechanism as soon
as mail arrives. Alternatively, when installed by a system administrator (and in
the standard Red Hat Linux configuration), it can be invoked from within the mailer
immediately. When invoked, it first sets some environment variables to default
values, reads the mail message from stdin until an EOF, separates the body from the
header, and then, if no command line arguments are present, it starts to look for a
file named $HOME/.procmailrc. According to the processing recipes in this file,
the mail message that just arrived gets distributed into the right folder (and
more). If no rcfile is found, or processing of the rcfile falls off the end, proc-
mail will store the mail in the default system mailbox.
If no rcfiles and no -p have been specified on the command line, procmail will,
prior to reading $HOME/.procmailrc, interpret commands from /etc/procmailrc (if
present). Care must be taken when creating /etc/procmailrc, because, if circum-
stances permit, it will be executed with root privileges (contrary to the
$HOME/.procmailrc file of course).
If running suid root or with root privileges, procmail will be able to perform as a
functionally enhanced, backwards compatible mail delivery agent.
Procmail can also be used as a general purpose mail filter, i.e., provisions have
been made to enable procmail to be invoked in a special sendmail rule.
The rcfile format is described in detail in the procmailrc(5) man page.
The weighted scoring technique is described in detail in the procmailsc(5) man
page.
Examples for rcfile recipes can be looked up in the procmailex(5) man page.
Signals
TERMINATE Terminate prematurely and requeue the mail.
HANGUP Terminate prematurely and bounce the mail.
INTERRUPT Terminate prematurely and bounce the mail.
QUIT Terminate prematurely and silently lose the mail.
ALARM Force a timeout (see TIMEOUT).
USR1 Equivalent to a VERBOSE=off.
USR2 Equivalent to a VERBOSE=on.
OPTIONS
-v Procmail will print its version number, display its compile time configuration
and exit.
-p Preserve any old environment. Normally procmail clears the environment upon
startup, except for the value of TZ. However, in any case: any default values
will override any preexisting environment variables, i.e., procmail will not
pay any attention to any predefined environment variables, it will happily
overwrite them with its own defaults. For the list of environment variables
that procmail will preset see the procmailrc(5) man page. If both -p and -m
are specified, the list of preset environment variables shrinks to just: LOG-
NAME, HOME, SHELL, ORGMAIL and MAILDIR.
-t Make procmail fail softly, i.e., if procmail cannot deliver the mail to any of
the destinations you gave, the mail will not bounce, but will return to the
mailqueue. Another delivery-attempt will be made at some time in the future.
-f fromwhom
Causes procmail to regenerate the leading ‘From ’ line with fromwhom as the
sender (instead of -f one could use the alternate and obsolete -r). If
fromwhom consists merely of a single ‘-’, then procmail will only update the
timestamp on the ‘From ’ line (if present, if not, it will generate a new
one).
-o Instead of allowing anyone to generate ‘From ’ lines, simply override the
fakes.
-Y Assume traditional Berkeley mailbox format, ignore any Content-Length: fields.
-a argument
This will set $1 to be equal to argument. Each succeeding -a argument will
set the next number variable ($2, $3, etc). It can be used to pass meta
information along to procmail. This is typically done by passing along the
$@x information from the sendmail mailer rule.
-d recipient ...
This turns on explicit delivery mode, delivery will be to the local user
recipient. This, of course, only is possible if procmail has root privileges
(or if procmail is already running with the recipient’s euid and egid). Proc-
mail will setuid to the intended recipients and delivers the mail as if it
were invoked by the recipient with no arguments (i.e., if no rcfile is found,
delivery is like ordinary mail). This option is incompatible with -p.
-m Turns procmail into a general purpose mail filter. In this mode one rcfile
must be specified on the command line. After the rcfile, procmail will accept
an unlimited number of arguments. If the rcfile is an absolute path starting
with /etc/procmailrcs/ without backward references (i.e. the parent directory
cannot be mentioned) procmail will, only if no security violations are found,
take on the identity of the owner of the rcfile (or symbolic link). For some
advanced usage of this option you should look in the EXAMPLES section below.
-z This turns on LMTP mode, wherein procmail acts as an RFC2033 LMTP server.
Delivery takes place in the same manner and under the same restrictions as
the delivery mode enabled with -d. This option is incompatible with -p and
-f.
ARGUMENTS
Any arguments containing an ’=’ are considered to be environment variable assign-
ments, they will all be evaluated after the default values have been assigned and
before the first rcfile is opened.
Any other arguments are presumed to be rcfile paths (either absolute, or if they
start with ‘./’ relative to the current directory; any other relative path is rela-
tive to $HOME, unless the -m option has been given, in which case all relative
paths are relative to the current directory); procmail will start with the first
one it finds on the command line. The following ones will only be parsed if the
preceding ones have a not matching HOST-directive entry, or in case they should not
exist.
If no rcfiles are specified, it looks for $HOME/.procmailrc. If not even that can
be found, processing will continue according to the default settings of the envi-
ronment variables and the ones specified on the command line.
EXAMPLES
Examples for rcfile recipes can be looked up in the procmailex(5) man page. A
small sample rcfile can be found in the NOTES section below.
Skip the rest of this EXAMPLES section unless you are a system administrator who is
vaguely familiar with sendmail.cf syntax.
The -m option is typically used when procmail is called from within a rule in the
sendmail.cf file. In order to be able to do this it is convenient to create an
extra ‘procmail’ mailer in your sendmail.cf file (in addition to the perhaps
already present ‘local’ mailer that starts up procmail). To create such a ‘proc-
mail’ mailer I’d suggest something like:
Mprocmail, P=/usr/bin/procmail, F=mSDFMhun, S=11, R=21,
A=procmail -m $h $g $u
This enables you to use rules like the following (most likely in ruleset 0) to fil-
ter mail through the procmail mailer (please note the leading tab to continue the
rule, and the tab to separate the comments):
R$*<@some.where>$*
$#procmail $@/etc/procmailrcs/some.rc $:$1 AT some.procmail$2
R$*<@$*.procmail>$*
$1<@$2>$3 Already filtered, map back
And /etc/procmailrcs/some.rc could be as simple as:
SENDER = "<$1>" # fix for empty sender addresses
SHIFT = 1 # remove it from $@
:0 # sink all junk mail
* ^Subject:.*junk
/dev/null
:0 w # pass along all other mail
! -oi -f "$SENDER" "$@"
Do watch out when sending mail from within the /etc/procmailrcs/some.rc file, if
you send mail to addresses which match the first rule again, you could be creating
an endless mail loop.
FILES
/etc/passwd to set the recipient’s LOGNAME, HOME and SHELL variable
defaults
/var/mail/$LOGNAME system mailbox; both the system mailbox and the immediate
directory it is in will be created every time procmail
starts and either one is not present
/etc/procmailrc initial global rcfile
/etc/procmailrcs/ special privileges path for rcfiles
$HOME/.procmailrc default rcfile
/var/mail/$LOGNAME.lock
lockfile for the system mailbox (not automatically used by
procmail, unless $DEFAULT equals /var/mail/$LOGNAME and
procmail is delivering to $DEFAULT)
/usr/sbin/sendmail default mail forwarder
_????â€â€˜hostnameâ€â€˜ temporary ‘unique’ zero-length files created by procmail
SEE ALSO
procmailrc(5), procmailsc(5), procmailex(5), sh(1), csh(1), mail(1), mailx(1),
binmail(1), uucp(1), aliases(5), sendmail(8), egrep(1), grep(1), biff(1),
comsat(8), lockfile(1), formail(1), cron(1)
DIAGNOSTICS
Autoforwarding mailbox found
The system mailbox had its suid or sgid bit set, procmail
terminates with EX_NOUSER assuming that this mailbox must
not be delivered to.
Bad substitution of "x"
Not a valid environment variable name specified.
Closing brace unexpected
There was no corresponding opening brace (nesting block).
Conflicting options Not all option combinations are useful
Conflicting x suppressed
Flag x is not compatible with some other flag on this
recipe.
Couldn’t create "x" The system mailbox was missing and could not/will not be
created.
Couldn’t create maildir part "x"
The maildir folder "x" is missing one or more required sub-
directories and procmail could not create them.
Couldn’t create or rename temp file "x"
An error occurred in the mechanics of delivering to the di-
rectory folder "x".
Couldn’t determine implicit lockfile from "x"
There were no ‘>>’ redirectors to be found, using simply
‘$LOCKEXT’ as locallockfile.
Couldn’t read "x" Procmail was unable to open an rcfile or it was not a regu-
lar file, or procmail couldn’t open an MH directory to find
the highest numbered file.
Couldn’t unlock "x" Lockfile was already gone, or write permission to the direc-
tory where the lockfile is has been denied.
Deadlock attempted on "x"
The locallockfile specified on this recipe is equal to a
still active $LOCKFILE.
Denying special privileges for "x"
Procmail will not take on the identity that comes with the
rcfile because a security violation was found (e.g. -p or
variable assignments on the command line) or procmail had
insufficient privileges to do so.
Descriptor "x" was not open
As procmail was started, stdin, stdout or stderr was not
connected (possibly an attempt to subvert security)
Enforcing stricter permissions on "x"
The system mailbox of the recipient was found to be unse-
cured, procmail secured it.
Error while writing to "x"
Nonexistent subdirectory, no write permission, pipe died or
disk full.
Exceeded LINEBUF Buffer overflow detected, LINEBUF was too small, PROC-
MAIL_OVERFLOW has been set.
MAILDIR is not an absolute path
MAILDIR path too long
ORGMAIL is not an absolute path
ORGMAIL path too long
default rcfile is not an absolute path
default rcfile path too long
The specified item’s full path, when expanded, was longer
than LINEBUF or didn’t start with a file separator.
Excessive output quenched from "x"
The program or filter "x" tried to produce too much output
for the current LINEBUF, the rest was discarded and PROC-
MAIL_OVERFLOW has been set.
Extraneous x ignored The action line or other flags on this recipe makes flag x
meaningless.
Failed forking "x" Process table is full (and NORESRETRY has been exhausted).
Failed to execute "x" Program not in path, or not executable.
Forced unlock denied on "x"
No write permission in the directory where lockfile "x" re-
sides, or more than one procmail trying to force a lock at
exactly the same time.
Forcing lock on "x" Lockfile "x" is going to be removed by force because of a
timeout (see also: LOCKTIMEOUT).
Incomplete recipe The start of a recipe was found, but it stranded in an EOF.
Insufficient privileges
Procmail either needs root privileges, or must have the
right (e)uid and (e)gid to run in delivery mode. The mail
will bounce.
Invalid regexp "x" The regular expression "x" contains errors (most likely some
missing or extraneous parens).
Kernel-lock failed While trying to use the kernel-supported locking calls, one
of them failed (usually indicates an OS error), procmail ig-
nores this error and proceeds.
Kernel-unlock failed See above.
Lock failure on "x" Can only occur if you specify some real weird (and illegal)
lockfilenames or if the lockfile could not be created be-
cause of insufficient permissions or nonexistent subdirecto-
ries.
Lost "x" Procmail tried to clone itself but could not find back rc-
file "x" (it either got removed or it was a relative path
and you changed directory since procmail opened it last
time).
Missing action The current recipe was found to be incomplete.
Missing closing brace A nesting block was started, but never finished.
Missing name The -f option needs an extra argument.
Missing argument You specified the -a option but forgot the argument.
Missing rcfile You specified the -m option, procmail expects the name of an
rcfile as argument.
Missing recipient You specified the -d option or called procmail under a dif-
ferent name, it expects one or more recipients as arguments.
No space left to finish writing "x"
The filesystem containing "x" does not have enough free
space to permit delivery of the message to the file.
Out of memory The system is out of swap space (and NORESRETRY has been ex-
hausted).
Processing continued The unrecognised options on the command line are ignored,
proceeding as usual.
Program failure (nnn) of "x"
Program that was started by procmail returned nnn instead of
EXIT_SUCCESS (=0); if nnn is negative, then this is the sig-
nal the program died on.
Quota exceeded while writing "x"
The filesize quota for the recipient on the filesystem con-
taining "x" does not permit delivering the message to the
file.
Renaming bogus "x" into "x"
The system mailbox of the recipient was found to be bogus,
procmail performed evasive actions.
Rescue of unfiltered data succeeded/failed
A filter returned unsuccessfully, procmail tried to get back
the original text.
Skipped: "x" Couldn’t do anything with "x" in the rcfile (syntax error),
ignoring it.
Suspicious rcfile "x" The owner of the rcfile was not the recipient or root, the
file was world writable, or the directory that contained it
was world writable, or this was the default rcfile
($HOME/.procmailrc) and either it was group writable or the
directory that contained it was group writable (the rcfile
was not used).
Terminating prematurely whilst waiting for ...
Procmail received a signal while it was waiting for ...
Timeout, terminating "x"
Timeout has occurred on program or filter "x".
Timeout, was waiting for "x"
Timeout has occurred on program, filter or file "x". If it
was a program or filter, then it didn’t seem to be running
anymore.
Truncated file to former size
The file could not be delivered to successfully, so the file
was truncated to its former size.
Truncating "x" and retrying lock
"x" does not seem to be a valid filename or the file is not
empty.
Unable to treat as directory "x"
Either the suffix on "x" would indicate that it should be an
MH or maildir folder, or it was listed as an second folder
into which to link, but it already exists and is not a di-
rectory.
Unexpected EOL Missing closing quote, or trying to escape EOF.
Unknown user "x" The specified recipient does not have a corresponding uid.
EXTENDED DIAGNOSTICS
Extended diagnostics can be turned on and off through setting the VERBOSE variable.
[pid] time & date Procmail’s pid and a timestamp. Generated whenever procmail
logs a diagnostic and at least a second has elapsed since
the last timestamp.
Acquiring kernel-lock Procmail now tries to kernel-lock the most recently opened
file (descriptor).
Assigning "x" Environment variable assignment.
Assuming identity of the recipient, VERBOSE=off
Dropping all privileges (if any), implicitly turns off ex-
tended diagnostics.
Bypassed locking "x" The mail spool directory was not accessible to procmail, it
relied solely on kernel locks.
Executing "x" Starting program "x". If it is started by procmail directly
(without an intermediate shell), procmail will show where it
separated the arguments by inserting commas.
HOST mismatched "x" This host was called "x", HOST contained something else.
Locking "x" Creating lockfile "x".
Linking to "x" Creating a hardlink between directory folders.
Match on "x" Condition matched.
Matched "x" Assigned "x" to MATCH.
No match on "x" Condition didn’t match, recipe skipped.
Non-zero exitcode (nnn) by "x"
Program that was started by procmail as a condition or as
the action of a recipe with the ‘W’ flag returned nnn in-
stead of EXIT_SUCCESS (=0); the usage indicates that this is
not an entirely unexpected condition.
Notified comsat: "$LOGNAME@offset:file"
Sent comsat/biff a notice that mail arrived for user $LOG-
NAME at ‘offset’ in ‘file’.
Opening "x" Opening file "x" for appending.
Rcfile: "x" Rcfile changed to "x".
Reiterating kernel-lock
While attempting several locking methods, one of these
failed. Procmail will reiterate until they all succeed in
rapid succession.
Score: added newtotal "x"
This condition scored ‘added’ points, which resulted in a
‘newtotal’ score.
Unlocking "x" Removing lockfile "x" again.
WARNINGS
You should create a shell script that uses lockfile(1) before invoking your mail
shell on any mailbox file other than the system mailbox (unless of course, your
mail shell uses the same lockfiles (local or global) you specified in your rcfile).
In the unlikely event that you absolutely need to kill procmail before it has fin-
ished, first try and use the regular kill command (i.e., not kill -9, see the sub-
section Signals for suggestions), otherwise some lockfiles might not get removed.
Beware when using the -t option, if procmail repeatedly is unable to deliver the
mail (e.g., due to an incorrect rcfile), the system mailqueue could fill up. This
could aggravate both the local postmaster and other users.
The /etc/procmailrc file might be executed with root privileges, so be very careful
of what you put in it. SHELL will be equal to that of the current recipient, so if
procmail has to invoke the shell, you’d better set it to some safe value first.
See also: DROPPRIVS.
Keep in mind that if chown(1) is permitted on files in /etc/procmailrcs/, that they
can be chowned to root (or anyone else) by their current owners. For maximum secu-
rity, make sure this directory is executable to root only.
Procmail is not the proper tool for sharing one mailbox among many users, such as
when you have one POP account for all mail to your domain. It can be done if you
manage to configure your MTA to add some headers with the envelope recipient data
in order to tell Procmail who a message is for, but this is usually not the right
thing to do. Perhaps you want to investigate if your MTA offers ‘virtual user ta-
bles’, or check out the ‘multidrop’ facility of Fetchmail.
BUGS
After removing a lockfile by force, procmail waits $SUSPEND seconds before creating
a new lockfile so that another process that decides to remove the stale lockfile
will not remove the newly created lock by mistake.
Procmail uses the regular TERMINATE signal to terminate any runaway filter, but it
does not check if the filter responds to that signal and it only sends it to the
filter itself, not to any of the filter’s children.
A continued Content-Length: field is not handled correctly.
The embedded newlines in a continued header should be skipped when matching instead
of being treated as a single space as they are now.
MISCELLANEOUS
If there is an existing Content-Length: field in the header of the mail and the -Y
option is not specified, procmail will trim the field to report the correct size.
Procmail does not change the fieldwidth.
If there is no Content-Length: field or the -Y option has been specified and proc-
mail appends to regular mailfolders, any lines in the body of the message that look
like postmarks are prepended with ‘>’ (disarms bogus mailheaders). The regular ex-
pression that is used to search for these postmarks is:
‘\nFrom ’
If the destination name used in explicit delivery mode is not in /etc/passwd, proc-
mail will proceed as if explicit delivery mode was not in effect. If not in ex-
plicit delivery mode and should the uid procmail is running under, have no corre-
sponding /etc/passwd entry, then HOME will default to /, LOGNAME will default to
#uid, SHELL will default to /bin/sh, and ORGMAIL will default to /tmp/dead.letter.
When in explicit delivery mode, procmail will generate a leading ‘From ’ line if
none is present. If one is already present procmail will leave it intact. If
procmail is not invoked with one of the following user or group ids: root, daemon,
uucp, mail, x400, network, list, slist, lists or news, but still has to generate or
accept a new ‘From ’ line, it will generate an additional ‘>From ’ line to help
distinguish fake mails.
For security reasons procmail will only use an absolute or $HOME-relative rcfile if
it is owned by the recipient or root, not world writable, and the directory it is
contained in is not world writable. The $HOME/.procmailrc file has the additional
constraint of not being group-writable or in a group-writable directory.
If /var/mail/$LOGNAME is a bogus mailbox (i.e., does not belong to the recipient,
is unwritable, is a symbolic link or is a hard link), procmail will upon startup
try to rename it into a file starting with ‘BOGUS.$LOGNAME.’ and ending in an in-
ode-sequence-code. If this turns out to be impossible, ORGMAIL will have no ini-
tial value, and hence will inhibit delivery without a proper rcfile.
If /var/mail/$LOGNAME already is a valid mailbox, but has got too loose permissions
on it, procmail will correct this. To prevent procmail from doing this make sure
the u+x bit is set.
When delivering to directories, MH folders, or maildir folders, you donâ€â€™t need to
use lockfiles to prevent several concurrently running procmail programs from mess-
ing up.
Delivering to MH folders is slightly more time consuming than delivering to normal
directories or mailboxes, because procmail has to search for the next available
number (instead of having the filename immediately available).
On general failure procmail will return EX_CANTCREAT, unless option -t is speci-
fied, in which case it will return EX_TEMPFAIL.
To make ‘egrepping’ of headers more consistent, procmail concatenates all continued
header fields; but only internally. When delivering the mail, line breaks will ap-
pear as before.
If procmail is called under a name not starting with ‘procmail’ (e.g., if it is
linked to another name and invoked as such), it comes up in explicit delivery mode,
and expects the recipients’ names as command line arguments (as if -d had been
specified).
Comsat/biff notifications are done using udp. They are sent off once when procmail
generates the regular logfile entry. The notification messages have the following
extended format (or as close as you can get when final delivery was not to a file):
$LOGNAME@offset_of_message_in_mailbox:absolute_path_to_mailbox
Whenever procmail itself opens a file to deliver to, it consistently uses the fol-
lowing kernel locking strategies: fcntl(2).
Procmail is NFS-resistant and eight-bit clean.
NOTES
Calling up procmail with the -h or -? options will cause it to display a command-
line help and recipe flag quick-reference page.
There exists an excellent newbie FAQ about mailfilters (and procmail in particu-
lar); it is maintained by Nancy McGough <nancym AT ii.com> and can be obtained by
sending a mail to mail-server AT rtfm.edu with the following in the body:
send usenet/news.answers/mail/filtering-faq
Instead of using the system provided invocation of procmail when mail arrives, you
can control the invocation of procmail yourself. In this case your $HOME/.forward
(beware, it has to be world readable) file should contain the line below. Be sure
to include the single and double quotes, and unless you know your site to be run-
ning smrsh (the SendMail Restricted SHell), it must be an absolute path.
"|exec /usr/bin/procmail"
Some mailers (notably exim) do not currently accept the above syntax. In such case
use this instead:
|/usr/bin/procmail
Procmail can also be invoked to postprocess an already filled system mailbox. This
can be useful if you don’t want to or can’t use a $HOME/.forward file (in which
case the following script could periodically be called from within cron(1), or
whenever you start reading mail):
#!/bin/sh
ORGMAIL=/var/mail/$LOGNAME
if cd $HOME &&
test -s $ORGMAIL &&
lockfile -r0 -l1024 .newmail.lock 2>/dev/null
then
trap "rm -f .newmail.lock" 1 2 3 13 15
umask 077
lockfile -l1024 -ml
cat $ORGMAIL >>.newmail &&
cat /dev/null >$ORGMAIL
lockfile -mu
formail -s procmail <.newmail &&
rm -f .newmail
rm -f .newmail.lock
fi
exit 0
A sample small $HOME/.procmailrc:
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail #you’d better make sure it exists
DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/mbox #completely optional
LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/from #recommended
:0:
* ^From.*berg
from_me
:0
* ^Subject:.*Flame
/dev/null
Other examples for rcfile recipes can be looked up in the procmailex(5) man page.
SOURCE
This program is part of the procmail mail-processing-package (v3.22) available at
http://www.procmail.org/ or ftp.procmail.org in pub/procmail/.
MAILINGLIST
There exists a mailinglist for questions relating to any program in the procmail
package:
<procmail-users AT procmail.org>
for submitting questions/answers.
<procmail-users-request AT procmail.org>
for subscription requests.
If you would like to stay informed about new versions and official patches send a
subscription request to
procmail-announce-request AT procmail.org
(this is a readonly list).
AUTHORS
Stephen R. van den Berg
<srb AT cuci.nl>
Philip A. Guenther
<guenther AT sendmail.com>
BuGless 2001/08/27 PROCMAIL(1)
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