README

NAME
    gurgitate-mail - an easy-to-use mail filter

SYNOPSIS
    gurgitate-mail [-s SENDER] [-f RULESFILE] [-h]

DESCRIPTION
    "gurgitate-mail" is a program which reads your mail and filters it
    according to the .gurgitate-rules.rb file in your home directory. The
    configuration file uses Ruby syntax and is thus quite flexible.

    It's generally invoked either through your .forward file:

        "|/path/to/gurgitate-mail"

    Or through your .procmailrc file:

        :0:
        | /path/to/gurgitate-mail

    Alternatively, if you're the sysadmin at your site, or your sysadmin is
    friendly, you can use gurgitate-mail as a local delivery agent. For
    postfix, put

        mailbox_command=/opt/bin/gurgitate-mail

    in /etc/postfix/main.cf. If you use any other MTA, and configure
    gurgitate-mail as a local delivery agent, please tell me how! I want to
    include this in the documentation.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
    gurgitate-mail lets you alter its default behaviour with some
    command-line flags:

    -s SENDER
         Sets the envelope sender to SENDER.

    -f RULESFILE
         Uses RULESFILE as the source for gurgitate-rules rather than the
         default /$HOME/.gurgitate-rules.

    -h   Outputs a quick summary of the options available.

CONFIGURATION FILES
    There are three configuration files used by gurgitate-mail: two are
    system-wide, and the third, is the user rules file.

    The two system-wide configuration files are /etc/gurgitate-rules and
    /etc/gurgitate-rules-default. These are processed before and after the
    user rules, respectively.

    /etc/gurgitate-rules is used to handle system-wide filtering needs:
    setting the default mailbox style to Maildir rather than the default
    MBox, setting the spool directory, things like that.

    The user configuration file is $HOME/.gurgitate-rules (or,
    alternatively, $HOME/.gurgitate-rules.rb. Either work). You put your own
    rules here. If the user configuration file doesn't encounter a "return"
    during processing, then the additional rules contained in
    /etc/gurgitate-rules-default are run. If that also doesn't return, then
    mail messages are saved into the default mail spool location.

    If the "-f" option is used on the commandline, then the file specified
    will be used and the default rules will not. The "-f" option can be used
    more than once:

        gurgitate-mail -f test-rules -f additional-rules

CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS
    There are several parameters that you can set to change the way that
    gurgitate-mail behaves. You set a config parameter by saying, for
    instance:

        sendmail "/usr/sbin/sendmail"

    which sets the "sendmail" parameter to "/usr/sbin/sendmail".

    maildir
         The directory you want to put mail folders into. This defaults to
         $HOME/Mail.

    logfile
         Where you went gurgitate-mail's log messages to go to. The standard
         location for this is $HOME/.gurgitate.log

    sendmail
         The full path to the sendmail program, used to deliver mail. This
         can be any program that takes as its parameters the list of
         addresses to deliver mail to, and that takes a mail message on
         standard input.

    homedir
         The full path of your home directory. This defaults to whatever
         your actual home directory is.

    spooldir
         The path where the system's mail spools goes to. This defaults to
         "/var/spool/mail". On a Maildir system, this should be set to the
         same as "homedir".

    spoolfile
         The mail spool file component of the full path of your mail spool.
         This is generally your username. Maildir users should set this to
         "Maildir".

    folderstyle
         The style of folders you prefer. This can be (at the moment) either
         MBox or Maildir.

FILTER RULES
    The filter rules are a series of Ruby statements, with the following
    methods and variables available:

  Variables
    from This contains the envelope "from" address of the email message.
         (Note that this isn't necessarily the same as the contents of the
         "From:" header)

    headers
         This is an object containing the headers of the message. There are
         several methods that come with this object:

    body This contains the body of the email message. As of yet, there's
         nothing really interesting which you can do with this, apart from
         assigning to it; you can rewrite the body of an email message this
         way. Dealing with attachments is planned for a future release of
         "gurgitate-mail".

    maildir
         The directory which contains the folders, used by the "save" method
         when you specify a folder as "=folder" (like Elm). Defaults to
         "$HOME/Mail".

    homedir
         Your home directory. Read-only.

    logfile
         The location of the "gurgitate-mail" logfile. If set to "nil", then
         no logging is done. Defaults to "$HOME/.gurgitate.log".

    sendmail
         The location of the "sendmail" program. Used by the "forward"
         method. Defaults to "/usr/lib/sendmail".

    spoolfile
         The location of the mail spool. Read-only.

  Methods
    matches(name(s),regex)
         Returns "true" if the header "name" matches the regular expression
         "regex". If "name" is an array of header names, then it returns
         true if at least one of the headers matches. Useful for testing
         whether both "To:" and "Cc:" headers match.

    from Returns the envelope "from" address of the email message. Note that
         this is the same as the bare "from".

    to   Returns a HeaderBag (a kind of array) with the contents of the "To"
         and the "Cc" headers.

    to_s As per Ruby convention, returns all the headers as a "String"
         object.

    save(mailbox)
         This saves the message to a mailbox. You can specify the mailbox as
         a word with an = sign in front of it, in which case it puts it into
         "maildir". If you don't use the =name format, then you need to
         specify an absolute pathname. If it can't write the message to the
         file you request it to, it'll attempt to write it to "spoolfile".

    forward(address)
         This forwards the email message to another email address.

    pipe(program)
         This pipes the message through "program". "pipe" returns the exit
         code of the program that the message was piped through.

    filter(program)
         This pipes the message through "program" and returns a new
         Gurgitate object containing the filtered mail. (This is handy for
         external filters which modify email like, for example,
         SpamAssassin, which adds a spam-score header.)

         You can also say

             filter(program) do
                 # code here
             end

         and it yields the newly-created Gurgitate object to the block.

    headers
         This returns the headers as an object of their own. This object has
         its own methods:

         headers[*headernames]
              This returns a HeaderBag (a subclass of array) containing the
              headers you asked for. You can then use the =~ operator on
              this result to match the RHS regex with everything in the
              HeaderBag.

              You can change a header's value with "headers[name]=newvalue".

         headers.match(name,regex)
              Matches the header with the name "name" against the regex.
              This is the same as headers[name] =~ /regex/.

         headers.matches(names,regex)
              Matches the headers with the names "names" against the regex.
              This is the same as headers[*names] =~ /regex/.

         headers.from
              Returns the envelope from. You can change this with
              "headers.from=newaddress" too.

    return
         This tells "gurgitate-mail" to stop processing the email message.
         If you don't use "return", then "gurgitate-mail" will continue
         processing the same mail again with the next rule. If there isn't a
         "return" at the end of gurgitate-rules.rb, then "gurgitate-mail"
         will save the email message in the normal mail spool.

    log(message)
         This writes a log message to the log file.

SIMPLE EXAMPLES
    Here are some examples of "gurgitate-mail" rules, with explanations:

        if from =~ /ebay.com/ then save("=ebay"); return; end

    Any email from eBay (automatic end-of-auction notifications, for
    example, and outbid notices) gets filed into the "ebay" folder.

        if from =~ /root@/ then save("=root"); return; end

    Any email from root (at any host) gets filed into a special folder.
    Useful for sysadmins monitoring crontab email.

        if headers.matches(["To","Cc"],"webmaster@") then
            save("=webmaster")
            return
        end

    Any email with a To: or Cc: line of "sysadmin" is saved to a "sysadmin"
    folder. Useful for people with multiple role accounts redirected to
    their address.

        if headers["Subject"] =~ /\[SPAM\]/ then
            save("=spam")
            return
        end

    This is a different syntax for matching patterns against headers. You
    can also match multiple headers in the square brackets.

        if headers["Subject","Keywords"] =~ /a bad word/ then
            save("=swearing")
            return
        end

    Searches for "a bad word" in the Subject and Keywords headers, and if
    it's there, saves the email in the "swearing" folder.

        if headers.matches(["To","Cc"],"mailing-list@example.com") then
            pipe("rcvstore +mailing-list")
            return
        end

    Any email to a mailing list is piped through "rcvstore" to store it into
    an MH folder.

    That

        headers.matches(["To","Cc"],/regex/)

    idiom happens often enough that there's a shorthand for it:

        if to =~ /mailing-list@example.com/ then
            pipe("rcvstore +mailing-list")
            return
        end

    Pipes the mail to the mailing list through "rcvstore".

ADVANCED EXAMPLES
    Here are some slightly more clever examples to give you an idea of what
    you can do with "gurgitate-mail". Let's suppose you have an email
    whitelist in a file called $HOME/.friends, so you can determine whether
    some email is likely to be spam or not.

    Then if someone on your whitelist sends you email, then you
    automatically save that into the "inbox" folder:

        friends=homedir+"/.friends"
        if FileTest.exists?(friends) and FileTest.readable?(friends) then
            File.new(friends).each do |friend|
                if from =~ friend.chomp then
                    log "Mail from friend "+friend.chomp
                    save("=inbox")
                    return
                end
            end
        end

    Okay, if someone sends you email, and it's addressed specifically to you
    (and gurgitate-mail hasn't caught it in another form already), then it
    might or might not be spam: put it into a "grey" folder:

        my_addresses= [ /me@example\.com/i,
                        /me@example\.org/i,
                        /me@example\.net/i];  # I have three email addresses
        my_addresses.each do |addr|
            if headers.matches(["To","Cc"],addr) then
                save("=possibly-not-spam")
                return
            end
        end

    And after that, if it's not from someone you know, and it's not
    addressed to your email address either, then it's probably save to
    assume that it's spam:

        save("=spam")
        return

    This can be improved by using a Bayesian filter, though; for example,
    Eric Raymond's bogofilter program (http://bogofilter.sourceforge.net)
    can be automatically trained and used with the help of the
    white/grey/black distinctions. Taking the example above, I'll adjust it
    by adding in calls to bogofilter:

        friends=homedir+"/.friends"
        if FileTest.exists?(friends) and FileTest.readable?(friends) then
            File.new(friends).each do |friend|
                if from =~ friend.chomp then
                    log "Mail from friend "+friend.chomp
                    pipe("bogofilter -h")  # <-- LINE ADDED HERE
                    save("=inbox")
                    return
                end
            end
        end

    "bogofilter -h" trains bogofilter that mail from whitelisted-people is
    not to be considered spam. Okay, at the end of the .gurgitate-rules,
    change

        save("=spam")
        return

    to

        save("=spam")
        pipe("bogofilter -s")
        return

    This trains "bogofilter" that anything which doesn't pass the rest of
    the filter should be considered spam. Now for the interesting bit:
    Change the bit between these to use "bogofilter" to decide whether email
    is to be considered spam or not:

        my_addresses= [ /me@example\.com/i,
                        /me@example\.org/i,
                        /me@example\.net/i];  # I have three email addresses
        my_addresses.each do |addr|
            if headers.matches(["To","Cc"],addr) then
                if pipe("bogofilter")==1
                then
                    log("bogofilter suspects it might not be spam")
                    save("=possibly-not-spam")
                else
                    log("bogofilter thinks it's probably spam")
                    save("=spam")
                end
                return
            end
        end

    "bogofilter" has an exit code of "1" if it thinks the message is not
    spam, and "0" if it thinks the message is spam.

    Hopefully this should give you an idea of the kinds of things that you
    can use "bogofilter" for.

AUTHOR
    Dave Brown <gurgitate-mail@dagbrown.com>