lcmail-wizard

lcmail-wizard :mailbox:

:blue_book: Description

The aim of these repo is try to facilitate new admins or 150hs to be procmail users using only LCM services to handle mails

• Are you an admin or staff member of LCM?

  If yes, sooner or later your LCM user will be added to some or (in the worst case) all mailing lists of LCM

  If no, why are you visiting this site? Get out of here!

• What does it mean?

  It means you will be flooded with mails every date! And yes, you can't follow the strategy INBOX for all, beacuse part of your work is to pay attention to these mails: check, reply, or even archive them

• So what is the strategy that is usually recommended?

  For now (pre zimbra deploy), there are 2 possibilities, depending on the content of your ~/.forward you can decide to be:

  • a spam forwarder + G-slave, forwarding all your LCM mail traffic (spam included) to an external mail account (that usually permit you to make filter rules easily using webUI, e.g. Gmail)

    $ cat ~/.forward
    nomeutentelcm
    nomeutentelcm@gmail.com
    

  Pros:

  • Easy filter rules management

  • More space for mails

    Against:

    • Increase the probability to blacklist pcteor1, because (in this way) is considered the source of spam
    • Depend on external proprietary service
    • Not use self-hosted LCM services, e.g. LCM webmail
    • Little delay in mail delivery
    • Pay attention also to your ~/.maildir, that can increase significantly (LCM home quota is 1G max)

  • a procmail user, so use procmail to filter out during the delivery to local ~/.maildir the mails

    $ cat ~/.forward
    "|IFS=' '&&exec /usr/bin/procmail -f-||exit 75"
    

    Pros:

    • Learn something new
    • Know and use all the services self-hosted by LCM (dovecot [imap], roundcube [webmail], postfix [smtp])
    • Hackable filter rule system

    Against:

    • Less space available
    • Time consuming configuration
    • The procmail conf needs a bit of run-in and control to understand that everything is handled correctly

:star: Features

• Very useful for IMAP + webmail workflow
• Auto trash script
• Custom configuration from a template for auto-trashing and filtering
• Easy setup, restore and reconfigure using make

:rocket: Setup

First setup:

• Automatic setup

  $ make install
  

• Manual setup

  $ make init
  

  Little explanation of config files:

  • filter-rules.rc

    Copy of my procmail filter rules (filter-rules.def.rc), the file is already commented, the key idea is to filter using mail headers (^From:, ^To:, ^Subject:) and delivery to custom folder. The ~/.maildir/. folder structure must be something like that:

    .maildir/
    ├── cur -> INBOX - read mails
    ├── new -> INBOX - unread mails
    ├── tmp
    ├──  .Admins
    │   ├── cur
    │   ├── new
    │   └── tmp
    ├── .Archive
    │   ├── cur
    │   ├── new
    │   └── tmp
    |
    .
    .
    .
    |
    └── .Trash
        ├── cur
        ├── new
        └── tmp
    

    You don't have to worry about replicating it manually, because lcmail-wizard.py --create do it for you parsing dirs from lcmail-wizard.yml

  • lcmail-wizard.yml

    YAML configuration file, divided in two list mail an log (procmail and lcmail-wizard.py log)

    For mail the meaning of the integers are the number of days to wait from the reading date before trash a mail (so number of days to wait after mail is moved inside *./cur to trash it). So no mails are trashed if not read! And no mail are completly delete (removed from trash) without your interaction

    There is an exception, the 0 has special meaning, it means no expiration, don't throw any mail, even if read

    For log the same thing, but simply on creation date (no meaning here read or not read)

  • lcmail-wizard.cron

    Simple cron file, to schedule lcmail-wizard.py script

  Free to add new custom rules inside filter-rules.rc, correct workflow:

  • modify filter-rules.rc
  • new rules? Modify lcmail-wizard.yml
  • rm rules? Modify lcmail-wizard.yml

  After that:

  $ make config    # backup and copy config
  $ make schedule  # schedule python script
  

For future, free to add new custom rules inside filter-rules.rc, correct workflow:

• modify filter-rules.rc
• new rules? So new dirs, modify lcmail-wizard.yml
• rm rules? So less dirs, if you want rm them manually inside ~/.maildir, if do it, delete them also inside lcmail-wizard.yml
• make reconfig

For auto trashing feat: if you decide to modify the lcmail-wizard.yml expiration date integers you are ok always (don't be afraid to reconfigure)

:dart: Sum up

Take home messages:

• don't be a spam-forwarder, be procmail user

• my personal workflow is IMAP to fetch mails and get notification on mobile, and if I need to write or answer a mail I use the LCM webmail on laptop. The configuration of webmail is very simple:

  login > Gear symbol (below) > Manage folders > Enable folders you want > Happy filtering :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

  Last advice in webmail, enable "Empty trash on logout"

  login > Settings (above) > Preferences > Server settings > Clear Trash on logout > Save