[olug] Python based replacement for Procmail

[Christopher Cashell]

At Mon, 11 Oct 04, Unidentified Flying Banana William E. Kempf, said:
> I have a love/hate relationship with procmail.  Being the "defacto
> standard" for filtering e-mail on Linux, I've been using it for several
> years now.  It works, but there are definately things I dislike about it. 
> Here's a list:

[Snip: Why procmail sucks.]

Yeah, I can't stand procmail.  Talk about a horrible monstrosity of an
ugly solution to a common situation.

> So, I decided I wanted a new solution.  Procmail is nice, but it's just
> not for me.  I thought a filter in a full scripting language would be much
> better, and since I like Python, I thought that would be the best solution
> for me.
> 
> So, lots of searching revealed only one solution... Pycmail.  And I hated
> it's design.  Despite the claim to be a Python version of Procmail, it
> just wasn't much like Procmail, or what I felt a filter script should be
> like.  So, I decided I needed to write my own.  I scoured the net once
> again for other mail filtering scripts in any language, looking for
> inspiration for a design for my own filter script.

[Snip.]

Just out of curiosity, did you look at maildrop[1], from the Courier[2]
project?

It's actually not Courier specific (Like Courier-IMAP, it will work with
other MTA's; I'm currently using it with Qmail, and the guy who
introduced me to it uses it with Postfix), and works quite well.

It supports basic logic, has an easy to read syntax (especially compared
to procmail), and generally does everything I need.  Integrating a spam
filter was a breeze, too.

> Sorry if this rambling was boring for anyone, but if you read this far and
> are interested in the script or in helping in any way, PLEASE send me a
> private e-mail.

I'm not much for Python, and quite satisfied with Maildrop, but I found
the post to be quite interesting, and worth reading. ;-)

> -- 
> William E. Kempf

 [1] http://www.courier-mta.org/maildrop/
 [2] http://www.courier-mta.org/

-- 
| Christopher
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| Here I stand.  I can do no other.              |
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