The Procmail Companion (Practical Solutions Series) [Paperback]

Martin Mccarthy (Author)

Book Description

Series: Practical Solutions Series | Publication Date: November 1, 2001

This book will explain in easy to understand language the complexities of Procmail. With almost all linux distributions including procmail as a standard package Unix like systems and procmail are finding their way into more office and homes leaving more people wondering how to do 'the clever bits'. The book will be split into 2 parts - the first part fairly introductory for new procmail users and the second more of a reference book for 'power procmail users'. The first part will have copious examples to help the reader using a mythical company as a running case study. The second part will provide solutions and tips and tricks for the more complex features of procmail.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Procmail Companion

Martin McCarthy

Are you receiving dozens of emails each day? Feeling overwhelmed? Do you want something that will make your life easier? That will separate personal email from work email? Then Procmail Companion will show you how to control your email rather than your email controlling you.

The Book:

Procmail is a program that can automatically process electronic mail. It is small, fast, secure and free! It runs on Unix and Unix-like systems and is growing in popularity. It kicks in after the mail arrives on your machine and before you read the mail. With a few simple sets of instructions, or recipes, Procmail puts all messages from a photography mailing list into one mailbox and all mail from a particular set of friends into another. Emails that tell you how to ‘make money fast' or asking if you would like ‘to buy a time share' are thrown away and don't waste your time. This book provides pain free explanations about how to use and get the most from Procmail. Using case studies, explanations and examples this book will teach new users how to use Procmail and give advanced users tips and tricks on the more esoteric features of Procmail.

Skills you will learn:

 

• explain the basics of how email systems work

• demonstrate where procmail fits within an email system

• demonstrate how to set up simple mail processing and filtering

• remove the mystery of procmail scoring

• demonstrate how to invoke external processing from within procmail

• explain all the features of procmail regular expressions

• provide a full and detailed reference to procmail syntax, macros, variables and diagnostic messages

 

Professional Comment

‘I get over 200 pieces of email every day on my work account. I get nearly that many to my home account and to legacy accounts that bounce around the universe prior to landing in some box or other. Procmail is my friend. Procmail filters and sorts my stuff. Martin McCarthy is my friend, too. For Marty has written a book on what Procmail can do and how to use it. If you want to know how Procmail can handle mailing lists, McCarthy tells you. If you want to handle SPAM, McCarthy tells you how. And if you'd like to do these things, but fear that you don't understand email of the Internet well enough, McCarthy gives you enough of an introduction so that you need not fear any more.

McCarthy's book had enabled me to put it to other uses. I am really gratified to have read it. You will be gratified too.'

Peter H. Salus (Chief Knowledge Officer at Matrix.Net)

About the Author

Martin McCarthy has been a software engineer for over 15 years working for a variety of organizations, developing systems that range from control of particle accelerators at a high-energy physics laboratory through to intelligence systems used by the police. He was the first chairman of RIPE (European Internet Registry) Test Traffic Working Group and a member of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) IP Performance Metrics Working Group. He is also the co-author, with Alligator Descartes, of Reality Architecture: Building 3D Worlds With Java and VRML (Prentice Hall).

 

About the Author

The author, Martin McCarthy, is an experienced author having written Reality Architecture for PH in 1996. This book was about an internet based multi-user distributed virtual reality system (think dreamcast - which has bombed - and so did the book!). He does have lots of valuable experience - including being part of the Internet Engineering Task Force monitoring group and has been part of the procmail mailing group for some time.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201737906
• ISBN-13: 978-0201737905
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,037,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Detail, February 8, 2002

By 

Shaun (Portland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Procmail Companion (Practical Solutions Series) (Paperback)

I've been using procmail in a basic way for a number of years. Whilst I've always meant to get around to using some of the more complicated (and useful) tools in the procmail toolbox, I've always been discouraged by the man pages.

This book explained those areas wondefully, and also showed me quite a few possibilities that had never occurred to me.

I think this book would be useful even if you already know procmail pretty well.

It would have got 5 stars, except for a couple of typos (involving quotes) that should have been caught. Mostly excellent!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I needed!, March 28, 2004

By 

Cyber Nut (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Procmail Companion (Practical Solutions Series) (Paperback)

I've been using procmail to filter my email for probably six or seven years, but in spite of reading whatever info I could find online, I was never able to get beyond the basics--until I came upon McCarthy's book. The online info seemed either too simpleminded or (more often) too complex. McCarthy's book has helped me enormously to create more sophisticated filter recipes, to understand what I'm doing, and to identify errors in my coding. I think the book would be helpful both to people new to procmail and to those with lots of experience who are looking to fine-tune what they already know. It's a terrific book!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally: Organization & Spam Relief, January 7, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Procmail Companion (Practical Solutions Series) (Paperback)

Unlike prior reviewers, all I could do was spell Unix when I purchased this book-- a desperation measure, to be sure. But trust me, folks, this little beauty is worth every penny and then some. Long story short: About a year ago, I implemented procmail on my website-hosted server. Since then, the email I care about is auto-filed into text files; spam is a past-tense item; and my email box is joyfully mine again. Tip: grab the freebie plain text editor, CrimsonEditor(.com), and activate color-coding so you can SEE what you're doing while fashioning filters. ..... This text is easy to digest, so you'll likely have filters up and testing within a weekend. (P.S. run google searches for "procmail recipes", as you can't "break" anything while trying!)