NAME
delmail
- deletes excess messages from a specified mail account on a remote IMAP server.
SYNOPSIS
delmail
[
-c
<config_file>
]
[
-b
<mailbox>
]
[
-d
]
[
-f
]
[
-i
<imap_server>
]
[
-L
]
[
-l
]
[
-m
<#max>
]
[
-n
]
[
-P
<passwd>
]
[
-p
<port_no>
]
[
-u
<login_name>
]
[
-v
]
[
config_id>
] |
[
-V
]
AVAILABILITY
delmail
is a Bourne shell script which should work equally well on all versions of UNIX,
Linux and Mac OS X.
DESCRIPTION
delmail
can use "
telnet
"
and "
expect
"
to connect to an IMAP server, examine nominated mailboxes and delete old
message in excess of the threshold set on the command line or in the configuration
file. This access method is preferred when the mail account is active. The
method is essential for Mbox mail formats.
Out of hours setting the
-p
option to port 22 causes the script to
ssh
to access the mail server and remove the message files directly. This is
quicker and appropriate to a regular overnight
cron
job, it does however require a Maildir email repository. It will not work
with Mbox or other mail formats.
I wrote this one after I discovered that a client who was complaining about
POP3 performance on a 1 and 1 server in the cloud, had over 20,000 messages in
her in-boxes, 13.5 thousand of them in a single mailbox. Nothing was ever
being deleted or archived, not even spam. Manipulating the mailboxes
through the Mac-OS X mail client was a nightmare. I needed a tool that
would monitor the the remote mailboxes and return data that I could feed
into alerts and e-mail reminders.
OPTIONS
-a
<mail_address>
-b
<mailbox>
Count the number of messages in the nominated mailboxes. The option is redundant
if the mailbox id is used.
-c
Use the specified configuration file in preference to the default
"/usr/local/etc/delmail.cf"
.
If no configuration file is found the
script will attempt to soldier on with whatever information was supplied from
the command line. If all else fails delmail will attempt to check
"
INBOX"
for the user invoking the script. The IMAP server name
being constructed from the local
domain (
hostname -d
). It would be more sensible to terminate
with syntax message on standard error but this does make some sort of sense
if like me you want a lazy way to count the messages
in your own in-box.
-d
Set debug mode on.
The
-x
option is set within the shell
and each command in the script is echoed to the console.
-i
<imap_server_name>
.
The name or IP address of the server to which the
expect
script or
ssh should connect.
This is only required in the unusual situation where the mail domain cannot
be resolved.
-l
Use the local syslog facility to log that the check has been made and
record the number of messages returned.
-w
<#max_no_of messages>
Sets the threshold for the number of messages a mail box may hold before
a warning is issued. If the
-n
option is used warning message will be sent by e-mail to the mail box owner or
the person defined in the configuration file with the
alert
equate, a
warning is also printed to standard error.
The warning threshold may also be set in the configuration file but will be
over ridden by the value set here.
-n
Notify the user that the deletions have taken place by send a
message to the mail box specified in the
configuration
file.
-P
<password>
.
The password for the mail user account. It is possible to use this option in combination with the configuration file if you don't want to store
passwords on disc. The mail account password is only required when imap is
being used (ie
-p 143
or
-p 993
.
-p
<port_number>
.
The ports that
delmail
knows how to handle are 143, 993 and 22.
If port 143 is used
delmail
will access the mail account using
expect
and
telnet
to send the appropriate
IMAP
commands.
If port 993 is selected
delmail
will try to use
openssl
with
expect.
Use of both ports 143 and 993 will be relatively slow and require knowledge of the
mail account password which may be passed on the command line or stored in
delmail.cf.
Using these options does however have the advantage that no knowledge of the
back end mail store architecture is required.
Using 22 (
ssh
)
has the advantage of being much quicker and the user only requires
sudo
root access. At present however only
Courier
mailboxes, as configured by
Plesk
under
CentOS
6,
are supported.
-s
Force the script to use the imap protocol to contact the mail host.
-u
<username>
.
The name for the IMAP account login. In reality this duplicates the
-a
option but it just seemed more intuitive to have both.
-v
Set verbose mode on. Without this option
delmail
reports only on those mail boxes where the number of messages either
equals or exceeds the trigger value for warnings. With the
-v
option
delmail
always reports the checking of a mail box and the number of messages found.
<
config_id
>
The configuration identity is the key to the stanza in the configuration
file which will be used to determine the values to be used by the script.
The configuration equates recognised by the scripts are:
addr Email address to be checked.
imap IMAP server name or IP.
passwd Password for the email account.
alert Recipient address for alerts.
warn Trigger value for e-mail alerts.
folders The mailbox folders to be checked.
-V
Print the version details and exit.
FILES
delmail.cf,
msg_cnt,
msg_del.
EXAMPLES
delmail -v -l -m 100 fulford@fulford.net
The id "flash" is looked up in the default configuration file
/usr/local/etc/delmail.cf
. Using the e-mail account name and
password found there, the script calls an
expect
script
"/usr/local/etc/msg_cnt"
to login to the IMAP server and
get a count of the messages in the nominated mailbox. If the number of
messages exceeds the default of 100 a warning is printed to screen.
delmail -a arthur.pendragon@camelot.co.uk \\
-i imap.mailservice.com -l -p password -m INBOX.Spam
No configuration id has been given so
delmail
will only use the command line options.
An IMAP login will be attempted
on imap.mailservice.com using the user name arthur.pendragon@camelot.co.uk
and the password "password" as given on the command line. The check will
be performed on the folder "INBOX.Spam"and the total number of messages
returned will be logged using the local syslog facility. A warning will
be printed to screen if the folder holds more than the default value of 100.
delmail -v -p 993 -m 1000 -x -n dermot
The script will look-up the details for "
dermot
" in the default
configuration file
/usr/local/etc/delmail.cf.
The account will be accessed using
SSL
(secure sockets layer) and the INBOX, together with any folders specified in
the stanza labelled
dermot,
will be checked and the number of messages counted.
If there are more than 1000
messages in any folder being checked, the nominated person
(which may or may not be the account holder) will be notified and requested
to ensure that excess messages are removed. The
-x
option will also ensure that messages in excess of 1000 will be deleted.
BUGS
The script is quite crude and has very little, if any, error checking.
The consequences of unexpected input are untested.
SEE ALSO
chkdf,
chkftpd,
chkfw,
chkup,
msg_cnt,
msg_del.
AUTHOR
Clifford W Fulford, City Linux. Contact fulford@fulford.net or +44 (0)709 229 5385.
