Linux

I have been looking around for a solution to this, i have been developing for a wile though am very new to CGI, PHP and a lot of the web based tech.

I have a web site hosted with a cPanel web host.

I am looking to have a script(prefer PHP) to run everytime i get a new email to help@xxx.com. The script that i was hoping run will update some vars on a sql data base.

I know how to accomplish all the tasks with PHP, the only part i am trying to figure out is how to tell my web server to run the script when a new email is received.

currently running a cron job and would prefer to not run the script every min and only when relevant.

Don't need a solution i like to do my own work, a point in the right learning direction would be nice.

procmail

I think your cron is the right track, but tastes vary.

You can check your mailbox file not empty very easily, and if there is mail, popen a mail command to read it or whatever.

A longer term cron is fine if it just restarts a looping script if not already running.

don't want to have a looping solution. Already doing that in the mean time and am trying to move to something a little more real time. How would i set the cron to check if the script is running or not?

@nneo
found something else on procmail another post stated
'got the result i'm looking for through .procmailrc in the ~/ directory of the user'
if that is what you are referring to then i can not find ~/ dir.
Just a reminder that i am using a cheepo web host. so i dont have root access.


I found this post that might be in the right direction
though i am not aloud to post the URL at the moment
this is the there sugestion
Look at using the /etc/aliases file - you can pipe the incoming message to a specific user into a program (or script)

looking @ my /etc/aliases is not there. So not sure how i would continue to use the above solution

.forward

in my root there is no .forward or in the etc or in any of the domain dir in the etc
should i just make one? then what should i do with it? or what should i read to know what i can do with it?

I know i said i am not looking for a solution, still true, but i could use a little more insight as i am newb to this world.

Thanks again for all your help thus far

Try looking for /etc/mail/aliases
create a line that looks like:
remember that myprocess had to process all the lines of the email including the header records.
I like to keep the email in the recipient mailbox as well so that the original email is still available if debugging is required.
run 'newaliases' after editing the file.