MIMEDEFANG.PL(8) System Manager's Manual MIMEDEFANG.PL(8)NAME
mimedefang.pl - Perl script to scan MIME messages.
SYNOPSIS
mimedefang.pl [-f filter] dir
DESCRIPTION
mimedefang.pl is a Perl script designed to work with mimedefang(8). It takes a single argument which is a directory which should contain
files laid out as described in mimedefang(8).
OPTIONS -f filter
Specifies the name of the file containing the filter. If this option is omitted, the default filter /etc/mimedefang-filter is used.
OPERATION
mimedefang.pl evaluates the file /etc/mimedefang-filter as a Perl fragment. This file should define the filter procedure. For each part
of a MIME message, mimedefang.pl calls filter and disposes of the part as instructed by the filter. The various modes of disposition are
described in mimedefang-filter(5).
TESTING FILTERS
You are strongly recommended to test your filter before installing it in /etc/mimedefang-filter. To test the filter, save it in a file
(e.g. test-filter) and run this command:
mimedefang.pl -f test-filter -test
This tests the filter for syntactic correctness. If it passes, you can install it as a production filter. (Note that the test tests only
for correct Perl syntax; it doesn't make sure your filter does something sensible.)
MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS
There are a few other ways to invoke mimedefang.pl:
mimedefang.pl -structure < mime_message
parses a message on stdin and prints lots of debugging information.
mimedefang.pl -prettyprint < mime_message
parses a message on stdin and prints it in a "nice" format (depending on your definition of "nice".)
mimedefang.pl -features
prints a list of detected optional Perl modules. The output looks something like this:
SpamAssassin: yes
mimedefang.pl -validate
calls the function filter_validate, if it is defined in your filter. filter_validate should return an integer; this becomes the exit code.
If filter_validate does not exist, an error message is printed and mimedefang.pl exits with an exit code of 1.
AUTHOR
mimedefang.pl was written by David F. Skoll <dfs@roaringpenguin.com>. The mimedefang home page is http://www.mimedefang.org/.
SEE ALSO mimedefang(8), mimedefang-filter(5), mimedefang-protocol(7)4th Berkeley Distribution 8 February 2005 MIMEDEFANG.PL(8)
Check Out this Related Man Page
WATCH-MIMEDEFANG(8) System Manager's Manual WATCH-MIMEDEFANG(8)NAME
watch-mimedefang - Keep an eye on mimedefang-multiplexor
SYNOPSIS
watch-mimedefang [options]
DESCRIPTION
watch-mimedefang is a Tk script which graphically displays the status of mimedefang-multiplexor(8). Note that Tcl/Tk 8.0 or higher is
required to run watch-mimedefang.
DISPLAY
watch-mimedefang's display is divided into three main areas, from top to bottom:
o The graph display shows six graphs representing various statistics about the multiplexor.
o The control area shows the maximum number of slaves, number of busy slaves, and number of idle slaves. The "Control Command" text
entry lets you monitor remote MIMEDefang servers; see "REMOTE MONITORING" for details.
The "10s", "1m", "5m" and "10m" checkboxes allow you to enable or disable the graphing of statistics averaged over the last 10 sec-
onds, 1 minute, 5 minutes and 10 minutes.
The "Reread Filters" button forces the multiplexor to reread filter rules. The "Quit" button terminates watch-mimedefang.
o The scale at the bottom lets you change the update interval (default 500ms). Be aware that frequent updating may make watch-mimede-
fang consume a significant fraction of CPU time.
THE GRAPH AREA
The graph area contains six graphs:
o Busy Slaves
This graph shows the number of busy slaves each time the statistics are sampled.
o Slaves/scan
This graph shows the average number of busy slaves each time a message was scanned. The red plot shows the average over the last
ten seconds, the blue plot shows the average over the last minute, and the green and yellow plots show the average over the last
five and ten minutes, respectively.
o Latency (ms)
This graph shows the average time taken by each SCAN command over the last ten seconds, one minute, five minutes and ten minutes.
o Messages/s
This graph shows the average number of messages per second that were scanned.
o Activations/s
This graph shows the average number of new slaves activated per second.
o Reaps/s
This graph shows the average number of slaves that have terminated per second.
If the Activations and Reaps increase significantly, it could indicate heavy load, or an error causing filters to terminate abnor-
mally.
If only Activations increase, then it probably indicates a sudden increase in e-mail volume.
If only Reaps increase, then it probably indicates a quiet time just after a period of heavy mail volume.
You can enable or disable the ten second, one minute, five minute or ten minute plots by clicking on the "10s", "1m", "5m" or "10m" check-
box.
REMOTE MONITORING
Running watch-mimedefang on your actual mail server poses two problems: You need Tcl/Tk and the X client libraries installed, and the CPU
consumption of watch-mimedefang can be considerable.
A better method is to run watch-mimedefang on a desktop machine, but have it monitor the mail server with a remote session.
The best way to establish a remote session is via SSH. For example, if you are running MIMEDefang on "mail.mydomain.net", you can type the
following into the Control Command entry box and press enter:
ssh root@mail.mydomain.net md-mx-ctrl
You must have a public/private key for the target machine and you must be running ssh-agent or equivalent; you cannot use an ssh command
that requires entry of a password or passphrase.
Assuming your SSH setup is correct, watch-mimedefang will open an SSH connection to mail.mydomain.net and exchange low-bandwith information
over that session for monitoring purposes.
COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
watch-mimedefang accepts the following command-line options:
-command cmd
Use cmd as the control command. You may need to quote cmd
-interval msec
Set the update interval to msec milliseconds.
-10s flag
Enable the "10s" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if flag is 0.
-1m flag
Enable the "1m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if flag is 0.
-5m flag
Enable the "5m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if flag is 0.
-10m flag
Enable the "10m" graph plot if flag is 1, or disable it if flag is 0.
-title string
Add string to the title of the main window.
-help Print usage information.
EXAMPLE
As an example, to monitor MIMEDefang on the machine "mail.mydomain.net" updating once a second, with the 5m and 10m plots turned off, use:
watch-mimedefang -command 'ssh root@mail.mydomain.net md-mx-ctrl'
-interval 1000 -5m 0 -10m 0 -title "mail"
AUTHOR
watch-mimedefang was written by David F. Skoll <dfs@roaringpenguin.com>. The mimedefang home page is http://www.mimedefang.org/.
PERMISSIONS
watch-mimedefang uses md-mx-ctrl; therefore, it probably needs to be run as root or the same user as mimedefang-multiplexor, or (if you are
monitoring a remote machine), the SSH connection must be done as root or the MIMEDefang user.
SEE ALSO mimedefang.pl(8), mimedefang-filter(5), mimedefang(8), mimedefang-protocol(7), md-mx-ctrl(8), watch-multiple-mimedefangs(8)4th Berkeley Distribution 24 October 2002 WATCH-MIMEDEFANG(8)