UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello,

On my machine, all mail is stored in my /var/spool/mail.

IS there a way to direct all mail that goes there into a namep pipe?

Thank you,
Dado

You can pipe the email to a script by changing the alias file (/etc/mail/aliases)
add:
john: john,|myprocess

The email will be processed as standard input by "myprocess". Don't forget to allow for the header records.

What are header records?

All of the records in the email ahead of the Subject line.
Usually.
From: ssssss
To:
Date:
Remarks: mmmmm

etc.
Look in /var/spool/mail/user, and look at all of the lines before the "useful" content of the email.
Something that I found really useful for this type of processing, assuming you have control of the incoming email, is to add a Remarks: line with a unique identifier in it, that you can reference back to the sending process.
EG

Remarks: 12343 (invoice number)

The recipient does not see the line unless they show all headers.

Code:

# .procmailrc
# routes incoming mail to appropriate mailboxes
PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
MAILDIR=/var/spool/mail   # all mailboxes are in .mailspool/
DEFAULT=/var/spool/mail
LOGFILE=/var/log/procmail
SHELL=/bin/bash

Can I not set this to send mail to directly to a named pipe?
Like, make it /var/spool/mail : (pipe name) ?