Undesirable Mail

[Mariou Barr]

In article <810030 at hpsemc.HP.COM>, gph at hpsemc.HP.COM (Paul Houtz) writes:
> 
>    O.K., Mariou,
> 
>    Since you are so grateful for the help, why don't you post a summary
>    of your responses.   I would like to know the answer to your question
>    as well but have seen no reponses on Usenet.

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Yes of course Paul. Here we go.  This is kind of long though.
I have elimininated the names, because I do not like to disclose
peoples' identities without their consent.  I hope it is OK.

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Subject: Re: Undesirable Mail
Summary: Baboon extermination

In article <9379 at ut-emx.UUCP> you write:
>Is there a way I can keep away from me
>undesirable mail? I did try putting in
>my .mailrc:
>
>delete baboon at zoo.utexas.edu
>
>The result a big naught. The mail goes through anyway.
>Does anyone have a way of doing this?
>And would he/she be kind enough to share?

That should have worked.  Though I've always just used 'd'
instead of spelling it out 'delete'. (This shouldn't make a
difference.)  Though mail is kind of picky about how it
recognizes the name.  The way the address looks on a 'h' command
_should_ work for you.  You may have to play with several
variations, which you can do at the mail program's command
level.  When you find the one that mail recognizes, you can
put that command in your .mailrc file.

& d baboon at zoo.utexas.edu
No applicable messages
& d !zoo.utexas.edu!baboon
143 messages deleted

A friend of mine subscribes to a zillion mailing lists, and
uses this in his .mailrc file to pre-sort them all:

s sunspots at what.ever sun-mail
d sunspots at what.ever
-- 
=============================
To: mariou at ut-emx.UUCP
Subject: Re: Undesirable Mail
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions

In article <9379 at ut-emx.UUCP> you write:
>
>Is there a way I can keep away from me
>undesirable mail? I did try putting in
>my .mailrc:
>
>delete baboon at zoo.utexas.edu
>
>The result a big naught. The mail goes through anyway.
>Does anyone have a way of doing this?
>And would he/she be kind enough to share?
>
>With very many thanks -- for any help anyone
>can give me.
>
>Mariou Voulgari Barr
>e-mail: mariou at walt.cc.utexas.edu

My suggestion is to return one copy to the sender, and one to the 
postmaster at senders.site, without reading it (the first two or three with 
a polite note attached for the benefit of the postmaster).  ELM has a nice
"F" feature or for just that sort of use....

If the mail persists, try sending 10 copies (+/- however annoying the mail
is) :-)

This technique is remarkably effective.
=============================================
	What I describe below works under my system's mailer. I don't know if
	it will work with yours. If you're unfamiliar with UNIX and something
	below is confusing, ask me about it.
	
	I have .forward in my home directory set up as follows:
	
	  "| /b/bernsten/.mailserver; exit 0"
	
	What my mailer does with this is sends mail originally going to bernsten
	through the pipe "| /b/bernsten/.mailserver; exit 0" (the exit 0 is so
	that the mailer doesn't get spurious errors). If I wanted mail also to
	go to /usr/spool/mail/bernsten, I would include the line
	
	  \bernsten
	
	in .forward; but I have .mailserver do that for me.
	
	When the mailer wants to give me mail it obligingly forwards it through
	.mailserver (which must be exeuctable, as in chmod 700) in my home directory:
	
	  #!/bin/sh
	  umask 77
	  cat > /usr/spool/mail/bernsten$$
	  echo '' >> /usr/spool/mail/bernsten$$
	  cat /usr/spool/mail/bernsten$$ >> /usr/spool/mail/bernsten
	  cat /usr/spool/mail/bernsten$$ >> /usr/spool/mail/bernsten.log
	  if (grep '^Subject: *!POLL' /usr/spool/mail/bernsten$$)
	  then
	    cat /usr/spool/mail/bernsten$$ >> /usr/spool/mail/bernsten.poll
	  fi
	  rm -f /usr/spool/mail/bernsten$$
	
	(Note that this is not run as root so you can't break into the system
	this way.) .mailserver runs under sh, removes access by group and others
	to the files it touches, puts the mail it gets into bernsten$$ (here $$
	gives the shell process ID) followed by an extra line (otherwise
	messages can get stuck together).
	
	Then it adds the message to bernsten and bernsten.log; and if the
	message contains Subject: at the beginning of a line followed by !POLL
	it dumps the message into bernsten.poll as well. Finally, it removes
	the temporary file.
	
	If you're unfamiliar with shell programming, try the following as a
	start for .mailserver:
	
	  #!/bin/sh
	  umask 77
	  # Put the message into mariou$$.
	  cat > /usr/spool/mail/mariou$$
	  echo '' >> /usr/spool/mail/mariou$$
	  # Save the message in mariou.log... you may not want this.
	  cat /usr/spool/mail/mariou$$ >> /usr/spool/mail/mariou
	  # Do we put it into mariou or mariou.ugh?
	  if (grep '^From:' /usr/spool/mail/mariou$$ | grep 'idiot at work.not.edu')
	  then
	    cat /usr/spool/mail/mariou$$ >> /usr/spool/mail/mariou.ugh
	  else
	    cat /usr/spool/mail/mariou$$ >> /usr/spool/mail/mariou
	  fi
	  # Get rid of the temporary file
	  rm -f /usr/spool/mail/mariou$$
	
	If you have lots of people to delete mail from, change the grep 'idiot...'
	to fgrep -f filewiththeirnames, where the file might be
	
	  idiot at work.not.edu
	  idiot at home
	  conscience at brain
==========================================
} Is there a way I can keep away from me
} undesirable mail? I did try putting in
} my .mailrc:
} 
} delete baboon at zoo.utexas.edu
} 
} The result a big naught. The mail goes through anyway.
} Does anyone have a way of doing this?
} And would he/she be kind enough to share?
} 
} With very many thanks -- for any help anyone
} can give me.
} 
} Mariou Voulgari Barr
} e-mail: mariou at walt.cc.utexas.edu

The easiest thing you can probably do is use "mush", the Mail User's
Shell, for reading your mail.  I obviously don't know whether this
program is available on your system, though it is becoming fairly common.
If you can wait a few weeks, a new release will soon be appearing on
comp.sources.unix.  If you are really in a hurry, send mail to the
author, island!argv at cad.berkeley.edu (Dan Heller).

Mush differs from the standard mail program in a number of ways, but
the important one for your problem is that you can tell it to read a
start-up script of commands, which can include selecting messages for
deletion.  So the messages will still get delivered, but you can have
mush delete them before you ever see them.

Another solution is to use a filtering program called via a ".forward"
file.  If you have a file named .forward in your home directory, some
mail delivery programs (notably sendmail, which is the most common one)
will read that file for insturctions on where to deliver your mail.
The .forward file can tell sendmail to deliver the mail to a program
you have written.  The program can do anything you want with the mail,
and although most such programs usually finish by saving the mail in
your system mailbox, you can certainly have the program throw away mail
that you don't want to see.

I have written a program called mxp that can be used in this manner
from a .forward file, but it is BSD UNIX specific, so if you are using
SysV or another OS it won't work.  If your system will handle .forward
files, and you are interested in my program, let me know and I'll send
you a copy.  Or you can write your own -- ask somebody there for info
about using .forward files.

Hope this helps!

} Subject: Re: Undesirable Mail

My .forward file contains the single line below:

"|/ogc/students/schaefer/bin/mxp"

Including the quotation marks.  This means "pipe the incoming mail to the
program mxp found in /ogc/students/schaefer/bin".  mxp is the program I
mentioned in my last message.

You can also put any valid e-mail address in .forward, in which case ALL
of your mail will be sent to the forwarding address.  Be careful of
loops -- that is, don't forward mail to your own address or to any
address where there is another .forward file that sends it back to you.

==========================================

If you're running a Berkeley sort of Unix, you can set up a filter in your
.forward file to scan all your incoming mail and delete the ones you want
to.  This is even easier if you are running the MH mail system, too.

If you're running System V, you probably lose.

If the only thing you can modify is your .mailrc, then you definitely
lose - /usr/ucb/Mail (or mailx) has no way to do this.
==========================================