maildelivery(4)

Description

The maildelivery file controls how local delivery is performed. Each line of this file consists of five fields, space or comma separated. Because double-quotes are honored, these characters can be included in a single argument by enclosing the entire argument in double-quotes. A double-quote can be included by preceding it with a backslash. Lines beginning with a hash sign (#) are ignored. The format of each line in the maildelivery file is:

   header  pattern  action  result  string

header

The name of a header field that is to be searched for a pattern. This is any field in the headers of the message that might be present. The following special fields are also defined:

source

The out-of-band sender information.

addr

The address that was used to cause delivery to the recipient.

default

This matches only if the message has not been delivered yet.

*

This always matches.

pattern

The sequence of characters to match in the specified header field. Matching is not case-sensitive and does not use regular expressions.

action

The action to take to deliver the message:

destroy

This action always succeeds.

file

Append (>) the message to the file named by string. The message is appended to the mail folder in the maildrop format used by your message transport system. If the message can be appended to the folder, this action succeeds. When writing to the file, a Delivery-Date: date header is added that gives the date and time message was appended to the folder.

mbox

Identical to file.

pipe

Pipe (|) the message as the standard input to the command named by string, using the Bourne shell, sh(1), to interpret the string. Prior to giving the string to the shell, the string is expanded with the following built-in variables:

$sender

The out-of-band sender information.

$address

The address that was used to cause delivery to the recipient.

$size

The size of the message in bytes.

$reply-to

Either the Reply-To: or From: field of the message.

$info

The out-of-band information specified.

qpipe

Similar to pipe, but executes the command directly, after built-in variable expansion, without assistance from the shell. This action can be used to avoid quoting special characters which your shell might interpret.

result

Indicates how the action should be performed.

A

Perform the action. If the action succeeds, the message is considered delivered.

\

Perform the action. Regardless of the outcome of the action, the message is not considered delivered.

?

Perform the action only if the message has not been delivered. If the action succeeds, then the message is considered delivered.

N

Perform the action only if the message has not been delivered and the previous action succeeded. If this action succeeds, the message is considered delivered.

Files

$HOME/.maildelivery

The file controlling local delivery.

/etc/mail/maildelivery

Rather than the standard file.

mailbox/var/mail/$USER

The default maildrop.

Examples

   default  mh-workersxx destroy result
   # field	pattern	action result string
   # lines starting with '#' are ignored, as are blank lines
   #
   # file mail with mmdf2 in the "To:" line into file mmdf2.log
   To      mmdf2       file     A   mmdf2.log
   # Messages from mmdf pipe to the program err-message-archive
   From    mmdf        pipe     A   /bin/err-message-archive
   # Anything with the "Sender:" address "mh-workers"
   # file in mh.log if not filed already
   Sender  mh-workers  file     ?   mh.log
   # "To:" unix; put in file unix-news
   To      Unix        >        A   unix-news
   # If the address is "jpo=mmdf" pipe into mmdf-redist
   addr    jpo=mmdf    |        A   mmdf-redist
   # If the address is "jpo=ack" send an acknowledgement copy back
   addr    jpo=ack     |        R   /bin/resend -r (reply-to)
   # Anything from steve  destroy!
   From    steve       destroy  A   -
   # Anything not matched yet put into mailbox
   default -           >        ?   mailbox
   # Always run rcvtty
   *       -           |        R   /mh/lib/rcvtty

References