[NTLUG:Discuss] procmail question

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2004 at 02:14:46PM -0500, Rev. wRy wrote:
> While the list of names is much longer, this snippet exists in a
> /etc/procmailrc:
> 
> :0 H
> * {^From.addy1 at domain1.[com|net]|addy2 at domain1.[com|net]}
> * {^TO_addy1 at domain1.[com|net]|addy2 at domain.1.[com|net]}
> {
>         LOG="ACTION"
>         :0
>         ${DEFAULT}
> }
> 
> This is what's happening:
> 
> 1) Mail from user at otherdomain is triggering the rule.
> 2) All mail for one particular user never gets to his $HOME/.procmailrc
> (as nothing is in his $HOME/proc.log), but mail is delivered.
> 3) If I comment out the above rule, everything works fine.

A few comments/questions-

1.  What is the rule supposed to be doing?
2.  Conditions are anded-together, so it appears to me that this rule
    is intended to apply to messages that are being sent FROM addy1 TO
    addy2 or vice-versa.  In particular, it doesn't apply to messages
    where addy1/addy2 appear in either the from line or the to line but
    not both.
3.  The regular expressions appear wrong in a number of ways...
    a.  Single brackets are used for character classes, not grouping,
        so that "[com|net]} matches any single character from the set [cemnot|].
        (com|net) is probably intended instead.
    b.  The | applies to the entire regexps on either side, so that
            * {^From.addy1 at domain1.[com|net]|addy2 at domain1.[com|net]}
        really says to match any From header with addy1 at domain1 
        immediately following OR any header containing "addy2 at domain1"
        in it (doesn't have to be a From header).  The condition should
        probably read
            * {^From.*(addy1 at domain1.(com|net)|addy2 at domain1.(com|net))}
        but it's probably simpler to do as
            * {^From.*(addy1|addy2)@domain1.(com|net)}
    c.  I'm assuming that the extra dot in "@domain.1." of the ^TO_
        condition is a typo:
            * {^TO_addy1 at domain1.[com|net]|addy2 at domain.1.[com|net]}
    d.  Note that '.' in regular expressions matches any character,
        and not just a dot, thus addy1 at domain1.[com|net] would match
        addy1 at domain1xc.org.  So what may be needed is
            * {^From.*(addy1|addy2)@domain1\.(com|net)}

Hope this helps.

Pm