Sep 27 2003

Struggling with Procmail, Vpopmail and Qmail

Published by Andrew at 8:49 AM under Uncategorized

I’ve got an account on a friend’s mail server. They use Qmail and Courier IMAP server, with Vpopmail as the MDA.
I’m trying to get Procmail to filter my mail for me. Normally I use Sendmail, with Procmail as the MDA, so it’s a cinch. Just drop my .procmailrc file into my home directory and Procmail reads it automatically whenever mail arrives.

Unfortunatly, with this setup, vpopmail is invoked instead. Wes was going to take the steps to do what it takes to make it invoke procmail and read my .procmailrc for me when mail arrives, but he’s busy with other things, so I’m working on it on my own.
All I’ve been able to find online so far is that qmail will read a .qmail file in my home directory, which can be used to give delivery instructions. So I’ve got a .qmail-default file that reads:

|preline procmail -t

Which should invoke Procmail, which will then read .procmailrc. Then I have to give the right arguments in .procmailrc to invoke vdelivermail and deliver my mail to the right folders. I’m stuck at this point right now. I’m not sure I have Qmail invoking procmail right either.
I DO have procmail calling vdelivermail, putting mail in my inbox, when I pipe a test message through Procmail.
I still need to work out -

  1. How to tell vdelivermail to deliver to a folder other than Inbox
  2. How to get Qmail to invoke Procmail on mail arrival, instead of going straight to vpopmail