bogofilter satisfaction report

[JoeHill]

On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 00:37:12 +0300 (IDT)
Peter disseminated the following:

> > 1. I use Sylpheed and incorporate my mail from /var/spool/mail/joehill, I
> > don't keep my mail in ~/mail, which leads to
> 
> The bogofilter runs from procmailrc. If you use procmailrc insert the 
> necessary bogofilter rules from the bogofilter manpage into your 
> procmailrc. If you do not use procmail the you should be using it imho. 

Oh, yeah, that's the problem. I'm spending too much time playing around with
procmail rules and regexp trying to stop the spam. I think I read once about why
one should *not* try to use Procmail as a spam filter, but of course I never
listen...

> I do not know Sylpheed. If it's a MUA it is not relevant in this 
> context.

Yeah, I'm clear on that, I just didn't know if would work since my mail
comes directly from /var/spool/mail, but you've answered that question
below, I see. And BTW, Sylpheed is an MUA, and a damn fine one at that!

> Spam filtering with bogofilter is done in the mail transport, not in the MUA.
> Basically procmailrc runs *before* mail is stored in /var/spool/mail/joehill
> (it is run by the MTA via ~/.forward which calls procmail which uses
> ~/.procmailrc). It (procmail) decides whether to drop messages, store spam in
> ~/mail/spam and forward messages to the mailbox or whatever you need.
> 
> > 2. The messages in my ~/Sylpheed folder, IIANM, are not in mbox format, each
> > mail is a seperate file.
> 
> You can reinject them as is if they have the mbox format. Also look at 
> the formail command from the procmail package. It can be used to 
> re-inject mail into the system or resort it into mailboxes.

(Un)fortunately, I'm not going to be forced to learn the formail command...turns
out Sylpheed will export to mbox format itself. I'll learn formail...sometime
;-)

> > I'll check Google for converting from the Sylpheed file type, but will
> > Bogofilter work with the way I have things set up currently? ie. all my mail
> > comes from /var/spool/mail, not ~/mail.
> 
> Your mail goes to /var/spool/mail by following the path:
> 
> message -> MTA -> ~/.forward -> /usr/bin/procmail ... \
>  	... -> ~/.procmailrc -> /var/spool/mail/joehill
> 
> by adding bogofilter to your ~/.procmailrc you will filter the mail 
> *before* it reaches /var/spool/mail/joehill. You can also add it as a 
> filter to the MTA. Remember that bogofilter does not delete anything. It 
> marks messages with a spam score. Something else then reacts on that 
> mark. It can be you or it can be a program (like the MTA or procmail).

...which allows me time to see what bogofilter scores and fine tune it before I
actually put it into action. Eeeexcellent.

> You can have as many folders as you like in ~/mail ~/lists ~/backups or 
> wherever you like as long as it's a writable directory as user joehill.
> 
> The procmailrc rules can be set up to deliver anywhere, including remail 
> certain messages to somewhere else.

...like, say, back to the spammer? Just kidding.

Many thanks for your explanations and help!

-- 
JoeHill / RLU #282046 / www.freeyourmachine.org
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