Re: Automated emails

After a long battle with technology, Bryan O'Neal wrote:
> I have come to the point I would like to set up something to watch
> incoming emails[,] pick out key words[,] and forward them on to known
> parties and to email addresses taken from the incoming email.

Keywords where? In the Subject:, or in the message body? Where would the
mail addresses you want to harvest come from in the message? I *think* this
could be done with procmail. If it can't be done with procmail, then
procmail could invoke a Perl script (possibly using Mail::Sendmail to send
arbitrary messages to arbitrary recipients) and then all text processing
becomes Very Simple :-) .

> Basically we want to start doing tailed auto responses to email generated
> via web forms or certain public emails such as
> StopAThife@Cornerstonehome.com.

A thife? ("At's not a thife. *THIS* is a thife.") Anyway, the precise
solution you'll use depends on many details. I know there are Perl modules
on CPAN (and available in every distro) that will allow you to check
arbitrary POP3 mailboxes (Mail::POP3Client), extract whichever headers you
want, and send mail to arbitrary recipients (Mail::Sendmail). This would be
decent if you're partially comfortable with Perl or know somebody who is. If
not, there may be alternatives.

> Any suggestions on where to get started with this? I have a blank slate
> to work from as long as it can be hosted on a Red Hat derivative, or XP
> Pro ;)

See above. Note that the basics are similar on both (just install ActiveState
Perl on 'Doze first). HTH,

--
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