[gentoo-user] Courier Sub-addressing

[gentoo-user] Courier Sub-addressing

[Ashley Dixon]

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Hello,

I am attempting to set up sub-addressing on my  Courier  mail  server,  allowing
senders to directly deliver messages to a particular folder in my mailbox.   For
example, I want to provide my University with the address
`ash-AcademicMatters@suugaku.co.uk` to force all their messages into the
"AcademicMatters" subdirectory.

Unfortunately,  I  can't  find  any  official  Courier  documentation  regarding
sub-addressing.  I have found [1], however I'm not sure it will apply  as  I  am
using virtual mailboxes.

When attempting to  send  e-mail  to  myself  using  sub-addressing,  my  server
complains that the address is not found in the virtual users  table,  suggesting
that it is entirely unaware of the sub-addressing notation.

Has anyone here managed to get this working ? I believe it is sometimes referred
to as "plus-addressing", however it seems that Courier uses a hyphen as  opposed
to a plus symbol (+).

        Cheers,
        Ashley.

[1] https://www.talisman.org/~erlkonig/misc/courier-email-subaddressing/

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Ashley Dixon
suugaku.co.uk

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Re: [gentoo-user] Courier Sub-addressing

[james]

On 5/21/20 4:14 PM, Ashley Dixon wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am attempting to set up sub-addressing on my  Courier  mail  server,  allowing
> senders to directly deliver messages to a particular folder in my mailbox.   For
> example, I want to provide my University with the address
> `ash-AcademicMatters@suugaku.co.uk` to force all their messages into the
> "AcademicMatters" subdirectory.
> 
> Unfortunately,  I  can't  find  any  official  Courier  documentation  regarding
> sub-addressing.  I have found [1], however I'm not sure it will apply  as  I  am
> using virtual mailboxes.
> 
> When attempting to  send  e-mail  to  myself  using  sub-addressing,  my  server
> complains that the address is not found in the virtual users  table,  suggesting
> that it is entirely unaware of the sub-addressing notation.
> 
> Has anyone here managed to get this working ? I believe it is sometimes referred
> to as "plus-addressing", however it seems that Courier uses a hyphen as  opposed
> to a plus symbol (+).
> 
>          Cheers,
>          Ashley.
> 
> [1] https://www.talisman.org/~erlkonig/misc/courier-email-subaddressing/
> 

Hello Ashley,

Yes, but with mail-client/Thunderbird. The tricks (with thunderbird) are 
mostly related to how you set up your filters, and the order of the filters.

On thunderbird the 'message filters' under the three horizontal bars on 
the top right of the base screen, is the starting point. Then I have to 
click various selections, sometimes 2 or 3 times. It's tricky with 
thunderbird and filtering incoming mail, ymmv.

No clue on  a courier mail server. BUT, I'd be most interested in 
testing/verifying what you come up with, as thunderbird is a very 
bloated pig of an app. And I'm looking for a unified system where email, 
broweser-links, local edited files (vi/vim/etc) and browser saved files 
and links are all unified into one 'common-logical' viewer/storage 
renders the various way we can save data, whether local or net-based 
resources. I'd be most interested in *any* unifying  scheme, 
gentoo-centric.   30++ years of linux/bsd/linux has given me a very rich 
source of resources, docs and wonderful emails. But data-harvesting 
needs a modern approach.


/usr/portage/mail-* does not have many robust and secure options.  I've 
even thought about returning to a sendmail server, as a unifying start, 
but that's probably not a wise idea.

Do post your findings, as I'm sure others would appreciate a robust 
(gentoo) solution, particularly if the feature list supports cell phones 
(android and/or apple cell phones) and those text/emails.


hth,
James

Re: [gentoo-user] Courier Sub-addressing

[antlists]

On 21/05/2020 21:14, Ashley Dixon wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am attempting to set up sub-addressing on my  Courier  mail  server,  allowing
> senders to directly deliver messages to a particular folder in my mailbox.   For
> example, I want to provide my University with the address
> `ash-AcademicMatters@suugaku.co.uk` to force all their messages into the
> "AcademicMatters" subdirectory.
> 
> Unfortunately,  I  can't  find  any  official  Courier  documentation  regarding
> sub-addressing.  I have found [1], however I'm not sure it will apply  as  I  am
> using virtual mailboxes.

If I understand what you are attempting correctly (not a given!) then 
what you are trying won't work. You're confusing multiple *folders* with 
multiple *users*.

I'm probably not describing this right, but let's say you've got a small 
business, with a POP3 email account of "business@isp.co.uk". However, 
you've set up a central server with each user having their own account 
eg John, Mary & Sue.

So you configure Sue's mail client to have an address of "Sue 
<sue+business@isp.co.uk>". Out in the internet, smtp servers look at the 
@isp.co.uk bit to deliver it to the right mailserver. Your ISP sees 
"sue+business", *ignores* the bit in front of the plus, and puts it in 
the "business" pop account. Your local mailserver now pulls down the 
email, ignores the bit *after* the +, and shoves it in Sue's email.

This is, I believe, an RFC so Courier is simply implementing the spec. 
That's probably why there is precious little Courier reference material, 
it assumes you have the RFC to hand ...

I don't know what happens with your "-" example, but it just looks wrong 
to me. It should be looking for an AcademicMatters POP account, and then 
delivering the mail to a user account called ash on the server called 
AcademicMatters. Internet email addresses and domains are read 
right-to-left (Janet used to be left-to-right, but the Americans won, as 
usual).

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Courier Sub-addressing

[Ashley Dixon]

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On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 04:17:24PM +0100, antlists wrote:
> If I understand what you are attempting correctly (not a given!) then what
> you are trying won't work. You're confusing multiple *folders* with multiple
> *users*.

Sorry, my original e-mail was quite nondescript.  Consider that  I  have  a  few
folders in my INBOX  maildir,  created  with  maildirmake(1)  -f:  Sent,  Trash,
Drafts, AcademicMatters, etc.

Should  an  e-mail  be  sent  to  ash+AcademicMatters@suugaku.co.uk,  it  should
automatically  be  redirected  into  the  appropriate   sub-maildir.    As   the
AcademicMatters folder is a folder inside the `ash` maildir,  there  is  only  a
single user involved, with multiple folders.

> This is, I believe, an RFC so Courier is simply implementing the spec.
> That's probably why there is precious little Courier reference material, it
> assumes you have the RFC to hand ...

It seems like sub-addressing  is  defined  in  #5233  [1].   Further  discussion
specific to the Sieve language is found in #5228 [2].  It seems like, to use the
example in [1], an e-mail addressed to `ken+sieve@example.org` is  sent  to  the
mailbox `sieve` belonging to `ken`.  In my case, this would be sending  mail  to
the `AcademicMatters` mailbox owned by `ash`.

> I don't know what happens with your "-" example, but it just looks wrong to
> me.

In my original message, I complained that the server was throwing out  an  error
stating that the corresponding entry could not be found  in  the  virtual  users
table.  It seems like the `recipient_delimiter` attribute in  Postfix's  main.cf
can specify an arbitrary delimiter, so  a  plus,  hyphen,  or  any  other  legal
character can be used to denote the sub-address.

With `recipient_delimiter = +`, e-mail sent to ash+*@suugaku.co.uk now  ends  up
in my inbox.  To inspect the text after the delimiter and move it to the correct
folder accordingly is a job for Courier's `maildrop`, I suspect.

> It should be looking for an AcademicMatters POP account, and then
> delivering the mail to a user account called ash on the server called
> AcademicMatters.

I don't really understand this sentence, sorry.  How can a user  account  called
`ash` also be called `AcademicMatters` ?  `AcademicMatters`  is  a  subdirectory
inside the `ash` user's inbox.

On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 08:52:23AM -0400, james wrote:
> Yes, but with mail-client/Thunderbird. The tricks (with thunderbird) are
> mostly related to how you set up your filters, and the order of the filters.

I would rather do this on the  server,  as  I  access  my  e-mail  from  various
machines, many of which are not listening for mail constantly.  I  also  dislike
Thunderbird as I find it too heavy for a mail client; (Neo)Mutt  has  served  me
well for a long time.

> Do post your findings, as I'm sure others would appreciate a robust (gentoo)
> solution, particularly if the feature list supports cell phones (android
> and/or apple cell phones) and those text/emails.

I think the problem you're posing is a very different one to  mine:  I  am  only
concerned with filtering e-mail to particular folders based on  the  address  to
which the mail was sent.  Your problem seems to  be  far  more  generalised  and
large-scale.

[1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5233
[2] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5228

-- 

Ashley Dixon
suugaku.co.uk

2A9A 4117
DA96 D18A
8A7B B0D2
A30E BF25
F290 A8AA


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