Contents

Chapter 1
Quick HOWTO

1.1 Prequisites

• A working perl installation.
• A working PostgreSQL installation.
• Several perl Modules. The Build script will complain if a certain module cannot be found. At least the Mail::Box, Set::Object and Tie::Hash cpan modules are required.

1.2 Installation

1. Extract the autofiler distribution tar.gz. file with tar -zxf.
2. Navigate to the extracted autofiler directory.
3. Execute ’perl Build.PL’.
4. Execute ’./Build install’.
5. Create a PostgreSQL database for each mailbox you want to manage with autofiler.
6. Use the psql client program to create the database schema. The postgresql.sql file contains the database schema.
7. Create a /etc/autofiler.conf file. An example file is provided in the distribution. In this file the database access is configured.
8. Configure your mail server so that deliveries go through the af_deliver_message program. This program reads a message from the standard input.

   Caution: Autofiler e-mail deliveries can be resource intensive, you may want to make sure that not too many deliveries are started simultaneously.

9. (optional) create a cron job to automatically run the af_build_database program periodically for each mailbox.
10. run the af_buid_database program to train the software.

Appendix A
The af_build_database program

A.1 NAME

af_build_database - Examines the specified mailbox and update the summary information in the configured database.

A.2 SYNOPSIS

af_build_database [options] mailbox

A.3 OPTIONS

–help

Prints a brief help message and exits.

A.4 DESCRIPTION

This program will examine the specified mailbox and update the information in the configured database.

The mailbox path can be a filesystem path or a Mail::Box URL. An example of such an url could be:

maildir:/home/user/Maildir

A.5 SEE ALSO

See also the documentation for the Mail::Box module found on CPAN.org for information about supported mail box formats.

See also the documentation entry for the autofiler.conf file format. In this file the database to be used is specified.

Appendix B
The af_deliver_message program

B.1 NAME

af_deliver_message - Reads a message from standerd input and delivers it into the appropriate folder in a mailbox.

B.2 SYNOPSIS

af_deliver_message [options] mailbox

B.3 OPTIONS

–help

Prints a brief help message and exits.

–minlead %

Minimum lead in percent points the winning folder needs to have over the other folders for a decision to be made. Defaults to 10%. Higher values will result in less false positives and more false negatives.

–pretend

Don’t actually deliver the message, only show where we would deliver it. Useful for debugging.

–rationale n

Autofiler can add a header to the mail message that details why a message was placed in a certain folder. The optional argument specifies the maximum number of lines of text. This defaults to 0 (no rationale).

–print-tokens

This option causes the program to print to standard output each token that was encountered in the message. This option could be combined with the –pretend option to omit actual delivery.

–print-results

This option causes the program to print to standard output the probability that the message belongs in each of the known folders in the database. This option could be combined with the –pretend option to omit actual delivery.

B.4 DESCRIPTION

This program will read a message from standard input and analyse it. It will then be delivered to the appropriate folder in the mailbox.

The mailbox path can be a filesystem path or a Mail::Box URL. An example of such an url could be:

maildir:/home/user/Maildir

B.5 SEE ALSO

See also the documentation for the Mail::Box module found on CPAN.org for information about supported mail box formats.

See also the documentation entry for the autofiler.conf file format. In this file the database to be used is specified.

Appendix C
The autofiler.conf file

autofiler.conf - Configuration file for autofiler

C.1 DESCRIPTION

The autofiler.conf file is a plain text file that contains the configuration information for autofiler. The file is parsed by the different autofiler programs.

LOCATION

The configuration file is searched in several standard locations. The search ends when the configuration file is found. The following location are searched in order:

• $HOME/.autofiler/config
• /etc/autofiler.conf
• /usr/local/etc/autofiler.conf
• /etc/autofiler/autofiler.conf
• /usr/local/etc/autofiler/autofiler.conf

FILE FORMAT

Options are specified in ’key=value’ notation. Lines that start with a hash (#) mark are considered comments. The following environment variables are automatically substituted in the configuration file:

$HOME The home directory for the

user that currently executes an autofiler program.

$USER The username of the user

that currently executes an autofiler program.

In the autofiler distribution an example configuration file is provided.

SUPPORTED OPTIONS

The following options are recognized:

backend This option specifies the

database backend module to use. Currently the only supported backend is ’PostgreSQLBackend’ for accessing PostgreSQL databases.

dbi Autofiler uses the perl DBI

database interface module. With this option the DBI connection string is specified. The string should usually specify the database access module to use and the name of the database.

For example: ’dbi=dbi:Pg:dbname=$USER’ connects to the PostgreSQL database with the name of the current user.

username This specifies the username

that is used for the database connection.

password This option specifies

the password to be used for the database connection. Use of this option is discouraged as configuration files are usually world-readable. Use the password_file option instead if a database password needs to be specified.

password_file This option can

be used to point at a file that contains one line of text that specifies the password to be used for the database connection. The option’s value can contain the $USER environment variable to specify different passwords for different users.

When neither this option nor the password option is specified, autofiler will prompt for a password if it is needed.

maximum_age This option specifies

the maximum age of a mail message for it to be considered by the af_build_database program. The value is specified as the number of days since the message’s arrival.

C.2 SEE ALSO

See also the documentation for the Mail::Box module for information about supported mail box formats.

See also the documentation for the autofiler programs af_build_database and af_deliver_message.

See also the documentation entry for the autofiler.conf file format. In this file the database to be used is specified.