Not knowing perl, I set out to write my own script in Ruby to send auto-responses from e-mail addresses setup in a vmail folder structure. You don’t need to use postfix, just have the ‘new’ folder where new messages are stored.
I recently moved our company’s e-mail server to a new VPS on slicehost and started using postfix. I followed this great tutorial on How-ToForge (except for the squirrelMail part) to setup a mysql database with the vmail folders to store the mail. I couldn’t get the Autoresponder in the tutorial to function correctly. Actually, it was ‘eating’ random mail, which was a weeks worth of headache in itself. So, we rolled out without any auto-response capabilities.
I’ve been half-heartedly looking for another solution every few weeks, but haven’t found anything other than a few Perl scripts (I’m not really famaliar with perl). So, yesterday I decided to write a ruby script to send auto-responses. I wanted to use text files to hold each autoresponse. Then, I’d just move them int and out of a folder to activate and deactivate them. I also took advantage of the ‘new’ folder within the vmail structure to reply to mail newer than the autoresponder config file.
The format of the config files is:
The message can be multiple lines until the end of the file.
For each config file in the directory, the script parses the file for the above information. Then it will check that user’s new mail folder for files. Any new mail file which was modified (sent) after the modification date of the config file is parsed to get the sender’s address(es)*. A new e-mail is composed using benprew’s pony gem and sent to each of the senders. Finally, the script ‘touches’ the config file to move the modification date newer than the messages for which it just responded.
The nifty parts of the script are iterating over a directory listing of files:
and using the stat method of a file object to get the modified dateTime:
and lastly, using the FileUtils module to ‘touch’ a file:
Here’s the full source:
| require 'fileutils' | |
| require 'rubygems' | |
| require 'pony' | |
| # Set absolute path for config file directory | |
| conf_path = "/home/auto-responses" | |
| #for each config file (autoresponder) | |
| Dir.new(conf_path).each do |response_file| | |
| # don't act on this file or linux '.' listings | |
| unless response_file[0,1] == "." || response_file == "auto-response-script.rb" | |
| #create a file for reading | |
| file = File.new("#{conf_path}/#{response_file}") | |
| # get the last modified time of the current config file | |
| last_date = file.stat.mtime | |
| # e-mail address to respond from is first line | |
| address = file.gets.chomp | |
| #skip blank lines | |
| begin | |
| line = file.gets | |
| end while line == "\n" | |
| # subject is next | |
| base_subject = "#{line.chomp} (Auto-Response)" | |
| #skip blank lines | |
| begin | |
| line = file.gets | |
| end while line == "\n" | |
| # take all the rest of the lines as the message | |
| message = line | |
| while line = file.gets | |
| message << line | |
| end | |
| # write parsed info to output (for log file) | |
| puts address | |
| #puts last_date | |
| #puts subject | |
| #puts message | |
| # split the e-mail address into user and domain to put into vmail path | |
| user = address.split('@')[0] | |
| domain = address.split('@')[1] | |
| #puts user | |
| #puts domain | |
| # build the vmail path to the new mail message files | |
| mail_path = "/home/vmail/#{domain}/#{user}/new" | |
| #for each new mail file | |
| Dir.new(mail_path).each do |mail_file| | |
| #don't act on the linux '.' listings | |
| unless mail_file[0,1] == "." | |
| # get mail file for reading | |
| mail = File.new(mail_path + '/' + mail_file) | |
| #log mail filename and mod times (for debugging) | |
| puts mail_file | |
| puts "mail_file_time: #{mail.stat.mtime}" | |
| puts "conf_file_time: #{last_date}" | |
| # act only if mail file is newer | |
| if mail.stat.mtime > last_date | |
| # initialize flags for From and Subject lines in message | |
| found_from = false | |
| found_subject = false | |
| #get first line from email message | |
| line = mail.gets | |
| begin | |
| # regex to check if line starts with 'From:' | |
| # if so, store as from | |
| if line =~ /^From:/i && !found_from | |
| found_from = true | |
| from = line | |
| end | |
| # regex to check if line starts with 'Subject:' | |
| # if so, append the base_subject from above and store as subject | |
| if line =~ /^Subject:/i && !found_subject | |
| found_subject = true | |
| subject = "Re: #{line.chomp} - #{base_subject}" | |
| end | |
| #get next line | |
| line = mail.gets | |
| # loop over lines until both from AND subject are foud OR there are no more lines | |
| end while (!found_from && !found_subject) || line | |
| # use the base subject if couldn't find message subject | |
| subject = base_subject unless found_subject | |
| #puts "From line: #{from}" | |
| # take the From line and split on spaces | |
| # each 'word' which contains an @ (and isn't mailer-deamon) store into the to array | |
| to = Array.new | |
| from.split(' ').each do |name| | |
| if(name =~ /@/ && !(name =~ /MAILER.DAEMON/i)) | |
| to << name | |
| end | |
| end | |
| # create comma separated list of email addresses; stripping angle brackets | |
| to = to.join(',').gsub('<','').gsub('>','') | |
| # log to whom sending mail | |
| puts "Sending to: #{to}" | |
| # don't send mail to nobody | |
| unless to == "" || to == 'invalid@emailaddress.com' | |
| Pony.mail(:to => to, :from => address, :subject => subject, | |
| :body => message ) | |
| else | |
| puts "To is invalid" | |
| end | |
| else | |
| # log that the mail file is not newer than the conf file | |
| puts "From: #{mail_file} is not newer" | |
| end | |
| # separate the mail messages in the log | |
| puts "------------\n\n" | |
| end | |
| end | |
| # update the auto response file's mod time | |
| FileUtils.touch "#{conf_path}/#{response_file}" | |
| end | |
| end |
– Chris
