Introduction

                                            Email Aliases

This would redirect mail for

xyz@yourdomain.com  to   xyz@bom3.vsnl.net.in
abc@yourdomain.com  to  abc@hostonjava.com
help@yourdomain.com  to  webmaster @hostonjava.com ; pqr@hostonjava.com

Mail to a user that was not in this list would be sent to the default user,
   yourdomain@yourdomain.com

You are encouraged to have a default entry, if just to be sure you don't lose mail due to any other mistakes.

                                         Auto Responder, Infobots

Create a file in your home directory named help which says:

We offer you help.
Mail to help@yourdomain.com will return the message "We offer you help".

Infobot files should not have upper case letters in them. Incoming mail addresses are normalized to lower case before the infobot directory (ies) is searched.

                                                  Configuration

Access Mail is configured through a text file which you may place in your home directory, called .soprc. If this file is not present, the default behaviour corresponds to a .soprc like so:

BounceFile .redirect
InfobotDir .

Please note that the above two directives are not defaults! A blank .soprc is not the same as a non-existent one. If you create a .soprc with no Bounce File directive, for example, .redirect will not be checked. Think of that .soprc as a default in the absence of anything else, not of those two directives individually as defaults. Use the above as a starting point for any .soprc you make.

Most people don't need to create a .soprc or read the following because that default is meant to be the most useful configuration.

a) Bounce File

Also known as Redirect File. Specifies a file which will be parsed for mail redirection. In that file, the first word on a line gives an alias for your domain, and the following words) give the destination. So the line:

webmaster@hostonjava.com

will redirect mail originally sent to yourname@yourdomain.com to yourname@hostonjava.com.

And the line: 

support@hostonjava.com ; admin@hostonjava.com

will redirect mail for that alias to the two addresses given. 

b) InfobotDir and InfobotExt

InfobotDir specifies a directory to search for infobot data files. Persons who make use of their Unix accounts may want to make an infobot directory off of their home and specify (in .soprc file)

InfobotDir infobot

People who don't have any other particular clutter in their home directories can get by with

InfobotDir ~

which is also the default if no InfobotDir directive at all appears.

InfobotExt specifies extensions to use for infobots. The lack of this directive is equal to

InfobotExt "" .txt

Consider mail coming in for info@yourdomain.com. In this case, files named simply info will be sought out in the InfobotDir specified directories. If you had the line

InfobotExt .txt

in your .soprc, info would not be used, but info.txt would. If you had

InfobotExt .txt .html

both info.txt and info.html will be used. 

In the last example, if both info.txt and info.html were found, both would be mailed in turn. This could be useful, or harmful. Look for more control in future versions of PowerMail.

InfobotExt may be specified more than once, or multiple extensions may be given on one line. In the absence of any InfobotExt line, first no extension is added to the mail address that comes in, then .txt is added. In its presence, the mail address without modification is not tried, unless the null extension "" is given.

c) InfobotAccessLog

Keeps a log of where infobots were sent. The log file must be world-writable. (It probably also needs to exist before you start, unless the directory it's going to be kept in is world-writeable.) For example, at a shell prompt,

touch infobot-access-log
chmod 666 infobot-access-log

Then put in your .soprc: 

InfobotAccessLog infobot-access-log

Format of log file: try it and see. (Recipient, date, file) 

Only the last instance of this directive has effect. No user-visible logging is done if this directive is absent.

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