Re: Gnus5, procmail, and reading mail lists.

[steve@miranova.com (Steven L. Baur)]

>>>>> "mb" == Mark Borges <mdb@cdc.noaa.gov> writes:

    mb> I'd like to take a stab at using Gnus5 to read mailing list
    mb> mail as a newsgroup.
...
    mb> I checked the FAQ, and didn't see specific answers
    mb> (maybe these Q's aren't F enough).

Er, something like that.  I have *a lot* of good material set aside,
the problem is digesting and compacting it.

    mb> Procmail splits my incoming mail box into the mailing list
    mb> boxes in my home directory, i.e., it takes /var/mail/me and
    mb> extracts mail from the two lists foo and bar into:

    mb> 	$HOME/mail/spool/foo $HOME/mail/spool/bar

This is fine.

    mb> So, how do Gnus / procmail exist, esp. with regard to
    mb> lockfiles?

It snarfs the spool files with the Emacs movemail program.  Movemail
is lockfile compatible with procmail.

    mb> My reading of the info pages suggests I do the following:

	(setq nnmail-use-procmail t); use it
	(setq nnmail-spool-file "procmail") ; or should that be a variable?

Yes.  Use:
(setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)

	(setq nnmail-split-methods nil)) ; avoid unpleasant side effects
	(setq nnmail-procmail-directory (expand-file-name ~/mail/spool))
	(setq nnmail-procmail-suffix nil) ; just use the group name? I
 	                                    want the group to be foo
 	                                    and the spool file to be
 	                                    foo, as above.

If you are going to use Gnus expiration, it is important to also set:
(setq nnmail-keep-last-article t)

And, if you want Gnus to go out and grab the spool files you will also
need:

(setq nnml-get-new-mail t)


    mb> Also, there was some discussion of why this:

...

    mb> was important, but I lost it.

See the hypermail archive:
<URL: http://www.miranova.com/gnus-list/Oct-1995/0256.html>

    mb> Anyway, I'm planning on using
    mb> nnml as the backend to get the NOV databases (unless procmail
    mb> can do it more efficiently). Is it just as important for nnml
    mb> as nnmh?

The basic difference between nnml and nnmh is that nnml uses NOV
files, and nnmh does not.

If you are going to generate NOV databases out of procmail, you will
have to deal with the same locking issues you face with the spool
files, with the added nicety that while the NOV database is being
updated Gnus must be locked out too.  I don't think anybody is doing
it this way.

    mb> Finally, should I restrict myself to the Gnus5 expiry process,
    mb> or can I just run a simple cron job each weekend to remove old
    mb> mail? (I suspect that might confuse Gnus5 after a while,
    mb> though.)

I'd recommend sticking with expiration from Gnus.  I'd be very
interested, though, in hearing reports of using News software for
maintenance.  Is it possible to make a News-lite distribution from the
canonical sources explicitly for this kind of use?

    mb> Thanks for any tips (or pointers to procmail recipes).

Procmail is black magic.  It just works.
Here are the recipes I'm currently using for this mailing list:

I had previously been using the pattern:
* ^TOding(-request)?
This doesn't work 100% mainly due to messages being Cc:'ed to you and the
mailing list.


# Ding Gnus (Usenet Newsreader for Emacs)
:0 c:
* Return-Path:.*ding.*ifi.uio.no
/usr/local/Web/gnus-list/gnus-mail-archive


:0 w:
* Return-Path:.*ding.*ifi.uio.no
dgnus-list.spool

Regards,
-- 
steve@miranova.com baur