Introduction
Avelsieve or, verbosely, "Sieve Mail Filters Plugin for Squirrelmail"
is a [1]Squirrelmail [2]plugin for creating [3]Sieve scripts on a
Sieve-compliant mail server.
Sieve is a mail filtering language, intended for server-side filtering
of emails. For more information, please visit [4]http://sieve.info or
read [5]RFC 3028.
Avelsieve can either run using different backends, with regard to the
storage of the Sieve scripts. Currently, three backends are available:
1. ManageSieve: This is the transport protocol for uploading, editing,
deleting and verifying Sieve scripts on a mail server. A daemon
usually listens to port 2000, where clients such as avelsieve can
connect and manage the scripts.
Examples of server implementations that support ManageSieve:
+ [6]Cyrus IMAPd running timsieved
+ [7]DBMail
+ [8]Isode M-Box
2. File Backend: For simple storage of scripts in the filesystem. (For
instance, the Exim MTA supports such scripts).
3. LDAP Backend: This is a specialized, contributed backend for users
of Sun Messaging Server.
More implementations can be found at
[9]http://sieve.info/implementations.
In the future, Avelsieve will also be a part of [10]Cyrusmaster, a
web-based Cyrus administration tool. It should provide the same
interface of the user's filters to administrators and/or helpdesk
staff.
About this implementation
The web interface provides a wizard-like interface that, in the end,
creates part of a Sieve script, a so called rule. It then assembles all
the rules to form a Sieve script.
For the sake of user-friendliness, it provides only a subset of Sieve's
functionality; the main goal was to provide a simple interface for Joe
User to create server-side filters without knowing anything about the
language itself.
The plugin does not provide a parser; instead, it saves PHP meta-data
in the script itself, in order to continue editing and manipulation of
the filters. The only thing that is supported is a script called
"phpscript" on the Cyrus server. Multiple scripts are not supported
yet. I've tried to make it sane enough that it won't break a lot. Some
more testing is needed - hence the beta status.
Status
* Devel Branch (1.9): Considered beta quality.> This release should
be considered 'beta quality'. At the moment it works for me without
any major glitches, but who knows, there might be a bug that DoS'es
the Apache Server by eating all of its memory in there.
* Stable Branch (1.0):
This plugin has been out for a while and is known to work pretty
well. You'll have to check for yourselves if it is for a production
environment. Insert standard GPL_Disclaimer(); here.
Features
This plugin provides:
* Simple HTML interface.
* Javascript functionality that enhances the user interaction,
however there is HTML-only fallback for accessibility.
* Match messages based on email headers, size, or apply to all
messages.
* Configurable number of header matches.
* Support of keeping a message, move to an existing or new folder,
email redirection.
* Supports Sieve Vacation.
* Supports Sieve Notification action.
* Create a rule on-the-fly, while reading a message in Squirrelmail.
This function will auto-detect List-Id: headers for mailing lists.
* Runs through all the rules, but supports a stop command when a rule
matches.
* Change the order of rules - or delete them altogether.
* Enable / Disable rules on the fly, without deleting them.
* Make a textual description of the rule.
* Localizable.
* Automatic adaption to the capabilities of each site's Sieve.
..but does not provide:
* A Sieve parser. Yet.
Screenshots
If you'd like to take some quick look before installing, you can check
out some [11]screenshots of avelsieve in action.
Demo
You can see the plugin in action, if you wish. Check the [12]Live Demo
page for more information.
Requirements
* A Sieve management daemon (ManageSieve-compatible). It has been
tested with [13]Cyrus IMAP server and its timsieved Sieve parser.
There have been reports about it working with [14]DBMail, too.
* [15]Squirrelmail version 1.4.9 or greater.
* The [16]multibyte string (mbstring) PHP extension is very much
recommended. It provides very robust conversion between character
sets. Otherwise, recode or iconv will also do the job.
* [17]sieve-php.lib, a PHP class for transporting Sieve scripts,
originally by [18]Dan Ellis. Included.
License
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the [19]GNU General Public License as published by
the [20]Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. [21]See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
Author
[22]Alexandros Vellis, [23]Network Operations Centre, [24]University
of Athens
([25]Personal home page).
References
1. http://www.squirrelmail.org/
2. http://www.squirrelmail.org/plugins.php
3. http://sieve.info/
4. http://sieve.info/
5. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3028.txt
6. http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/
7. http://www.dbmail.org/
8. http://www.isode.com/products/m-box.html
9. http://sieve.info/implementations
10. http://email.uoa.gr/projects/cyrusmaster/
11. file://localhost/data/www/sm/squirrelmail-stable-uoa/plugins/avelsieve/doc/avelsieve_screenshots.php
12. file://localhost/data/www/sm/squirrelmail-stable-uoa/plugins/avelsieve/doc/demo.php
13. http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/
14. http://www.dbmail.org/
15. http://www.squirrelmail.org/
16. http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.mbstring.php
17. http://sieve-php.sourceforge.net/
18. mailto:danellis__@.com
19. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
20. http://www.fsf.org/
21. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
22. mailto:%20avel%20@%20users.sourceforge.net
23. http://www.noc.uoa.gr/
24. http://www.uoa.gr/
25. http://users.uoa.gr/~avel/
