NAME
rt-mailgate - Mail gateway for Request Tracker
SYNOPSIS
rt-mailgate --help : this text
Usual invocation (from MTA):
rt-mailgate --action (correspond|comment|...) --queue queuename
--url http://your.rt.server/
[ --debug ]
[ --extension (queue|action|ticket) ]
[ --timeout seconds ]
OPTIONS
"--action"
Specifies what happens to email sent to this alias. The avaliable
basic actions are: "correspond", "comment".
If you've set the RT configuration variable "UnsafeEmailCommands",
"take" and "resolve" are also available. You can execute two or
more actions on a single message using a "-" separated list. RT
will execute the actions in the listed order. For example you can
use "take-comment", "correspond-resolve" or "take-comment-resolve"
as actions.
Note that "take" and "resolve" actions ignore message text if used
alone. Include a "comment" or "correspond" action if you want RT
to record the incoming message.
The default action is "correspond".
"--queue"
This flag determines which queue this alias should create a ticket
in if no ticket identifier is found.
"--url"
This flag tells the mail gateway where it can find your RT server.
You should probably use the same URL that users use to log into RT.
"--extension" OPTIONAL
Some MTAs will route mail sent to user-foo@host or user+foo@host to
user@host and present "foo" in the environment variable $EXTENSION.
By specifying the value "queue" for this parameter, the queue this
message should be submitted to will be set to the value of
$EXTENSION. By specifying "ticket", $EXTENSION will be interpreted
as the id of the ticket this message is related to. "action" will
allow the user to specify either "comment" or "correspond" in the
address extension.
"--debug" OPTIONAL
Print debugging output to standard error
"--timeout" OPTIONAL
Configure the timeout for posting the message to the web server.
The default timeout is 3 minutes (180 seconds).
DESCRIPTION
The RT mail gateway is the primary mechanism for communicating with RT
via email. This program simply directs the email to the RT web server,
which handles filing correspondence and sending out any required mail.
It is designed to be run as part of the mail delivery process, either
called directly by the MTA or "procmail", or in a .forward or
equivalent.
SETUP
Much of the set up of the mail gateway depends on your MTA and mail
routing configuration. However, you will need first of all to create an
RT user for the mail gateway and assign it a password; this helps to
ensure that mail coming into the web server did originate from the
gateway.
Next, you need to route mail to "rt-mailgate" for the queues you're
monitoring. For instance, if you're using /etc/aliases and you have a
"bugs" queue, you will want something like this:
bugs: "|/opt/rt3/bin/rt-mailgate --queue bugs --action correspond
--url http://rt.mycorp.com/"
bugs-comment: "|/opt/rt3/bin/rt-mailgate --queue bugs --action comment
--url http://rt.mycorp.com/"
Note that you don't have to run your RT server on your mail server, as
the mail gateway will happily relay to a different machine.
CUSTOMIZATION
By default, the mail gateway will accept mail from anyone. However,
there are situations in which you will want to authenticate users
before allowing them to communicate with the system. You can do this
via a plug-in mechanism in the RT configuration.
You can set the array @MailPlugins to be a list of plugins. The default
plugin, if this is not given, is "Auth::MailFrom" - that is,
authentication of the person is done based on the "From" header of the
email. If you have additional filters or authentication mechanisms, you
can list them here and they will be called in order:
Set( @MailPlugins =>
"Filter::SpamAssassin",
"Auth::LDAP",
# ...
);
See the documentation for any additional plugins you have.
You may also put Perl subroutines into the @MailPlugins array, if they
behave as described below.
WRITING PLUGINS
What's actually going on in the above is that @MailPlugins is a list of
Perl modules; RT prepends "RT::Interface::Email::" to the name, to form
a package name, and then "use"'s this module. The module is expected to
provide a "GetCurrentUser" subroutine, which takes a hash of several
parameters:
Message
A "MIME::Entity" object representing the email
CurrentUser
An "RT::CurrentUser" object
AuthStat
The authentication level returned from the previous plugin.
Ticket [OPTIONAL]
The ticket under discussion
Queue [OPTIONAL]
If we don't already have a ticket id, we need to know which queue
we're talking about
Action
The action being performed. At the moment, it's one of "comment" or
"correspond"
It returns two values, the new "RT::CurrentUser" object, and the new
authentication level. The authentication level can be zero, not allowed
to communicate with RT at all, (a "permission denied" error is mailed
to the correspondent) or one, which is the normal mode of operation.
Additionally, if "-1" is returned, then the processing of the plug-ins
stops immediately and the message is ignored.
ENVIRONMENT
EXTENSION
Some MTAs will route mail sent to user-foo@host or user+foo@host to
user@host and present "foo" in the environment variable
"EXTENSION". Mailgate adds value of this variable to message in the
"X-RT-Mail-Extension" field of the message header.
See also "--extension" option. Note that value of the environment
variable is always added to the message header when it's not empty
even if "--extension" option is not provided.