email alias that calls a script

[pho01]

Hi all,

I know this can be done, but I don't know or have no idea how to set this up. I'd like to set an email account, when someone sends a message to this account, a script is called and check the information in the message. Based on the syntax of the message, it will do some actions (the script will run and do whatever it needs to do)

Would someone explain little more about it and how to request such email alias to the unix system admin?

Thanks much

 

[Ygor]

Ask your sysadmin to edit /etc/mail/aliases and add a line like
[tt]aliasname : |/full/path/mailhandler [/tt]
and run the newaliases command to rebuild the alias db.

When you write your mailhandler script, note that the mail message will be piped in. So either use something like "> /tmp/afile.$$" in the top of the script and then precess the file or just use awk (I would).