[FQuest Announce] New Tools for Modifying Email Aliases

[Bruce]

Originally Posted by DogAndPony

Is there a command to list all aliases for an account?

And/or a command to list the aliases and their destination addresses?

Same for alias stacks...?

Sure thing. The "listvdomain" command lists all forwarding aliases and mailboxes in your mail account. The output format lists one destination address per line with the format of "name mailbox [optional forwarding addresses]". Forwarding aliases are listed with a mailbox name of "-" for older aliases, and with "(disabled)" for newer ones.

Is there an AOTA page where I can find the other mail account-related commands? Couldn't find it in the Knowledge Base.

There isn't a single page that lists all of the commands, but a new knowledge base article was just put up for the new commands at http://service.futurequest.net/kb571

[DogAndPony]

Hey, Bruce...

Originally Posted by Bruce

The output format lists one destination address per line with the format of "name mailbox [optional forwarding addresses]". Forwarding aliases are listed with a mailbox name of "-" for older aliases, and with "(disabled)" for newer ones.

Hmmm... Sorry, I must not be awake yet. I got up late after celebrating Obama's win last night.

So "name" would be the alias name, and "[optional forwarding addresses]" is... a list of additional destination addresses in a stack?

And the older/newer thing is foggy for me. The "-" for "older" = active alias? Dead alias?

And "Newer"/"(disabled)" = "more recently deleted"?

[Bruce]

Originally Posted by DogAndPony

So "name" would be the alias name, and "[optional forwarding addresses]" is... a list of additional destination addresses in a stack?

Correct. Black hole addresses are simply an alias with no destination address, normal forwarding aliases have a single destination, and forwarding stacks have more than one.

And the older/newer thing is foggy for me. The "-" for "older" = active alias? Dead alias?

And "Newer"/"(disabled)" = "more recently deleted"?

My apologies for the confusion. The "older" term was a reference to aliases that were added a long time ago, as well as those that are automatically created when the account is set up. The "(disabled)" marker is an indication that the mailbox directory exists but is disabled, and is how more recently created aliases are marked. We switched how new forwarding aliases are created in the CNC in order to handle some other features better, and now all newly created forwarding aliases will have a disabled directory. All entries listed by listvdomain are active.

[DogAndPony]

Ah! The lightbulb in my avatar just went on!

Thanks for the info!

[kitchin]

Not to be a crybaby, but these tools do not provide any info on or control of filters and SA. Right? That info is still buried behind several clicks, for *each* address.

One small gotcha on the CNC: in some places you can refer to an adress "user@domain.tld" just as "user", for instance when making an alias. In other places, that causes an error, such as built-in filter redirects. The error page is a hassle because it requires you do a back-click, which is slow in the CNC, instead of giving you the input to fix like a normal web form error page.

CNC is slow, I don't know if it's the HTML rendering or the data processing on the server. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has blamed it on the graphics, which just leads back again to wishing for a simple, single page where everything is listed, one-click deep, no graphics.

Rant off. FQ is great. Now I will go back to chmod 700 and cgiwrapping a lesser shared host!*

*FQ's user protection in the shared environment is reason enough to prefer them.

[Randall]

Originally Posted by Bruce

We switched how new forwarding aliases are created in the CNC in order to handle some other features better, and now all newly created forwarding aliases will have a disabled directory. All entries listed by listvdomain are active.

Which also explains why "old" aliases like php don't use the ./vmspool/ prefix?

The output of listvdomain is a little messy, what with the aliases mixed in with the pop boxes and listed in no particular order, but I'm willing to overlook that. I suspect it's designed more for writing shell scripts and CGI than for interactive command-line use anyway...

Randall

[Bruce]

Originally Posted by kitchin

Not to be a crybaby, but these tools do not provide any info on or control of filters and SA. Right?

Correct, they do not. We will discuss how we can safely enable manipulation of those controls.

Originally Posted by Randall

Which also explains why "old" aliases like php don't use the ./vmspool/ prefix?

The old-style aliases do not have an assigned directory, and instead are listed with a directory name of "-". New style aliases have an assigned directory (in "vmspool") but it is disabled.

The output of listvdomain is a little messy, what with the aliases mixed in with the pop boxes and listed in no particular order.

The output may be cleaned up for human consumption by running the following command:

listvdomain | column -t

It's not perfect, but at least the columns get lined up. You can sort the aliases after the mailboxes with the following, but it gets the header line mixed up:

listvdomain | sort -k3 | column -t

You could technically also import the listing into most spreadsheets, but that's not likely of much use.

I suspect it's designed more for writing shell scripts and CGI than for interactive command-line use anyway...

It is meant for both, which means that any helpful visual clues that would would confuse a scripted parser are kept to a minimum.

[Randall]

Originally Posted by Bruce

It is meant for both, which means that any helpful visual clues that would would confuse a scripted parser are kept to a minimum.

Reasonable enough.

Randall

[Tom E.]

Since listvdomain is pretty fast, I would imagine that the delays are coming from either:

1. querying the status of each POP box: "0 new, 0 unread, 0 read (16 kB Total, details)"
2. figuring out whether or not to display the Built-In, Custom or SA filter icon/link for each POP box, alias or black-hole address
3. something else

Like kitchin, I too am

...wishing for a simple, single page where everything is listed, one-click deep, no graphics

but I would settle for a CNC Email Manager page that leaves out the information in 1 and 2 above and is much faster. I'd be willing to do another click to get the extra information instead of having to wait for it every time I change something and have to return to the main Email Manager screen.

(If the delays are coming from #3 above, then, um... never mind... )

[Bruce]

Originally Posted by Tom E.

Since listvdomain is pretty fast, I would imagine that the delays are coming from either:

1. querying the status of each POP box: "0 new, 0 unread, 0 read (16 kB Total, details)"
2. figuring out whether or not to display the Built-In, Custom or SA filter icon/link for each POP box, alias or black-hole address
3. something else

4. All of the above. :p

In all seriousness, displaying the main email manager page pulls in a large number of pieces of data from the POP toasters, including message counts and disk usage. While that is a large part of any observed delays, it is not the only source. We have some ideas as to how to speed up the display of the front page, but have no definite solutions yet.