Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 18:47:48 -700 From: "Troy Cobb" <troy@circle.net> To: root <root@netpc.com>, freebsd-isp <freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Mail responders Message-ID: <199606012244.SAA07974@circle.net>
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> do you know of any perl scripts out there for doing what im asking?
> >
> > Well, procmail is the cadillac of mail processing systems. Just add PERL
> > and you can do anything you want, like trouble ticket tracking systems.
For an automated reply system (i.e. infobot) try procmail,
or try the canned-reply example in the ORA book:
Managing Internet Information Systems
For a trouble-ticket system, try req... ftp.ccs.neu.edu:/pub/sysadmin
The blurb from the req distribution follows:
Req - An email-based request tracking system
Overview
========
Req is a tracking system based around this paradigm: people with problems
or questions send requests via email to a group responsible for dealing
with those issues. Those requests are assigned numbers that can be
tracked and managed in various ways. The group handling the requests
needs to have access to a UNIX computer or network.
Req was designed for a systems administration group but could be applied
to other groups as well.
Details
=======
Users send request mail to an alias. (For example, in our original setup,
mail was sent to "systems" or "help".) Their mail is piped through a
program
which takes the mail, assigns it a new request number, and puts a copy of
the mail in file associated with the number. That file will be used as a
log of all the events associated with the request.
The mail is then passed on to the recipients of the list, with the number
of the request added to the subject line of the mail. It will look
something like:
Subject: [Req #42] Help! How do I send mail?
Any mail sent through the mail alias with a request number in the subject
line is assumed to be associated with that number, and is appended to the
log for that number. Typically, a member of the alias will reply to the
user and send a copy of the reply to the list. The reply then becomes
part of that number's log. If the user replies, the same thing happens.
A request item has several features:
A requester, who is the person who originally requested it.
An owner, who is the person, if any, working on the request.
A priority, used by the group to prioritize requests.
A status, which indicates whether or not the request is resolved,
stalled, or open.
Several dates, indicating the time of the original request, the last
time it was updated, and the last time the user was informed of
the status.
One may do any of these actions (and a few others) on a request:
Take it. (Assume ownership if no one else owns it.)
Give it to someone.
Change the priority.
Change the status.
Add comments to it.
These can be done via mail, via a UNIX command line, or via any of the
interfaces that have been developed for it. Currently, the only other
interface that exists is a Tk based X interface, but an emacs client
and a curses client are under development.
In addition, the queue of active requests may be viewed in a variety of
ways, based on owner (or lack of one), status, priority, requester, and
other features.
Users may run a program that shows them the status of their own requests.
We've tried to design the system to be as policy-free as possible. For
comments about how we've used it, see some other document that I need to
write.
Requirements
============
- RFC-822 compliant mail
I.e, Internet standard mail.
- sendmail
It could probably work with other mailers with some very
minor work. I should note that unless you're running version
8.6.8 or later, you should upgrade for security reasons.
- Perl
I've only tested it on version 4.036, but it should work on older
versions.
- A C compiler and sh.
I've only built the C programs under SunOS 4.1.3 and Ultrix, but
they're pretty small and should be portable, or nearly so.
- A file system that your mail server and you as a user have access to.
NFS, AFS, whatever. But something.
It's been tested on SunOS 4.1.3 and Ultrix 4.3, and apparently has run
on numerous other things. Yay perl.
Not required, but nice
======================
- Tcl 7.3, Tk 3.6
For the X interface.
- Emacs
For the emacs interface.
- Glimpse
For indexing and searching the requests. Available from
ftp.cs.arizona.edu:/glimpse
Feedback
========
If you have any comments or questions, please send them to:
req@ccs.neu.edu
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