pipe <command>
e.g. pipe "$home/bin/countmail $sender_address"
This command causes a separate process to be run, and a copy of the message is passed on its standard input. The process runs as the user, under the user's primary group. Any secondary groups to which the use may belong are not normally taken into account, though the system administrator can configure Exim to set them up.
The command supplied to `pipe' is split up by Exim into a command name and a number of arguments, delimited by white space except for arguments enclosed in double quotes, in which case backslash is interpreted as an escape, or in single quotes, in which case no escaping is recognized. Note that as the whole command is normally supplied in double quotes, a second level of quoting is required for internal double quotes. For example:
pipe "$home/myscript \"size is $message_size\""
By default, string expansion is performed on the separate components after the line has been split up and the command is then run directly by Exim; it is not run under a shell. Therefore, substitution cannot change the number of arguments, nor can quotes, backslashes or other shell metacharacters in variables cause confusion.
Documentation for some programs that are normally run via this kind of pipe often suggest the the command start with
IFS=" "
This is a shell command, and should not be present in Exim filter files, since it does not normally run the command under a shell.
However, there is an option that the administrator can set to cause a shell to be used. In this case, the entire command is expanded as a single string and passed to the shell for interpretation. It is recommended that this be avoided if at all possible, since it can lead to problems when inserted variables contain shell metacharacters.
The default PATH set up for the command is determined by the system administrator, usually containing at least `/usr/bin' so that common commands are available without having to specify an absolute file name. However, it is possible for the system administrator to restrict the pipe facility so that the command name must not contain any / characters, and must be found in one of the directories in the configured PATH. It is also possible for the system administrator to lock out the use of the `pipe' command altogether.
When the command is run, the following environment variables are set up:
DOMAIN the local domain of the address HOME your home directory LOCAL_PART your login name LOGNAME your login name MESSAGE_ID the message's unique id PATH the command search path SENDER the sender of the message SHELL /bin/sh USER your login name
If you run a command that is a shell script, be very careful in your use of data from the incoming message in the commands in your script. RFC 822 is very generous in the characters that are legally permitted to appear in mail addresses, and in particular, an address may begin with a vertical bar or a slash. For this reason you should always use quotes round any arguments that involve data from the message, like this:
/some/command "$SENDER"
so that inserted shell meta-characters do not cause unwanted effects.
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.