Thanks Steve, for your insight and tips. I think you're on the same track as
me - it's just that I'm a little new to the area of configuring the pipe
script which facilitates the recording of the message body. That's a new
area for me.
Ultimately, my interest is in the message bodies of incoming email, and
subsequent outgoing correspondance - not so much the original outgoing
campaign. The original message template, which contains the info we need to
track, is composed striaght from the database server, so it's automatically
committed to the database.
After several thousand messages go out, several thousand responses come in -
those message bodies need to be recorded (like in a database) in such a way
that it can easily be manipulated, analyzed, reported, etc. Same goes for
the correspondance that is sent from our internal nurses to the patients -
that outgoing email contains unique mesage bodies that need similar
recording.
I had a hunch that one area to explore might be to find a means to script a
pipe of the message (including body) to a MYSQL database. Great in theory,
but not sure how to go about doing this, or even if it's an efficient
practice given my goal. The first problem that I run into is the fact that
all logging utilities thus far (i.e. syslogd, Exim's proprietary logging,
etc) can record just about everything EXCEPT the message body. If I could
just get past that first hurdle, I'd be willing to take a swing at exporting
that to a database.
The scope of my goal here is relatively small - I just want an efficient
means of recording message bodies - hopefully to a database. That's goal #1.
I know this is done around the world, because I've had occasion when dealing
with different support organizations that when I reference an email (with a
S/N in the subject line) they can quickly produce the email and review it.
Compaq and Cisco have both done this - and at times the email they retrieve
could be as much as a year old.
Is it possible that someone at Compaq & Cisco has been inputting email data
into a database by some less automated process? Sure - all sorts of things
are possible. But the larger the environment, and the larger the volume of
email that you're dealing with, the more clear it becomes that there is a
need for a fully automated process of storing email data (including message
body) for long term, in a manner that lends iteself to being querried.
That's what I need. Thanks again for the help I have received. I appreciate
it.
Lonnie
>From: Steven Ericsson Zenith <steven@???>
>To: exim-users@???
>Subject: [Exim] Re: SMTP Logging
>Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 14:54:49 -0700
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>
>Lonnie Santella wrote:
> > What I'm asking for is a good approach to storing and recording message
> > bodies so they can be retrieved based on intelligent, structured
>searches. I
> > had always believed that database storage of emails was the best method
>for
> > this, but if there's a better way, I'm all ears.
>
>Your intuitions are right in my view - though, if the data is unstructured
>and
>does not need stat reports then you might consider a search engine approach
>as
>suggested. But, from what you say, it sounds like you have report and
>tracking
>requirements that would not be met by this approach.
>
>For the volume you have suggested a pipe transport through a script that
>does the decomposition and database storage may suit you - or you might
>consider sending the email to BSMTP files and processing those files
>periodically to populate your database - for example, you could do this
>once per day offline.
>
>Sincerely,
>Steven
>
>--
>Dr. Steven Ericsson Zenith
>
>--
>
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