Re: [exim] exim and sieve filters

Roel Schroeven wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We currently have a setup where exim delivers to Maildir, and each user
> has a .forward with an exim filter. Users access their mail using
> Thunderbird via IMAP (using dovecot). So far, everything is working fine.
>
> Now I'm looking for a way to automatically label all new mails in one
> specific account so they appear as 'to do' in Thunderbird (I can't do
> that in Thunderbird itself since it's a shared account that's used from
> different client machines). As far as I can see, that cannot be done in
> an exim filter, but it can be done in a sieve filter using addflag
> "$label4".

So, to avoid confusion, you are using a sieve filter in dovecot, and not
the exim sieve filter capabilities, right? If so...

> I tried that, but that doesn't work in the current setup; the log says
>
> appendfile: file or directory name "inbox" is not absolute

then would this - writing messages directly to the maildir - even work?

Could be that you need to have dovecot deliver the message in order for
it to apply its sieve filter. Probably meaning you have to use a pipe
transport in exim in combination with a local delivery agent from
dovecot to deliver the messages.

You could probably set up your routers in such a way that messages for
which the exim filter set up delivery are passed to your appendfile
transport and the rest is routed to a transport that uses the LDA from
dovecot... (Assuming dovecot will play nice when using different
delivery methods simultaneously. Don't know dovecot, so I can't say.)

Cheers,
Mark.

P.S.

> (we're using exim 4.63-17 on Debian etch)

If you want something newer, there's 4.69 in backports.