Convert incoming email to PDF

S

Sylhouette

Hello all.

We are using a postfix MailScanner solution to filter spam.
We also want to start archiving mails to a network share as pdf files.

Does anyone know a solution for this.
So that e-mail is archived to a pdf file from postfix or from MailScanner.

thanks

regards
Johan
 
I'm not familiar with a ready made solution but there are modules you can use with various scripting languages (perl for instance) and create your own.
 
Why save them as a PDF file and not just as a text file?

I don't see the added value of PDF here ... I only see disadvantages (Harder to index, may truncate/destroy some data, larger).
 
Hi,

Remember that mail may contain attachment and you might not want to keep it into your PDF file.
Try this to keep only 6 first pages in the generated PDF file using A4 paper in landscape orientation with 2 pages on one sheet, no border/header/footer and "CONFIDENTIAL" under lay :
Code: 
a2ps -q -MA4 -2 --borders=no --no-header -b -a1,6 uCONFIDENTIAL /tmp/input.txt | ps2pdf - /tmp/output.pdf
If you want to pipe your mail directly to this command replace /tmp/input.txt by a single hyphen "-".
 
Thanks all for your time.

It now only prints page 1 AND 6 so i need -a1-6, and then it prints the first 6 pages of the mail.
It is awesome what you can do on the commandline.

One thing i can not get to work is how to pipe the mail through this program.

What we need is mail send to oneaddress@ourdomain.com being delivered to the mailbox the normal way, but also make a pdf copy of that mail and store it on our system.
So it needs to be done for only one e-mail address.
We use postfix, but i can not get it to pipe it through that command.

Thanks again all.

regards
Johan
 
Hi,

To print pages 1 to 6 use "1-6", I agree.

Configure /etc/postfix/master.cf by adding a line to create your specific pipe called mypipe where /usr/local/bin/mail2pdf is your mail converter to PDF runing as user pdfmail or another user who has the ability to create files in the PDF directory store :
Code: 
mypipe   unix   -   n   n   -   -   pipe   flags= user=pdfmail argv=/usr/local/bin/mail2pdf ${sender}

Configure your special address to get copy of the mail by adding a line to /etc/postfix/virtual :
Code: 
oneaddress@ourdomain.com oneaddress@ourdomain.com,oneaddressmapped@ourdomain.com
And then add a line in /etc/postfix/transport to catch the mail destinated to the special address :
Code: 
oneaddressmapped@ourdomain.com   mypipe
Don't forget to tell Postfix to use it by configuring /etc/postfix/main.cf :
Code: 
transport_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/transport
virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual
To finish this rehash the transport and virtual files and reload postfix if necessary.
See Postfix transport documentation for more information and also pipe and virtual.

Geodni
 
Nice, but without specifying the output of the a2ps command, the post script might be sent to the printer instead of stout.
So better use:
Code: 
a2ps example.txt -o - | ps2pdf - example.pdf
 
I want to thank you all, it all works like we want it to work.

Thanks again, i will mark it solved.

I have learned a lot about postfix and piping to other commands this way.

regards,
Johan
 
One more thing i saw with testing, is that when 2 mails arive at almost the same time, the second does not get processed.

i tested with the periodic daily command, and then only the first mail get processed, the second did not get processed, proberbly because the script was busy.

how can i make sure the second mail is put on hold when the script is busy.
I also did try to create a file first, so that i can pick up the file to proces with a2ps and ps2pdf later, but this way is slow also.

thanks

Johan
 
Instead of using /tmp/input.txt and /tmp/output.pdf use a random generated filename using mktemp(1)

For example:
Code: 
#!/bin/sh
#

input=$(mktemp -t mail2pdfin)
output=$(mktemp -t mail2pdfout)
dest="/path/to/final/dest"

a2ps -q -MA4 -2 --borders=no --no-header -b -a1,6 uCONFIDENTIAL ${input} | ps2pdf - ${output}
mv ${output} ${dest}
rm ${input}

Otherwise one script will overwrite the files of another script if they're executed at the same time :)

Make sure you move or delete the files created by mktemp, otherwise you'll end up with a very full /tmp/ very fast :)
 
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