Post from email

[sadiqbaig]

Code Select Expand

The following text was generated during the delivery attempt:

------ pipe to |/home/waplinks/public_html/wapforum/emailpost.php
      generated by [email protected] ------

PHP Notice:  SSI.php was unable to load a session!  This may cause problems with logout and other functions - please make sure SSI.php is included before *anything* else in all your scripts! in /home/waplinks/public_html/wapforum/SSI.php on line 159
<br />
<b>Notice</b>:  SSI.php was unable to load a session!  This may cause problems with logout and other functions - please make sure SSI.php is included before *anything* else in all your scripts! in <b>/home/waplinks/public_html/wapforum/SSI.php</b> on line <b>159</b><br />

------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------ 

[dcsk]

Read this message to solve the SSI problem

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=40650.msg296631#msg296631

[karldied]

Hi all, I've had a hard time following the discussion on "posting by e-mail" a la yahoo groups. Those who seek this feature often have small groups in which the communication is primarily by e-mails back and forth between group members who chose to receive forum posts as e-mails. The board in these cases acts first as a repository of the dialog; it also provides a reference for those new to the group; and performs as a standard forum those who prefer to surf over to the group rather than receive messages by e-mail.

Relevant SMF Threads:
1. http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=10166
2. http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=40595.0
3. http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=40650.0
4. http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=40848.0
5. http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=57890.0

Subject, Length, and Board for each of the above:
1. [Declined] postings via emails (yahoo! groups!) (7 pages) Feature Requests
2. For those wanting to post by email. (1 page) Coding Discussion
3. Post from Email (9 pages) Coding > Mods and Packages
4. CM2F (mail 2 forum) Port for SMF (8 pages) Feature Requests
5. Post from email (2 pages) Coding Discussion

Started by, Start Date, and Summary of each Thread:
1. assad, April 26, 2004: request for functionality; eventually declined.
2. Grudge, July 01, 2005: Grudge agreed to add functionality as a mod.
3. Grudge, July 02, 2005: moved thread over to Mods board.
4. digitalgraal, July 4, 2005: noted that CM2F was also being developed.
5. dcsk, November 24, 2005: updates the mod to RC1 and RC2.

Link to the mod (emailpost.php):
http://mods.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=168

Link to the alternate CM2F (Community Mail 2 Forum):
http://dev.digitalgraal.net/ [nofollow]

I suspect it is bad form to make this post to each of these threads, but I had a tough time finding the newer topics and news. It's probably also poor form to close the old threads after clearly pointing to the most recent thread. Well, the CM2F thread shouldn't be closed anyway, as that is really a separate topic from emailpost.php. I think CM2F has been re-named CM4F, which stands for Community Mail For Forum. In any case, that project seeks to add the functionality to a number of forum projects, not just SMF.

Other forums with this functionality (I think):
1. FUD Forum
2. phpBB + mail2forum
3. phorum
4. probably others....

What this feature is:
1. Allows members, when they receive a post by e-mail, to reply by e-mail and have their reply posted in the forum.
2. The mod by Grudge requires SMF version 1.1 (RC2, RC1, and some betas; see threads).
3. Requires configuration of your individual mail program (not plug and play).
4. Often requires full access to the server.

What this feature is not:
1. Subscribe to topic and have full text of posts e-mailed to you (already exists in 1.1, user profile, if admin allows).
2. Subscribe to forum (as opposed to topic) and have full text of ALL posts e-mailed to you (already exists in 1.1).
3. Subscribe and receive a daily or weekly digest.
4. E-mail to forum starting a new topic (thread). Too insecure.
5. E-mail another member via a forum page (never revealing the other's e-mail address).

Security:
This feature was declined as a core functionality for reasons described in the first thread listed. [Unknown] and Grudge made it very clear that they would not add functionality that could allow an SMF board to be easily abused.

There are several levels of security breaches:
1. Hackers take down down or commandeer your server.
2. Hackers gain access to SMF admin and take down your forum or site.
3. Hackers login with a stolen user name and password, and delete, modify, or make malicious posts.
4. Hackers e-mail in illegitimate posts, posing as a forum member.

The concern in question is #4, not #1, #2, or #3. The offered mod provides reasonable assurance against even #4. It does this by:
1. No new topics or threads, only a response to a specific post. To start a new thread, you must log in to the forum.
2. Unique ID in the subject line can only be used once. No multiple replies to a post which a member has received by e-mail.
3. Check "From" e-mail against the e-mail address of the member to whom the unique ID was sent.

Hopefully (don't see in code...) the mod also:
4. Checks to ensure the response is not an out-of-office auto reply.

Further security enhancements might be:
5. Expire the unique ID after 30 days (or whatever admin sets).
6. Confirmation e-mail to member that the post by e-mail has been accepted, so that person would be alerted and could respond if an illegitimate e-mail post has been made by an impostor.
7. Admin option to require moderator review and approval to publish the post.
8. Admin option to require moderator approval to re-distribute the post by e-mail (to members subscribed to receive posts by e-mail).
9. Admin option to add a tagline to the post such as "Posted by e-mail"

Those who begrudge the inability to duplicate listserves that do allow unauthenticated new threads to be submitted by e-mail might find it possible to hack the code to drop this check; but then it becomes harder to discern whether the subject is a reply or new topic; and you'd need to write a bunch of code to make the post; and figure out which board to post it to; many problems.... You'd want to require the unique ID (from an e-mail from a different topic) in any case. On small boards behind login-required sites, I can appreciate that some admins would be willing to accept the eventual likelihood of Security Breach #4 in exchange for ability to e-mail into the forum freely. Just be aware that checking the From e-mail will not stop Security Breach #4.

In any case, I am very grateful for the functionality. Cheers to Grudge for providing it! And thanks to the many who expressed interest and requested the feature, particularly Tobias and dcsk. Hopefully someone will be able to respond to Grudge (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=57890.msg403071#msg403071) to take over this mod package.

Summary:
This post is intended to make the multiple threads dealing with the topic much easier to locate and follow, particularly for those first coming to SMF to discern whether SMF will meet your needs.

-Karl

[Vince S]

What this feature is not:
1. Subscribe to topic and have full text of posts e-mailed to you (already exists in 1.1, user profile, if admin allows).
2. Subscribe to forum (as opposed to topic) and have full text of ALL posts e-mailed to you (already exists in 1.1).

Karl, this seems to be a very lucid summary of the situation and I have read a lot of the related info but I have nearly gone nuts looking in 1.1 RC2 where item 2 is, could you give me a pointer please?

I so totally agree with Tobias and others about the criticality of this exchange email function, in fact I was very disappointed when I realised that it was not a core functionality. I have been an active member of a board from Discusware (http://www.discusware.com/products/faqs.html) for years and it operates in exactly this way - you post, it gets emailed to you with message text and a link. If I pick html I get images in the posts too. All I do is tick the boards (called topics) I want and it all happens regardless of new / added to topics (called threads). Until I looked a few minutes ago I didn't have any idea who the author of the board software was, it just works. It doesn't say what version is being used, I suspect it is an early version of the Pro one since it does accept small attachments.

So I decided to set up my own forum a couple of months back as there is a strong demand for a social club in our locality, SMF is obviously the best of the public domain efforts and it has some very nice features. However, the real world people I want to encourage communication between have a 50/50 split of people who can surf and post just fine to those who email is a big experience and they have figured out how to socially interact that way but that is the end of it! In fact, it was quite sobering for me to realise how many people had the difficulty of really grasping the whole bb thing. I can't get Grudge's fine efforts with email post to work flawlessly (close but not there for me) - in any case it is only a move to half an answer, it won't achieve multiple sequential reply posting unless I go round and tick notify for every board for every member, and then keep doing it for all new members - that is not what life is meant to be, and it is voluntary anyway and needs to be low maintenance when set up as I will not do it for ever, same as any one else on the planet.

Sorry to ramble on, and I really do understand the issues of taking on and supporting such an effort as SMF and certainly don't mean to criticise this very worthwhile effort. Just that, if the ability exists to "have full text of ALL posts e-mailed to you already exists in 1.1" is really correct it goes counter to everything else that has been said on this general topic throughout this forum. I would be most delighted to sheepishly wilt  into a corner if someone could kindly point out how to practically activate this functionality in SMF 1.1 RC2. I lamb reddy to learn. Thanks ........Vince

[RobCo]

Great post! I've been looking for something like this.

To which specific mail client settings were you referring in the following statement.

What this feature is:
...
3. Requires configuration of your individual mail program (not plug and play).

I've been able to get my installation working for replies from Windows Outlook Express, but recently discovered that it did not work on replies from Windows Outlook. I suspect it is due to the way I have Outlook configured.

[coolparth]

Hello i am using post by email v1.02 (latest) & SMF 1.1RC2 it worked fine except there was some extra info posted

------=_Part_25156_33067089.1143605768257
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

Test message from email

------=_Part_25156_33067089.1143605768257
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

Test message from email


------=_Part_25156_33067089.1143605768257--

The second problem is that the message comes from the defualt board admin email address & not the one set in the features and options for this MOD...

How do i change that?


Can anyone help?

[Boworr]

What this feature is not:
1. Subscribe to topic and have full text of posts e-mailed to you (already exists in 1.1, user profile, if admin allows).

Is there anyway I can do this? I'd really like this to receive update notifications from other websites. e.g. When a piece of software is updated by companyX I can subscribe to a mailing list and they'll send me the new information. If this could auto-magically appear on a board then so would all the rest of my users. Another example would be for virus notifications, or Windows patches etc.

The email addresses would be known up front so could specifically listed, the board could be made read only and private to subscribed members.

[Simon Halliday]

Does anybody have a copy of email from post mod?  The one on the board appears to be corrupt.  Please email or pm please.





Cheers,

Simon
www.newenglandcedarhomes.com
[email protected]

[kanon]

I've installed this on SMF 1.1RC2 and eventually got it to work. I added some extra debugging code to emailpost.php.

Original code:

Code Select Expand

// Couldn't find it? If so just die... (Maybe we could send back a notice to the user?)
if (empty($headers['in-reply-to']) || preg_match('~[a-z0-9]{32}\-(p|t|m)(\d+)~i', $headers['in-reply-to'], $match) == 0)
{
die;
}


I changed it to:

Code Select Expand

// Couldn't find it? If so just die... (Maybe we could send back a notice to the user?)
if (empty($headers['in-reply-to']) || preg_match('~[a-z0-9]{32}\-(p|t|m)(\d+)~i', $headers['in-reply-to'], $match) == 0)
{
mail($headers['from'], 'subject', 'Headers Bad', 'From: ' . empty($modSettings['email_from']) ? $webmaster_email : $modSettings['email_from']);

die;
}

Strangely, though the post did get into the forum, I also got this debug e-mail. The only way I can think of for this to happen is if emailpost.php is being called twice, once where it dies here and once where it works. What's going on?

Also, sometimes it takes around a half-hour from the time I send the e-mail and the post appears. Anybody else have that happen?

[MegaV1]

this sounds cool, but have you got one for 1.0.7?

[GLAG]

I would also like to see this mod for 1.0.7-
Seems as though with the upgrade to 1.0.7 there is little we can do with it as far as mods.. or themes-
Maybe upgrading wasn't such a good idea?
GLAC

[Kindred]

SMF 1.1RC2 is a NEWER version from 1.0.7.

There is very little chance that this mod will ever be made backward down to work on the 1.0.x series (actually, since much of the functionality seems to depend on some things in the 1.1 core, I don't even know if it would be possible to get this working down on the 1.0.x series.

[henmar]

i have installed mod post by email in my smf rc2 installation and its working pretty gud, i get all the post made from email but there is one problem still exist that whenever user make a post he gets a failure delivery spam though mail has been post to forum.the spam generate is already showed in other posts:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

  pipe to |/home/ZZZ/public_html/test/emailpost.php
    generated by [email protected]

dcsk wrote

Ha, it turned out that the inocube error is caused by incorrect server settings. Problem solved. I got a error free, trouble free post from email module.

what is inocube error and is linked to above problem and if so, how to rectify it .
thanks

[exeron]

well ive got 1.02 on smf 1.1 beta 3 and i dont get any server errors just that it still sends emails from the default email address and not the one i specified and i cant reply to it all i get is

The following error occured:

You are not allowed to reply to this topic.

in an error email back after i reply and change the email address. can anyone point me in the right direction?

[Kindred]

upgrade to 1.1RC2?

[henmar]

i have tried everything doesnt work for me............Hope somebody will come up good solution for this mod.
thanks

[exeron]

upgrading isnt an option coz all my other mods wont work if i do coz i tried it a few days back.

[Kindred]

well, then... you have an option. Upgrade from an outdated (and potentially unsafe) version of SMF and get this mod that you want...    or don't.

[exeron]

ye i may do one day but all the mods ive got on could make it a long job ill give t another go then when i can be bothered.

[skelem]

Is this still going? What is the latest version