Filtering Mail Into Folders

Question

I run a mail server using Dovecot and Exim. Currently mail filtering is done on a per user basis using a .forward file in ~/ containing entires along the lines of:

if $h_to: CONTAINS "bugtraq"
then
  save "$home/Maildir/.Mailing Lists.BugTraq/"
  finish
endif

if $h_Subject: CONTAINS "Sfic"
then
  save "$home/Maildir/.Mailing Lists/"
  finish
endif

And so on. This is quite tedious as it requires users to ssh in and manually write their own .forwars files. I am wondering if there are any easier or more elegant solutions to server side filtering. Are there any standards for mail clients to tell the server how to classify mail server-side?

Answer 1

Well, I can't think of anything on the server side, but if manual setup of .forward is the problem, you can set up a default .forward file in /etc/skel/ and that'd be copied into all new users' home directories. As a one time maintenance you'll have to append your default .forward rules into all current user's .forward.