I'm getting asked to research the storage, archiving and possibly the retrieval of messages which might be years old. Is anyone using an in house product to maintain an archive of all email messages that transfer through your host machine?
I've been asked the same question here, and should we decide to do it, it will likely be a roll-our-own system. At this point, the (sketchy) outline is:
1) use iMails' copy-to function on the SMTP service to send a copy of all messages to an "archive" account
2) the archive program POP's the messages from that account
a) get TO: and FROM: from the message body, as well as other things of interest (message date, source IP, message size, etc)
b) if there are X-RCPT-TO: and/or X-DECLUDE-SENDER header lines, use them instead
-- the only way to get the TRUE destination is to intercept the mail at the envelope level, and I'm not sure how to do that.
3) determine if there are attachments (other than that &*!#@& winmail.dat file) and record the names
4) save the first (xx) Kilobytes of the message
Store all this is a SQL database table(s).
Should we go forward with this, I'll probably make the program available for download.
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------- illigitimi non carborundum ------------------------------------------------------------------- Bud Durland, CNE Mold-Rite Plastics Network Administrator http://www.mrpcap.com -------------------------------------------------------------------
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