[Dovecot] Out of office reminder with sieve

[Stephan Bosch]

Op 21-6-2011 11:39, Johan Hendriks schreef:
> Stephan Bosch schreef:
>> Op 20-6-2011 11:10, Johan Hendriks schreef:
>>> I found in the wiki the out of office reminder option.
>>> But the sample is looking for a .out-of-office file.
>>> I can not find out how to create this file.
>>> I use roundcube to set the out of office with sieve.
>>>
>>> what is the best way to implement this.
>>
>> Could you point me to that wiki page? I don't quite understand what 
>> you are talking about.
> Here is the part i am talking about.
<snip/>
> http://wiki2.dovecot.org/PostLoginScripting

Oh, so you want to remind people that their out-of-office responder is 
still active? That is going to be difficult, because it is hard to tell 
from the Sieve script alone whether vacation responses are being sent, 
without actually executing it.

> Maybe i can check the ~/.dovecot.lda-dupes file instead.
> Is that file being deleted if the out of office is disabled, or is it 
> cleaned only?

No, it is not deleted. The lda-dupes file is used to track other things 
as well, such as earlier redirects (to prevent mail loops). In the case 
of vacation, this file merely tracks which senders have got a response 
at what time in order to prevent responding within the defined :days 
period. It says nothing about whether a vacation rule is active.

I think it is a better solution to use the Sieve date extension to let 
the out-of-office responder disable itself once the user is deemed to be 
back to work. I believe Roundcube already supports this functionality. 
This means that the vacation rule does not need to be disabled 
explicitly, but stops automatically when the server date goes beyond a 
user-defined deadline.

If there is any particular reason why you would need to have explicit 
reminders, one solution would be to let Roundcube 'touch' the 
~/.out-of-office file once an out-of-office responder is activated. But 
that is a hack at best.

Regards,

Stephan.