Wiedenmann Vacation

Web Front-End to Manage vacation(1) Settings

Author:	Wolfgang Scherer

Inhalt

Purpose
Screenshot
Features
Expert Mode
Source Code and Installation

Purpose

This program is a front end written in PHP to manage the vacation(1) auto reply command.

The content of the message file $HOME/.virtual.msg can be edited in a browser.

It is also possible to appoint another user to receive a copy of all emails, when the vacation(1) filter is active.

The auto reply history from vacation(1) is also shown and can be deleted.

Screenshot

Regular user interface:

the user cannot be changed
the link to the manual is omitted

Administrator interface.

the user can be selected
a link to the administrator manual is shown

Expert Mode active.

Automatic Conversion mode no longer available
Use Clear to load default message and enable Automatic Conversion mode.

Features

In Automatic Conversion mode the edited message is converted to a message file using
- Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
- Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Therefore international characters do not pose a problem.
In Expert Mode, a preformatted mail can be used.
If the filter is activated, file $HOME/.forward is created from the settings, otherwise the .forward file is deleted.
The program comes with a preconfigured sudoers(5) configuration file, which allows the www server user to execute the vacation(1) command on behalf of a system user.
There is also an apache2(8) configuration file included.

Expert Mode

In Expert Mode, a preformatted mail can be used.

You can, e.g., compose a multipart/alternative mail that contains both plain text and HTML in your favorite mail client. (Thunderbird does an excellent job). Make sure to use character set UTF-8!

Save the mail in a file or view the source code.
Copy and paste the mail source into the expert text area.
Save the mail.
Since a standard set of inapplicable email headers is removed upon saving, you can edit the result to clean up the rest.

Bemerkung

Once a mail is saved in Expert Mode, Automatic Conversion mode is no longer available. Use the Clear button to go back to the internal defaults, which also restores Automatic Conversion mode.

The configuraton setting $EXPERT_ENABLED in lib/config.php allows to globally disable Expert Mode.

Source Code and Installation

The source code is available in a mercurial repository at ws-vacation.

Clone the repository with:

$ hg clone https://bitbucket.org/wolfmanx/ws-vacation

See the Administrator Manual for installation instructions.

Copyright

See section GNU Free Documentation License for license conditions for the documentation.

See section GNU General Public License for license conditions for the program.