[olug] Mail Relaying w/Filtering

[Nick Walter]

Oddly enough, I'm almost done with a very similar project for my
employer.  We are trying to get linux systems to report status/log 
information in automatically via the internet.  What I found to be the
lowest-headache-factor method was to have the systems report the info to
a web page.  Specifically to a cgi or java servlet that can do something
intelligent (anything you want pretty much) with the info once it's
submitted.  Going out on port 80 avoids firewall issues almost every
time.  If your ISP tries to block port 80 incoming, change ISPs.

If you, or anyone working with you on the project, has c/c++ or java
coding skills it's rather easy to set up a web server with a cgi or java
servlet to accept HTTP POST or HTTP GET submissions.  If the information
has a static structure this will be really easy, and it's still do-able
if the amount or content of the information is variable.  

Once your collection-point web server has the data, it can email it out
again, or compile summary reports, or do alarm notification if the data
is a critical alert, etc.

In my project, I've found that the hardest part is not collecting the
data, but assembling web-based summaries and reports that are pretty
enough to satisfy the management and marketing people :)

Nick Walter
 
On Thu, 2002-11-14 at 10:04, Eric Penne wrote:
> I have project coming up in the next couple weeks for work that I don't
> have a lot of knowledge about.  We will be using Linux, so the good
> news is that I will be able to read/learn about it.  
> 
> We have base stations out in the field that collect data from our
> system.  These base stations (linux based 386) have ethernet, serial,
> and modem connections.  The serial reads data from another module.  The
> ethernet and modem are used for communications with us.  The modem can
> dial into our service provider and email the data it has.  The service
> provider won't let us do the same thing through ethernet because it
> does not orginate from inside thier system (ie not from their modem
> pool).  We wnat to set up a mail relay system that we can use for all
> email communication (modem and ethernet).  Of course we don't want it
> to be open to the rest of the world.  Here is my question:  Can we set
> up a relay that can filter the mail so that it must conform to a
> specific format or have a specific identifier in it?
> 
> Ideally we wouldn't have to base it on MAC address or anything so that
> we don't have to update the mail server everytime we send out new
> units.  We also might have other issues with the buyers firewalls but
> that will be addressed later.
> 
> Later
> Eric
> 
> 
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