mod: exchange connection for php 5.1

fidel

well with our new updates here at the office we have replaced out of postfix box with an exchange 07 server. unfortunately the os that osTicket in running on (centos) only supports PHP 5.1 and as there is a bug in php 5.1 that prevents imap_open from connecting to exchange I have had to find a work around that meets our needs ( and waist time I would have like to have spent on my internal tasks add-on)

This 'mod' is a bit of a rewrite of a good portion of the original osTicket code involved in emails.

The plan so far ( its almost finnished ) that on the centos box I will run a simple perl script via cron to collect the emails from the exchange server and place them in to a temp table in the db. next when a user access the osTicket site it runs a custom php script to pull these emails from the temp table parse them and put the data in the correct location in the tickets and tickets_messages tables.

Anyways on to the point of this post. I was hoping someone has done some thing like this already as I could use a hand working out the logic for this. so far I have the perl script in place and running fine and the outline of a class to handle the merge to the osT tables. I could use a some pointers as to how to extract all the required headers and attachments from the emails.

Kelli

Why not just set up an imap proxy on the server running osTicket then route incoming mail through the proxy? Then you have a solution for not only osTicket, but any other PHP script on the server as well.

http://www.imapproxy.org(http://www.imapproxy.org)

fidel

no can do. all mail has to go through our barracuda ( which is located 260 km from my office) and that routes it to the internal exchange box. I can not change this. Plus the centos box is already a bit over loaded with web server DNS, dhcp and a few other services for collecting weather data and stuff. If I did that It would also have to handle over 20,000 emails per day.

I'm also doing this way so its more portable and I can offer it up to other that my require it.

peter

Fidel,

Actually most of the code is already in-place, no need for temp tables. You simply need to post fetched emails directly to osTicket using remote piping api by adding IMAP/POP functionality to automail.pl

Good luck.

fidel

hmm.. well that could save me some time. I will look in to that, thanks.

fidel

Well I had a look though the code, trying to work out how to make it work via automail.pl, but as my perl skills strech to knowing how to spell perl. I'm going to have to ask for some pointers on this, thanks

my first question. in pipe.php one the line

$data=isset($_SERVER)?file_get_contents('php://input')('php://stdin');

what kind of data is $data holding? an array? string? file pointer? If I can get this I can slip the output from my perl script in here and use the existing code to achieve this.

peter

You don't even need to look in pipe.php at all. Below is pseudo-code on what you need on automail.pl

open IMAP connect and login

while(fetch_mail){

post it to pipe.php (code already implemented).

delete email or mark as read

}

disconnect

fidel

so I have been messing with this for the last couple of hours and I'm getting no place. Below is the code I now have in automail.pl. Only problem is I get the following errors when I run it. Any clue how to resolve these?

ERRORS:

syntax error at ./automail.pl line 32, near "$msg ("

BEGIN not safe after errors--compilation aborted at ./automail.pl line 49.

CODE:

#!/usr/bin/perl

#######################################################################

# automail.pl

##    Perl script used for remote email piping...same as as the PHP version.
##    Peter Rotich <peter@osticket.com>
#    Copyright (c) 2006,2007 osTicket
#    http://www.osticket.com
##    Released under the GNU General Public License WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.
#    See LICENSE.TXT for details.
##    vim: expandtab sw=4 ts=4 sts=4:
#    $Id: $
#######################################################################
#Configuration: Enter the url and key. That is it.
#  url=> URL to pipe.php e.g http://yourdomain.com/support/api/pipe.php 
#  key=> API Key (see admin panel on how to generate a key)
%config = (url => 'http://MYURL.COM/api/pipe.php',
           key => '0A73932E7B32F663E6DC87F421BE33FC');
use Net::;
# open a connection to the IMAP server
$server = new Net::( '000.000.000.000' );
# login
$server->login( 'username', 'password' );
#get number of emails in the inbox
$number_of_messages = $server->select( 'INBOX' )
#step through each email, add it to the $rawemail var 
#and then delete the email from the server
foreach $msg (1..$number_of_messages) {
	if ( !$server->seen( $msg )) {
		$rawemail .= $msg;
	}
	$server->delete( $msg );
}#Get piped message from stdin
#while (<STDIN>) {
#    $rawemail .= $_;
#}
use LWP:;
$ua = LWP:->new;
$ua->agent($config{'key'});
$ua->timeout(30);
use HTTP:: qw(POST);
my $enc ='text/plain';
my $req = (POST $config{'url'}, Content_Type => $enc,Content => $rawemail);
$response = $ua->request($req);
##Process response
# Depending on your MTA add the exit codes 
#if($response->is_success and $response->code==200 and length($response->content)==1) {
#print "Success";
}else {
#print "Error ".$response->content;
}

exit;

fidel

never mind I found the syntax error that caused this. Seems to run fine now. I will test and let you know how things go. Thanks for the pointers.

peter

The post need to be inside the foreach loop...

fidel

Could be why its not working, how ever my perl powers are about drained as I read it

foreach $msg (1..$number_of_messages) {

if ( !$server->seen( $msg )) {

$rawemail .= $msg;

}

$server->delete( $msg );

}

is a simple replacement for

#Get piped message from stdin

while (<STDIN>) {

$rawemail .= $_;

}

Do I have to extent the foreach loop to include

my $req = (POST $config{'url'}, Content_Type => $enc,Content => $rawemail);

or more?

peter

Getting piped message from stdin is not the same thing as fetching messages via IMAP ( one vs. many).

Once you connect you need to loop through all the unseen messages and post a full body (get_rfc822_body ) to pipe.php - one at a time.

Good luck.:)

wayner87

Fidel,

I would be interested to know if you got this working as i seem to be having problems with php and exchange.

Kind Regards,

Wayne

fidel

yes, I got the code to work, however the exchange server is not playing ball. I tested it on a number of server and it works, but the one I need to use will not. I'm still working on finding the problem. exchange is just stupid when it comes to php, but I will got it and Will post the solution once I have one.

Correction NO ITS NOT WORKING :(

fidel

ok I'm about to throw in the towel on this one, unless some one can inform me of the correct Perl command and syntax to the following problem please...

I have the email from the server in a variable and send it to the pipe.php file I have tried the following commands in many variations with no joy so far.

system('php -f /var/www/support/api/pipe.php?'.$out);

open DATA,"/var/www/support/api/pipe.php $out |";

As I have noted before I have no clue how to code perl and the more I try the more messed up I get.

Here is the script I have at the moment. Its not much, but nether is my knowledge or Perl

Thanks to anyone who can help.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT

#!/usr/local/bin/php

use Net::;

use DBI;

# open a connection to the IMAP server

$server = new Net::( '000.000.000.000' );

# login

$server->login( '<USER_NAME>', '<PASSWORD>' );

# select the desired folder

<USERMENTION username="number_of_messages">@number_of_messages</USERMENTION> = $server->select( 'INBOX' );

		# go through all the messages in the selected folder
foreach $msg (1..@number_of_messages) {
    
		# Check if the email has already been read.
		# if not then read it into the database
	if ( !$server->seen( $msg )) {
		    		# get the message, returned as a reference to an array of lines
	    	$lines = $server->get( $msg );
	 
			# Join the array of line that for the email into one string	 
	    	$out = join('',@$lines);
    	
			# do a search and replace to fix hyphen error
		$out =~ s/'/-/g;
			#send email to pipe.php... tried and filed the follow commands
		#system('php -f /var/www/support/api/pipe.php?'.$out);
		#open DATA,"/var/www/support/api/pipe.php $out |";
    	}
	   
	if ( $server->seen( $msg )) {
			# Un-comment the lines below to delete emails after they have been read in to the database
			# Only do this after you are sure the script is funtioning correctly.
		# $server->delete( $msg );        
	}
    }
    # close the connection to the exchange server
$server->quit();

This code is now defuncked. look below for the latest version.

fidel

Well today I woke up with this in my head and needed to find a solution. I set about rewriting this from scratch and this is what I have. I borrowed a bit of the code from Peters original auto mail script. Hope you don't mind. It seems to work. If anyone can please give this a try for me and let me know if you have any errors. I will continue to play with it and fine tune it a bit.

So this is a perl script that needs to be ran as a cron job. At the moment it only pulls in 1 email at a time, so I have it running every 2 mins at busy times and every 10 mins through the night just in case.

I have only tested it against an exchange 2007 server. please let me know if you have any success with other versions

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT

%config = (url => 'http://<PATH TO YOUR>/api/pipe.php',

key => '<YOUR API KEY GOES HERE>');

use DBI;

use LWP:;

use HTTP:: qw(POST);

use Net::;

$ua = LWP:->new;

$ua->agent($config{'key'});

$ua->timeout(30);

my $imap = Net::->new(

server => '<EXCHANGE SERVER IP HERE>',

user => '<USER NAME>',

pass => '<PASSWORD>',

ssl => 0, # (use SSL? default no)

port => 143 # (but defaults are sane)

) or die "Could not connect to IMAP server";

# everything's useless if you can't login

$imap->login or die('Login failed: ' . $imap->last_error);

# select folder

$imap->select('INBOX');

# get all the message ID's

my <USERMENTION username="messages">@messages</USERMENTION> = $imap->search('ALL');

# go through all the messages in the selected folder

foreach $msg_id (1..@messages) {

# Check if the email has already been read.

# if not then read it into the database

if ( !$imap->get_flags($msg_id,'\\Seen')){

#get the message

$data = $imap->get_rfc822_body($msg_id);

#set the message flag as seen

$imap->get_flags($msg_id,'\\Seen');

}

if ( $imap->get_flags($msg_id,'\\Seen')) {

#delete the message

$imap->get_flags($msg_id,'\\Deleted') ;

}

}# close the connection to the exchange server
$imap->quit();
my $enc ='text/plain';
my $req = (POST $config{'url'}, Content_Type => $enc,Content => $data);
$response = $ua->request($req);
 if($response->is_success and $response->code==200 and length($response->content)==1) {
#print "Success";
}else {
#print "Error ".$response->content;
}exit;