Topic: Winmail.dat filter

[christian]

Does anyone know of an easy way to filter all "winmail.dat" attachment files from incoming emails?  I'm currently using SME 6.0 w/ASSP, clamav, and amavis.  I did notice that amavis uses tnef at some point to open attachments for virus scanning but it doesn't convert the attachment.  I'm brand new to SME and my old Exchange/Outlook users are complaining about difficulty viewing attachments.  I could have people use Fentun but most of my users are incapable of extra steps.

On a separate issue, is there an easy way to filter winmail.dat files from older, existing emails?  I'm moving existing .pst files to IMAP.  I found winmaildatfilter but it doesn't work on files with extensions.  From what I can tell, users maildir directories contain messages with extensions.

Thanks for any insight or direction.

[shanen]

Doesn't ASSP allow you to block certain attachments?
I presume you want to strip them?
You can thank microsoft for their proprietary formats. I know from managing a Lotus Notes environment and have had users complaining about attachments they can’t open. Since I placed SME between domino, I have had very few "winmail.dat" attachments make it through and when they do, the info in the info in the attachment is in the body of the message anyway.
What client are your users on?

[christian]

Hi shanen,
Thanks for the reply.  ASSP can block certain attachments but I don't want to block winmail.dat attachments because they can contain useful information.  I just want to decode or filter the attachment and return it to the email message in non-microsoft proprietary format.  It wasn't an issue in the past because our clients were using outlook w/exchange server.  I'd like to just use SME 6 w/IMP webmail but IMP doesn't decode the winmail.dat files.  I thought there must be an easy way to do a universal filter with tnef.  I can probably setup a procmail filter for each user if I have to.

[Anonymous]

I had huge problems with our head office when they upgraded to exchange 2000 because some knob had forgot to set exchange to not use microsoft rich text... So if the user had changed their outlook settings to use Microsoft Rich Text, I was left with the phone calls. It took many emails to convince them to review their procedures and realise not everyone uses exchange. All I can suggest is that you email these people and tell them to sent their message in plain text. I'm sure you know all of this already.
My server is set up to delegate mail to an internal lotus domino mail server and all seems ok.
Could be a horde/imp thing like you said.

Good luck

Shane

[christian]

Hi Shane,
Thanks again for the post.  I'll probably just tell all offending emailers to change their setting away from Microsoft rich text format.  I'll also try to setup individual procmail scripts that call tnef.  Thanks again.

Christian