config-email/sync/README.md

Email Rules Sync System

This script synchronizes email rules from AWS DynamoDB to the mail server, enabling:

• Out-of-Office Auto-Replies (Sieve scripts)
• Email Forwarding (Postfix virtual aliases)

How It Works

┌─────────────┐
│  DynamoDB   │  ← Rules stored here (via Web UI)
│ email-rules │
└──────┬──────┘
       │
       │ Sync Script (every 5 minutes)
       ↓
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│     Mail Server (Docker)            │
│  ┌────────────┐  ┌───────────────┐  │
│  │   Sieve    │  │    Postfix    │  │
│  │  Scripts   │  │Virtual Aliases│  │
│  │  (OOO)     │  │ (Forwarding)  │  │
│  └────────────┘  └───────────────┘  │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Setup

1. Install Dependencies

cd /home/timo/config-email/sync
npm install

2. Configure Environment

The .env file is already configured with:

• AWS credentials
• DynamoDB table name
• Mail server paths

3. Test Manual Sync

npm start

You should see output like:

🚀 Starting email rules sync...
📊 DynamoDB Table: email-rules
🌍 Region: us-east-2

📥 Fetching rules from DynamoDB...
✅ Found 2 email rules

📝 Processing Sieve scripts (Out-of-Office)...
✅ Created Sieve script for support@qrmaster.net
✅ Processed 1 Sieve scripts

📮 Updating virtual aliases (Forwarding)...
✅ Found 0 forwarding rules
✅ Updated virtual aliases

🔄 Applying changes to mail server...
✅ Postfix reloaded
✅ Dovecot reloaded

✨ Sync completed successfully!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total Rules:        2
OOO Active:         1
Forwarding Active:  0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

4. Install as Cron Job (Automatic Sync)

./install-cron.sh

This will:

• Run sync every 5 minutes
• Log to /tmp/email-rules-sync.log

Usage

View Sync Logs

tail -f /tmp/email-rules-sync.log

Manual Sync

cd /home/timo/config-email/sync
npm start

Check Current Cron Jobs

crontab -l

Remove Cron Job

crontab -l | grep -v "email-rules-sync" | crontab -

What Gets Generated

1. Sieve Scripts (Out-of-Office)

Location: /home/timo/docker-mailserver/docker-data/dms/mail-data/{domain}/{user}/home/.dovecot.sieve

Example for support@qrmaster.net:

require ["vacation", "variables"];

# Auto-Reply / Out-of-Office
# Generated by Email Rules Sync System
# Last updated: 2025-12-27T12:00:00.000Z

if true {
  vacation
    :days 1
    :subject "Out of Office"
    "I am currently out of office and will respond when I return.";
}

2. Virtual Aliases (Forwarding)

Location: /home/timo/docker-mailserver/docker-data/dms/config/postfix-virtual.cf

Example:

# Virtual Aliases - Email Forwarding
# Generated by Email Rules Sync System
# Last updated: 2025-12-27T12:00:00.000Z

# Forwarding for support@qrmaster.net
support@qrmaster.net forward1@example.com,forward2@example.com

DynamoDB Schema

The sync script expects this schema:

{
  email_address: "support@qrmaster.net",  // Primary Key
  ooo_active: true,                        // Enable/disable auto-reply
  ooo_message: "I am out of office...",    // Auto-reply message
  ooo_content_type: "text",                // "text" or "html"
  forwards: ["user@example.com"],          // Array of forward addresses
  last_updated: "2025-12-27T12:00:00.000Z" // Timestamp
}

Troubleshooting

Script fails to connect to DynamoDB

Check AWS credentials in .env:

cat .env | grep AWS

Sieve scripts not working

1. Check script was created:

   ls -la /home/timo/docker-mailserver/docker-data/dms/mail-data/qrmaster.net/support/home/
   

2. Check Dovecot logs:

   docker logs mailserver-new 2>&1 | grep -i sieve
   

Forwarding not working

1. Check virtual aliases file:

   cat /home/timo/docker-mailserver/docker-data/dms/config/postfix-virtual.cf
   

2. Check Postfix logs:

   docker logs mailserver-new 2>&1 | grep -i virtual
   

3. Reload Postfix manually:

   docker exec mailserver-new postfix reload
   

Architecture

Web UI (React)
    ↓
Backend API (Express)
    ↓
DynamoDB (email-rules)
    ↓
Sync Script (Node.js) ← You are here
    ↓
Mail Server (Dovecot + Postfix)

Files

• sync.js - Main sync script
• package.json - Dependencies
• .env - Configuration
• install-cron.sh - Cron job installer
• README.md - This file

Support

For issues, check:

1. Sync logs: /tmp/email-rules-sync.log
2. Mail server logs: docker logs mailserver-new
3. DynamoDB table: AWS Console → DynamoDB → email-rules