Suggestions on programming in Python an email simple client

[Maroso Marco]

Il giorno martedì 13 febbraio 2018 21:18:37 UTC+1, Chris Angelico ha scritto:
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 7:05 AM, Maroso Marco <androidmaroso at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > what i'm trying to do is develop my own email client, but a simple one.
> >
> > I just want it to connect to a specific email account and read the subject line of messages coming from a certain email address.
> >
> > I then want it to be able to execute the command i wrote on the subject.
> 
> Be aware that "from" addresses can easily be forged. I suggest
> whitelisting a set of valid commands and executing only those. If you
> want a REAL way to manage your home system remotely, I would recommend
> SSH instead.
> 
> > It would be nice if i could specify two parameters on the subject line
> >
> > first : password;
> > second : command;
> >
> > The first parameter is the password and the second is the command to be executed in the local pc where this program is running.
> 
> That's an improvement, but since the password is being transmitted in
> clear text, it won't prevent attacks. It does mean you won't try to
> execute the subject lines of random spam, though, so accidents will be
> reduced (or eliminated).
> 
> > The program will have to show only email coming from a specific account
> > and if the mail is unread then it should read the subject line and find parameters.
> > The first parameter must match my hardcoded password, and the second parameter must be executed on the local pc (example ... c:\windows\notepad.exe)
> >
> > It must check for new emails at a given timing (example ...every 30 seconds )
> >  (the timing can be hardcoded or specified in a separate file)
> >
> > This is it.
> >
> > Any suggestions?
> 
> Seems perfectly possible.
> 
> > I have started doing this (but i never programmed in python before):
> >
> >
> > import imaplib
> > import os
> > import email
> > import email.header
> >
> > plusmail = "emailaddresstobechecked at gmail.com"
> > googlepass = "mypassword"
> > owner = "validsender at gmail.com"
> >
> > M = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
> > M.login(plusmail, googlepass)
> > M.select()
> >
> > status, response = M.search(None, '(UNSEEN)')
> > unread_msg_nums = response[0].split()
> >
> > # Print the count of all unread messages
> > print (len(unread_msg_nums))
> >
> > # Print all unread messages from a certain sender of interest
> > status, response = M.search(None, '(UNSEEN)', '(FROM "%s")' % (owner))
> > unread_msg_nums = response[0].split()
> > da = []
> > for e_id in unread_msg_nums:
> >     _, response = imap.fetch(e_id, '(BODY.PEEK[HEADER.FIELDS (From Subject)] RFC822.SIZE)')
> >     da.append(response[0][1])
> > # print (da)
> >
> > # Mark them as seen
> > for e_id in unread_msg_nums:
> >     imap.store(e_id, '+FLAGS', '\Seen')
> >
> >
> >
> > typ, data = M.search(None, 'From',(owner))
> > for num in data[0].split():
> >     typ, data = M.fetch(num, '(RFC822)')
> >     print ('Message %s\n%s\n' % (num, data[0][1]))
> > M.close()
> > M.logout()
> >
> > I know there are duplicates but i need to figure out how to build this correctly
> 
> Seems like a reasonable start. So what's the code doing wrong, or
> failing to do? Is it failing with an exception? Is it running
> successfully, but not doing something you want it to do?
> 
> ChrisA

Hi Chris and thanks for replying.

I came up with the following code (thanks for the security suggestions-i'm just testing) :

My code actually works fine allthough i have a couple of problems :

1 - once parced the messages and executed the command in the subject line, it keeps looping even if i told to only execute on unread messages
2 - it loops continuosly instead of waiting the correct wait time
3 - i had to add a delete statement so that the program stops looping at least on processing the commands.

Can you help me sort out the issue? Maybe it's an indent problem!


Here is the code : 

import imaplib
import os
import email
import email.header
import time

def mailcontroller():
    
    # Set user, pass and allowed mail for giving commands
    plusmail = "emailaddresstobechecked at gmail.com"
    googlepass = "thesecretpassword"
    captain = "theallowedemailaddress at gmail.com"

    # Set vars for IMAP access
    M = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL('imap.gmail.com')
    M.login(plusmail, googlepass)
    M.select()

    # Set search on UNSEEN messages
    status, response = M.search(None, '(UNSEEN)')
    unread_msg_nums = response[0].split()


    # Mark as read
    for e_id in unread_msg_nums:
        M.store(e_id, '+FLAGS', '\Seen')

    # cycle messages sent from autorized email address
    typ, data = M.search(None, 'From',(captain))
    for num in data[0].split():
        typ, data = M.fetch(num, '(RFC822)')
        msg = email.message_from_string(data[0][1])
        decode = email.header.decode_header(msg['Subject'])[0]
        subject = unicode(decode[0])
        comando = subject

    if googlepass in subject:
        print 'Message %s: %s' % (num, subject)
        
        # Split subject line
        googlepass,comando = subject.split(";")
        # Print command
        print comando
        # Execute command
        os.system(comando)

        M.store(num, '+FLAGS', '\\Deleted')
        M.expunge()
        
    elif googlepass not in subject:
        print "Nope"

        M.close()
        M.logout()


time.sleep(10)

while True:
    mailcontroller()

THanks in advance  :-)