PHPJunkyard support forum

Update 15th September 2011:
Email piping has been included in HESK version 2.3, please download from www.hesk.com and update to the latest version.







Due to popular demand I am releasing the initial testing script for Hesk e-mail piping to the public. Please feel free to download and test it.

BETA WARNING

This is a BETA/TEST version of HESK e-mail piping. This version of script has been released for testing purposes only, it should not be used in a live environment! There is no guarantee the functions will work as planned and they might change completely in the official release. Use at your own risk! Please report any bugs/problems to this post.

Is the BETA version for me?

The BETA version is for testing purposes only. You should have a working installation of HESK version 2.2 for this to work.

To test the beta you need to know how to pipe an e-mail address to a script! Example for Cpanel is below, but not all servers use CPanel.

How can I help?

Install the e-mail piping script to your HESK 2.2, test it and report any issues/suggestions here. The more feedback I get the sooner I will be able to finish and officially release e-mail piping for Hesk.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

1. BACKUP YOUR EXISTING HESK FILES AND DATABASE

2. Download HESK 2.2 E-mail piping BETA 1 here

3. Upload the "mail" folder to your HESK 2.2 "inc" folder in ASCII mode, for example:
public_html/hesk/inc/mail

4. On Linux servers CHMOD the hesk_pipe.php file to 755 (rwxr-xr-x).

5. Set up an e-mail address to pipe data to the hesk_pipe.php file, for example:
|/home/username/public_html/hesk/inc/mail/hesk_pipe.php




HOW TO SETUP E-MAIL PIPING (step 5 above)?
This depends on the server you are using, please check your hosting control panel documentation.

For those using the latest CPanel control panel follow these steps:
1. Login to Cpanel

2. In the Mail menu click Forwarders

3. click Add Forwarder button


4. In the Address to Forward enter the e-mail address you want to pipe to Hesk, for example support@yourdomain.com

5. Select the Pipe to a Program radio box. If it isn't visible click the Advanced Options link.


6. Enter path to hesk_pipe.php on your server into the text box. Start with public_html, for example:
public_html/hesk/inc/mail/hesk_pipe.php

7. click Add Forwarder

That's it. Now try sending an e-mail to the e-mail address you just setup.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How to report a bug?

To report a bug please reply to this topic and try to include as much info about the bug as possible, but please at least this information:
Operating system (Windows, Linux, ...):
PHP version:
MySQL version:
Description of bug:
Exact steps to reproduce the bug:



Please report any bugs/problems/comments with HESK e-mail piping BETA 1 to this post.


-

Klemen

I have installed your beta version of the email piping and it seems to work with standard mail sent via command line. But when I use my outlook to send the mail, it never registers in mysql. Any ideas

In that case your e-mail piping probably isn't configured properly. At the moment I can only give instructions on how to integrate properly with Cpanel, any other solution is unfortunately up to you until the official release.

firstly thank you so much Hesk in my opinion is now complete

secondly if you are after some bug fixing issues then i have one

Set up the forwarding and the email address as suggested, the call are getting logged on the system but when emailing from an email client - say outlook

get the following bounce back but the calls still get logged.

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

pipe to xxxxxx/inc/mail/hesk_pipe.php
generated by xxxx@xxx.co.uk local delivery failed

Also will this script have thw ability for the call logger to reply to the automated email which is generated to update the call as well?

thanks again.

Could you provide more details please, such as:

What is your server operating system?
PHP version?
Server e-mail software?
What steps did you perform in order to set up email piping?
Could you paste a complete bounced e-mail (together with headers, you can hide e-mail addresses)?


At first the piping script will probably just create tickets to enforce using help desk, but will probably be extended to process replies as well in the future.

What is your server operating system? Liunux
PHP version? 5.2.14
Server e-mail software? unknown have cpanel mind
What steps did you perform in order to set up email piping? uploaded the test php files - chmod'd them - setup pipe with your details
Could you paste a complete bounced e-mail (together with headers, you can hide e-mail addresses)?

Received: from thb-mta-10.emailfiltering.com (194.116.199.209) by
xxxxk (10.10.1.1) with Microsoft SMTP Server id
8.1.436.0; Mon, 1 Nov 2010 13:58:00 +0000
X-CTCH-RefID: str=0001.0A0B0201.4CCEC768.00D3,ss=1,pt=61760,fgs=256
X-Cloudmark-Analysis: v=1.1 cv=YPJkTYlDhbjf2hA56BlZswgbVReisifwi86KYGhhGws= c=1 sm=0 a=8Ys0uM8p-MUA:10 a=xmNyZkmRMvAgrINTSekxKA==:17 a=CpeWwKpQAAAA:8 a=l11pF9y8AAAA:8 a=3B7AhOheAAAA:8 a=ypweu40xAAAA:8 a=yMhMjlubAAAA:8 a=SSmOFEACAAAA:8 a=2mfEVFIMQ-uJTqus8-kA:9 a=QEjNaiyBoXHNfWS7R0MA:7 a=8jjGqjikIvj_lyE3JXtzxwPT7NYA:4 a=PLSl3Vd2abYA:10 a=YT10ijSLEVgA:10 a=Z0UQo_RDAaZHrFEM:21 a=HiEZYWW-B88GYRGB:21 a=nr7GMwFFI4xkXxLhVnhGbA==:117
Received: from 64.191.81.117 ([64.191.81.117]) by
thb-mta-10.emailfiltering.com with emfmta (version 4.6.0.72) by TLS id
2899977906 for xxxx;b7c15c80954352ab; Mon, 01 Nov 2010
13:58:00 +0000
Received: from mailnull by server.whserver.co.uk with local (Exim 4.69) id
1PCucW-00039O-9O for prvs=392174ea8c=xxxx; Mon, 01 Nov
2010 13:40:20 +0000
X-Failed-Recipients: hesk@xxxx
Auto-Submitted: auto-replied
From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@server.whserver.co.uk>
To: prvs=392174ea8c=xxxxxx
Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
Message-ID: <E1PCucW-00039O-9O@server.whserver.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 13:40:20 +0000
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - server.whserver.co.uk
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - axxxxx
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain -
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Return-Path: <>

Thanks. Are there any extra messages below the one you mentioned or is this all it says?

pipe to xxxxxx/inc/mail/hesk_pipe.php
generated by xxxx@xxx.co.uk local delivery failed

sent you a pm of the whole message.

Hi Klemen, thought you might be interested. It's a Mail delivery failed error as well.

Hosting type: Shared - Hawkhost.com
Operating System: Linux
Kernel version: 2.6.18-194.11.4.el5
cPanel Version: 11.26.20
PHP version: 5.2.14
MySQL version: 5.0.91-community-log

Description of bug: Emails are piped into the HESK ticket system properly. Ticket is created in the HESK system as expected. A "Mail delivery failed" error is returned to sender along with a separate Ticket received confirmation email.

Background: Had the exact same problem when piping with the eticketsupport.com scripts. I don't think it's a problem specific to HESK but I think it is a common problem among shared hosting users. The same problem appears many times in eticketsupport and osTicket deployments as well. Google: eticketsupport piping mail delivery failed.

Exact error generated:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

pipe to |/home/user/public_html/domain.ca/support/inc/mail/hesk_pipe.php
generated by support@domain.ca

The following text was generated during the delivery attempt:

------ pipe to |/home/user/public_html/domain.ca/support/inc/mail/hesk_pipe.php
generated by support@domain.ca ------

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/mailparse.so' - /usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/mailparse.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0

------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------

Then the original message is returned as usual with Mail delivery failed errors. Once again, it seems to be a common problem even among competing products when deployed on a shared host. If this could somehow be resolved it would make HESK a highly preferable product.

Thanks Klemen!

Hi Klemen

Thanks for an incredible helpdesk system. I love your system and have been using it since way back when it was only listed on phpjunkyard website.

My server host seems to have a magnificent email piping system, but I have no idea what software he uses.

Basically the story goes like this:

1. I email any email address he has on his site
2. It creates a new ticket
3. It sends me the automated notification of the ticket
4. I can reply to that email, and as long as I keep the subject line, the content goes into the same ticket.
5. Also, by email address, the system tracks which account I am connected to - if I have a registered account with that email address.

I noticed that he has set up his "reply to" email address to be one of the email addresses configured for piping.

So my guess is that the software tracks which ticket to put it into according to what is in the subject line, and that prevents it opening a new ticket when I reply.

Keep on going on, you are doing an absolutely fabulous job, and giving us small businesses a magnificent helpdesk.

Thanks both for the feedback. I will look further into this and hopefully I can come up with a solution (ruffmeister helped with some further tests on this). I will probably even go ahead an open a shared hosting account to be able to test this myself.

3ajs - had a look at your bounced e-mail again, you might want to show that error to your hosting company and ask them to either fix or disable the mailparse PHP extension as it's probably the reason why the bounced messages are returning (Exim (mail server) will return a bounced e-mail if any text is returned during communication as it assumes it's an error).

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/mailparse.so' - /usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/mailparse.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0

Hello,

I have a quick question as to how piping will work in Hesk. Is the piping only for creating a new ticket? Or will users be able to reply to a ticket via email and have the replies logged in Hesk for the ticket?

Thanks!

-Tim

At first the piping script will probably just create tickets to enforce using help desk, but will probably be extended to process replies as well in the future.

Thanks for the reply.

-Tim