Procmail recipe to Start / Stop services

using email to control server services

[Frank_Rizzo]

I have a server running webmin. But I only access this about once a week so it seems a bit of a waste (and a potential security risk) if it is running 24/7.

I was thinking of being able to switch it off and on via email: using procmail to detect a subject word and then start / stop the service.

e.g.

mail: [e-mail]
subject: wbmon

Procmail would detect wbmon in the subject and then issue a /etc/init.d/webmin start

mail: [e-mail]
subject: wbmoff

Procmail would detect wbmoff in the subject and then issue a /etc/init.d/webmin stop

I can detect the keyword in the subject but how do I initiate the webmin start and stop process?

[wheel]

That's sounds doable, but not easily.

I'd be tempted to put up a script that does the start and stop, then password protect it using .htaccess. Visit the script, login, and webmin starts. Visit the script again, it turns off.