Automatically parsing emails

Toying with the idea for a helpdesk app

[rycrostud]

I'm wondering if it's possible to configure my server to automatically call a PHP script when it receives incoming mail to a particular mailbox. The idea is that the PHP script then parses the email into a database and asigns a unique ID so that future correspondance can be tracked through the system.

Is this kind of thing possible. If so, any idea where I might start e.g. any online tutorials etc? I'm running a Cobalt Raq4 (Unix).

[NFFC]

We will be doing something very similar, dropping the emails into a dB and then allocating them to staff on a "next availble" basis, we will build tracking into that. I'm sure there are some commercial products available off the shelf but they all seem very expensive to me.