POPFile 'User Data' Backup/Restore Utility

PFI Diagnostic Utility (for use with 0.21.0 or later)

POPFile SQLite DB Status Check Utility (for use with 0.21.0 or later)

POPFile Message Capture Utility (for use with 0.20.0 or later)

POPFile DBI Trace Capture Utility (for use with 0.20.0 or later)

POPFile "On Demand" utility (for use with 0.21.0 or later)
(Run POPFile and a mail client together)

POPFile SQLite Database Analyser Utility (for use with 0.21.0 or later)

POPFile Silent Shutdown Utility (for almost any version)

Message Dump Perl Support (for use with 0.21.0 or later)

"Add XMLRPC" installer (not needed for 0.22.0 or later)

Note:

This is a more recent version than the one shipped with the Windows version of POPFile 1.1.1. This new version reports (and checks) the POPFile log settings, and reports the UI port, POP3 Listen port and concurrent POP3 settings.

The diagnostic utility was first included in the 0.22.0 release and since then the POPFile installer has created some Start Menu shortcuts for this utility (see Start - Programs - POPFile - Support).

Usage:

1. pfidiag
   

2. pfidiag /simple
   

3. pfidiag /full
   

4. pfidiag /shortcut
   

5. pfidiag /menu
   

6. pfidiag /help
   

The Windows installer for 0.22.0 (or later) creates some Start Menu entries for this utility:

• Start – Programs – POPFile – Support – PFI Diagnostic utility (simple)
  (runs pfidiag /simple)
  
  
• Start – Programs – POPFile – Support – PFI Diagnostic utility (full)
  (runs pfidiag /full)
  
  
• Start – Programs – POPFile – Support – Create 'User Data' shortcut
  (only available in 0.22.1 or later - runs pfidiag /shortcut)

The installer and 'Add POPFile User' wizard normally use the short file name (SFN) format when setting the POPFILE_ROOT and POPFILE_USER values, as shown in sample.txt.

If the environment variables exist, the report indicates if the popfile.pl and popfile.cfg files exist in these locations (as a simple validity check).

On Win9x systems it is quite normal for POPFILE_ROOT and POPFILE_USER to appear as "><" in the report. This is because the 'runpopfile' program creates the necessary environment variables every time it is used to start POPFile (thus avoiding the system reboot which is normally used to change the value of environment variables on Win9x systems).

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Although the POPFile installer creates a shortcut in the 'User Data' folder to make it easy to use the SQLite command-line utility, the utility runs in a DOS-box and the necessary commands have to be typed to make the utility do anything.

The SQLite utility is very powerful so any mistakes made when using it could seriously damage the POPFile database and stop POPFile from working properly.

One of the most common uses of the SQLite utility is to perform a simple database integrity check. The POPFile SQLite DB Status Check Utility is a small Windows program (screenshot) which runs the SQLite utility, supplies the integrity check command and displays the results.

The utility can search for the POPFile SQLite database file or the file can be specified on the command-line, as described in the release notes.

Note: v0.0.3 of this utility and the stand-alone versions of v0.0.4 or later are compatible with POPFile 0.21.0 or later (versions 0.0.1 and 0.0.2 did not work properly with the SQLite utility shipped with releases prior to 0.22.2).

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Note:

Since the 0.22.0 release, the Windows version includes this utility and installs it in the POPFile program folder. The 1.0.0 release ships with v0.1.6 of this utility

The POPFile Message Capture Utility has been created to make it easy to capture all of the console messages output by POPFile. Instead of displaying the console window used by POPFile, the utility hides the console window and displays the messages in a scrollable window. The contents of this scrollable window can be copied to the clipboard (using the right-click menu) and then saved in a text file.

Although the Windows installer for 0.22.0 (or later) installs this utility in the POPFile program folder, it is not normally used. If you just want to capture the messages occasionally, you can use the msgcapture.exe program instead of the shortcut created by the installer to start POPFile (the installer shortcuts use runpopfile.exe to start POPFile).

Note that for versions of the utility earlier than 0.0.55 the command msgcapture.exe /timeout=0 should be used.

Win9x users should use the pfi-run.bat file created by the installer in their 'User Data' folder to run the Message Capture Utility - further information on how to do this is included in the zip file.

If you want to use the Message Capture Utility instead of the DOS box normally used for console mode, simply make a copy of the msgcapture.exe file (in the POPFile program folder) and call the copy pfimsgcapture.exe.

Now every time you use the installer-created shortcuts (or runpopfile.exe) to start POPFile the Message Capture Utility will be used if you have selected console mode. This feature will also work on Win9x systems. So now you can use the UI to control whether or not the Message Capture Utility is used. To go back to using the DOS box all you have to do is delete the pfimsgcapture.exe program.

The Message Capture Utility is compatible with POPFile 0.20.x and 0.21.x installations created by the Windows installer, though in some cases a small batch file may be required (details are given in the zip file).

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This utility has been created as a diagnostic aid for use when POPFile reports problems with its database. Although POPFile usually outputs some console messages when there are problems with the SQLite database, these messages do not give much information about what went wrong.

This utility provides an easy way to obtain a DBI trace of database activity which may be of assistance in diagnosing problems. The DBI has a powerful tracing mechanism built in which provides information on what is going on 'behind the scenes', both within the DBI and the database drivers.

The tracing mechanism built in to DBI provides many levels of detail but most of these contain so much obscure detail that they are only of interest to database specialists. Therefore this utility defaults to using trace level 1 which gives a simple overview of what is happening.

Trace level 1 is best for a simple overview of what's happening. Trace level 2 is a good choice for general purpose tracing. The trace output is detailed and typically very useful.

This utility is based upon POPFile's Message Capture Utility therefore the trace output appears in a scrollable window and can easily be copied to the clipboard and saved in a file for later analysis.

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This simple utility provides an alternative to having the Windows version of POPFile running all the time.

It will start POPFile and an email client, wait for the email client to be shut down and then shutdown POPFile.

Further details can be found in the utility's release notes.

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The SQLite Database Analyser command-line utility generates a very detailed technical report (over 800 lines long) on the structure of a SQLite database. This Windows utility makes it easy to generate and save this technical report for the SQLite database used by POPFile.

Although much of the information will be too technical for most users, the report provides some information on the amount of unused space in the database.

Over time the database file structure can become fragmented and this can have an adverse effect. The SQLite command-line utility can be used to defragment the database. Some notes on how to interpret the database analysis report and on how to defragment the database have been made available here.

The POPFile SQLite Database Analyser Utility can search for the POPFile SQLite database file or the file can be specified on the command-line, as described in the release notes.

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Note:

Since the 0.20.0 release, the Windows version installs this utility in the POPFile program folder and creates a Start Menu shortcut for it (Shutdown POPFile silently). The 0.22.4 release ships with v0.5.13 of this utility

Version 0.5.6 (or later) performs additional checks to cope with some unexpected responses from the User Interface and this appears to have solved the problem.

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Sam Schinke (one of the POPFile developers) has written a small Perl script which can help when something appears to go wrong with a particular message or type of message. This script retrieves a verbatim copy of the message from the mail server via POP3 and thus avoids any manipulations performed by your email client.

Sam's Message Dump script requires some Perl components which are not included in the minimal Perl shipped with the Windows version of POPFile, so a simple installer has been created to install Sam's script and add the necessary components.

Compatible with POPFile 0.21.0 or any later version (tested with 0.21.0, 0.21.1, 0.21.2, 0.22.0, 0.22.1, 0.22.2 & 0.22.3)

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Note:

Starting with the 0.22.0 release, the Windows version of POPFile includes the XMLRPC module and the necessary extra Perl components (it also includes the NNTP and SMTP proxy components).

This module exposes the POPFile API to allow many of POPFile's features to be used. Further information can be found in the XMLRPC section of the POPFile Wiki.

The XMLRPC module requires some additional Perl components which are not included in the minimal Perl which was shipped with the Windows installer before the 0.22.0 release.

The "POPFile XMLRPC wizard" is a small installer which adds the POPFile XMLRPC module and the necessary Perl components to an existing POPFile 0.21.x installation.

Two versions of the installer are available:

Do not use these with POPFile 0.22.0 or later

• Version 0.0.4 (553 KB zip file) installs XMLRPC.pm v1.11
  Created 7 April 2004
  
  This version uses "POPFile/API.get_buckets" style calls and is the first to use the new API.pm module to access the POPFile features as described in the current XMLRPC section of the Wiki.
  
  
• Version 0.0.3 (553 KB zip file) installs XMLRPC.pm v1.10
  Created 27 March 2004
  
  This version uses the old "Classifier/Bayes.get_buckets" style calls.

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