Re: [Eug-lug] Fetchmail, Procmail, And How It All Relates
In my continuing effort to belabor this subject, I have another question: why is fetchmail too stupid to remove messages from a POP3 server only after they've gotten old? The keep option leaves them there forever (which will eventually exhaust my server resources); and no keep always yanks them immediately. There may be reasons for such inflexibility, but it seems like a failing to me, given that most decent MUAs offer this feature. I found a kludge where I could let them accumulate usually and then delete them all at some regular interval (via cron): but it seems if fetchmail is supposed to relieve MUAs of their MRA duties, it should do at least as good a job of performing them. Sometimes I like to read my emails on my other 'puter, so I like to leave them around for a week or so before removing them from the server. Now I can't, and that makes me sad. Can getmail do this, I wonder? --Jason V. C. -- I drank what? -- Socrates ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
Re: [Eug-lug] Fetchmail, Procmail, And How It All Relates
Quoth Cory Petkovsek, on Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:54:20 -0700: Am I only dreaming? No, set it up as I described. It will run without maintenance and you'll learn something too. .===. v || POP3 --- fetchmail --- postfix --- procmail --- maildir inetlocal/root local/root local/user~/maildir Okay, but wait. A few crevices remain in my brain. How does postfix connect to procmail? I actually run postfix on my server, where it is a system daemon serving as an SMTP as well as a POP3 service. In your system, then, would I simply configure my MUA to make its POP requests to the local postfix daemon? And what does postfix do to invoke procmail, or is that the MUA's responsibility? How would I integrate procmail? At any rate, installing postfix wasn't that easy (better than sendmail, I know, but still interesting). It's just not something I want have to do on my workstations. Isn't there a way to do this without the need for a local MTA? It just seems like an unnecessary middleman. Sylpheed tends to hog my resources when it's busy retrieving mail, and I want to use procmail for filtering. So what I need is something that will run as a daemon, grab my mail from the remote POP server, and hand it over to procmail for filtering and distribution. I thought that's what fetchmail did, but apparently not: so I'm not much closer to my objective. (Sigh!) How 'bout this: can procmail do what I want all by itself? Can it access a POP server in daemon mode? (I suppose now I AM dreaming.) Alternately, is there any SINGLE daemon application that can retrieve mail and give it to procmail, as opposed to fetchmail and sendmail together? . . . Sheesh, this stuff really is contorted, or I am dull. I quote the fetchmail man page, fetchmail is a mail-retrieval and forwarding utility; it fetches mail from remote mailservers and forwards it to your local (client) machine's delivery system. You can then handle the retrieved mail using normal mail user agents such as mutt(1), elm(1) or Mail(1). Great, but normal mail user agents can also retrieve from the remote server, directly: so what the heck does fetchmail buy me? Ha! Riddle me that. --Jason V. C. -- The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners. --Ernst Jan Plugge ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
Re: [Eug-lug] Fetchmail, Procmail, And How It All Relates
Quoth Bob Miller, on Thu, 22 Jul 2004 17:56:19 -0700: You can configure fetchmail to poll a pop server and write the mail to one of several places. One of those places is into procmail, using ... mda /usr/bin/procmail -d %T ... in your .fetchmailrc . Voila! That's what I wanted to know. You'd then have to set up your .procmailrc to write messages to your mailbox, whatever/wherever it is. From your explanation, I'm using the mh format. I think they're the same. Read the fetchmail man page (RTFM (-: ). Right. I just wanted to make sure it's the right tool for the job, first. Many thanks for the knowledge, Mr. Miller. --Jason Van Cleve -- Tarred for her pleasure, gzipped for yours. ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
Re: [Eug-lug] Fetchmail, Procmail, And How It All Relates
There's a ton of Web pages on installing/configuring these app's for specific purposes, but none explains the basic relationships between them, which I consider preliminary knowledge. Jason, You have A LOT of questions, and you might find the answers faster and easier yourself by looking at this website: http://mutt.blackfish.org.uk/storage/ Although it's oriented toward the Mutt MUA, this website provides a pretty good overview regarding how email works, and what options you have along the way to setting up an email system. Mutt can easily be used in conjuction with Mozilla-Mail or Evolution, or other MUA's, so don't worry about learning Mutt if you don't want to. You could likely get people to offer their opinions and answers to specific questions on this list, but you might as well get a broader perspective by studying the basics yourself first. I hope this helps! Ralph ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
Re: [Eug-lug] Fetchmail, Procmail, And How It All Relates
Quoth Ralph Zeller, on Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:22:12 -0700: http://mutt.blackfish.org.uk/storage/ This document is illustrative. I've learned from it, for one thing, that the system spool file can be read directly as an inbox folder by MUAs. That blew my mind, since I had presumed the spool file is the domain of the MTA alone. (Postfix, I have noticed, will sometimes mv that file and save an empty one in its place, temporarily; which seems likely to trip up an MUA that happens to be reading it just then.) But this would obviate the need for a local POP server, which is good. I'm also learning that, while the terms MUA, MDA, etc., are fairly straightforward per se, their implementations don't always fit into any one of those boxes. It seems fetchmail and procmail, for example, are not best thought of strictly as an MRA and an MDA, respectively, but rather as general components in a mail delivery chain. If fetchmail can pass emails to procmail (bypassing the MTA), then its relation to procmail is that of an MTA. Sorry if I've been a trifle loquacious. As an end user, I don't find these email systems all that simple; and as a Web developer, I find them significantly more difficult than Web server software. But I'm learning. --Jason V. C. -- I finally beat the Internet. The end guy is hard. ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
Re: [Eug-lug] Fetchmail, Procmail, And How It All Relates
If you know Perl, this is a fun way to write your own fetchmail and mail sort routines... http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/07/17/mailfiltering.html I had this running for a little while. And it's nice to sort mail with regular expressions in Perl. :) -Rob On 20040723.1414, Jason Van Cleve said ... A propos, I've just read the getmail FAQ, which claims that fetchmail sucks. It also says that, not only can getmail deliver directly to an MDA, it can even save to maildir or mboxrd files. I'll want to use procmail, but this is the level of simplicity and directness I'm about. If anyone prefers fetchmail to getmail, please say why. Muchas thanks, --Jason V. C. -- Jesus is coming! Look busy. ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
Re: [Eug-lug] Fetchmail, Procmail, And How It All Relates
On 07/23/04 02pm, Jason Van Cleve wrote: If anyone prefers fetchmail to getmail, please say why. Fetchmail is more time tested and proven? quoting from getmail-4/CHANGELOG Version 4.0.0a1 14 June 2004 -first alpha release of getmail version 4 Changes since getmail version 3 --- -complete rewrite /quote ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
Re: [Eug-lug] Fetchmail, Procmail, And How It All Relates
On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 04:50:21PM -0700, Jason Van Cleve wrote: There's a ton of Web pages on installing/configuring these app's for specific purposes, but none explains the basic relationships between them, which I consider preliminary knowledge. Just read the fetchmail man page. Question 1: How do fetchmail, my local spool file, and procmail all relate? Fetchmail checks mail on the pop server like an MUA. It then sends that mail to your local MTA, like an MTA. Your local mta then delivers to your local spool file or mail dir. If you've configured the local mta to deliver with procmail, then it will check for a .procmailrc filter file before writing the email to the final destination. Question 2: Do I need sendmail? I've heard it's only required if I want cron jobs and such to be able to email things. Otherwise, I can just use my remote SMTP server, yes? Depends on your mua. With the above setup you'll need an MTA like sendmail or postfix. I recommend postfix. Your distribution should make it easy to install and configure. Question 3: I have my saved mail in a strange place, not ~/.mail, or whatever the standard location is. There's a directory for each mail folder, and each message is a separate file, which I believe is the mbox format, yes? Will procmail conform to this? Sounds like maildir, which procmail can write to. Question 4: After installing fetchmail on Gentoo, I tried running the start script in /etc/init.d, but it couldn't find /etc/fetchmailrc. What needs to go into that file? This is the system wide fetchmail configuration. You have to make that file according to the man page specifications. Then it will run like a daemon, if that's what you tell it to do. Will it effectively replace my ~/.fetchmailrc file, since I'm running it as root at bootup? If yes, then I presume the contents would be the same as that dot file in my home. Yes, pretty close if not identical. Am I only dreaming? No, set it up as I described. It will run without maintenance and you'll learn something too. Would that I could find a simple diagram of how these pieces fit together. But perhaps one of you system admin types could wax eloquent on the matter. .===. v || POP3 --- fetchmail --- postfix --- procmail --- maildir inet local/root local/root local/user~/maildir --- email flow === initiated by fetchmail Cory -- Cory Petkovsek Adapting Information Adaptable IT ConsultingTechnology to Your (858) 705-1655 Business [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.AdaptableIT.com ___ EUGLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
