Thus spake John on the 18 day of the 01 month in the year 2003:
> You know, I suspected that I might be in trouble with Fetchmail
> when I first printed out the docs. I thought (since every
> published email client includes a module that grabs mail off a
> mailbox) that Fetchmail was a trivial program, but when the
> printout of docs is more than a half-inch high, that sets off
> alarms.
Fetchmail can be used trivially. It has a huge assortment of options.
Most people only need a tiny subset of them.
For most people, a .fetchmailrc file containing the following should do
it:
poll SERVERNAME proto PROTOCOL user NAME, with password PASSWORD,
is MYLOCALUSERNAME here
Mind you, you'll have to replace the UPPERCASE words with their
appropriate values. Most people will use "POP3" for PROTOCOL.
Also, understand that you'll have to give the .fetchmailrc file
limited permissions, or fetchmail will refuse to run. This is a safety
feature. You don't want other users to be able see your password,
do you? For most people, "chmod 600 .fetchmailrc" should do the trick.
Also, when running fetchmail during testing, you'll probably want to
use the -k -N and perhaps the -v flags. "man fetchmail" will provide
documentation to explain their meanings.
> Things I read in various howtos seemed to imply that
> fetchmailconf (the config utility) was generally packaged with
> fetchmail in all distros. I installed RH8 all by itself (no
> dual boots) in a machine, and selected the custom packages;
> included the Mail Server grouping (so that it would install
> fetchmail).
> After install, I had fetchmail, but no fetchmailconf.
> One at a time, I looked at the three RH CDs, and I couldn't find
> any fetchmailconf. Arrgggh.
> Wassup with that? Is it there, anyplace, in a RH distro?
Do any Redhatter's out there have any comments about this? Last I used
redhat and fetchmail (circa RH 5.2), I recall having fetchmailconf on my
system.
> When I step in quicksand, I make it a point to thrash and sink
> as quickly as possible. This install was no different. I
> subsequently found fetchmailconf RPMs on the Internet, ran into
> compatibility problems with the already installed fetchmail,
> _crashed_ rpm trying to get fetchmail to the right level...and
> so on.
> Finally got everything working. At least, it goes out and
> checks the mailbox, sees mail. Next: handoff to
> sendmail/procmail. (My impression of fetchmailconf: not worth
> the effort. Better to spend your time watching a movie.)
Personally, I agree. Some folks out there like GUI's however.
-- Matthew MoenOutlook is as attractive to email viruses as a heap of dead and rotting cows is to a fly. So long as that maggot-filled pile of corpses is there, swatting at the flies isn't going to work. Alan Bellingham, SDM
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