Re: fetchmail/procmail was: Yet another Linux distribution! :-)

[wrl@gandalf.wconsult.com]

'From Bill Leach <bleach@bellsouth.net>'

I don't think so Jason...

Fetchmail is also pretty robust about mail handling but it expect whatever
it 'hands a message too' to do something with the message.

I won't even pretend to know the nature of the problems but I suspect that
it deals with the idea that the MTA's all honor the "SIZE" message whereas
I don't believe that Procmail does.  Fetchmail's problem then is that once
I has 'the ok' from Procmail to transfer the message, there is nothing that
fetchmail can do if procmail later fails.

Again, if I understand this correctly, exim, sendmail, smail, etc. still 
have a directory that they have spooled the 'to be delivered mail to' so
that the mail is not lost whereas Procmail either delivers the message or
it is lost since it did not come from a file on disk.

I think that the fetchmail/procmail 'thing' is a case where neither
program is designed for what is being done by the other.  Fetchmail is
designed to pass off mail to an MDA that checks that it should receive the
mail and that it has sufficient disk space to store the mail BEFORE it 
tells fetchmail 'ok give it to me'.

Procmail OTOH was designed to take mail that is presumably already stored
on the system's HD and process that mail for delivery.

BTW, the only program that has lost mail on my system has been Procmail
(configuration error on my part of course but the mail was lost).
Fetchmail has never lost a message, exim has never lost a message.

I do still use Procmail however as it is a great program, you just have to
be aware that if you tell it to do something impossible your mail or part
of you mail ends up in /dev/null.

> 
> On Sat, May 02, 1998 at 09:08:07PM -0600, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > 
> > On Sat, 2 May 1998, Raul Miller wrote:
> > 
> > > Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> wrote:
> > > > You can configure fetchmail to run through procmail.
> > > 
> > > Er, the fetchmail FAQ implies that if you use -mda procmail you can lose
> > > mail to resource exhaustion.
> > 
> > Then fetchmail is at fault, procmail will not drop your email if your disk
> > is full, it will give an error code. 
> > 
> > Jason

-- 
best,
-bill
                bleach@BellSouth.net
           b.leach@usa.net  LinuxPC@Hotmail.com
from a 1996 Micro$loth ad campaign:
"The less you know about computers the more you want Micro$oft!"
         See!  They do get some things right!


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