Re: fetchmail/procmail was: Yet another Linux distribution! :-)
The procmail documentation makes it clear that, if you have a 'real' mda
which hands mail off to procmail via .forward, then if procmail fails it
will leave the message enqueued in the mta.
So if disk space is not a problem, install smail or sendmail along with
procmail, and try that.
Carl
wrl@gandalf.wconsult.com wrote:
>
> 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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--
mummert@cs.wcu.edu
The sun's not eternal
That's why there's the blues...
-- Ginsburg
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