Re: messages that jam mail readers

[Patrick Olson <patricko@open.org>]

On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, Stephen J. Carpenter wrote:

> > 1. It has no provision for the possibility of fetchmail still being in
> > action after 5 minutes (for example someone attaches a large file to an
> > e-mail)
> > 
> > 2. It has no way of handling a situation where fetchmail has stalled and
> > needs to be restarted.
> > 
> > Obviously, my scripting skills aren't that great.
> 
> I just thought of an interesting fix for this...

for my scripting skills or the problem with my script? :)

> (note my shell scripting sucks...but you should be able to
> get the general idea from this..also I just cooked this up...pulled
> it right out of my ass)

Hey, at least you had an idea.  I'm not even sure what all of it means.

> #!/bin/bash
> # note im not making ppp-mail is just a place holder
> # ...its an example anyway ;)
> 
> if [ -f /var/run/ppp-mail ]
> 	fetchmail 
> 	rm -f /var/run/ppp-mail
> 	exit 0
> fi

This checks to see if /var/run/ppp-mail exists as an ordinary file, then
runs fetchmail if it is.  When fetchmail finishes, it deletes
/var/run/ppp-mail.  Right?

Does the exit 0 end the script right then and there or what?

> touch /var/run/ppp-mail

This creates an empty /var/run/ppp-mail file, right?

> $0 & # If you didn't have the test above this would make a mess

What's the $0 & for?

> exit 0

Hmm... another one of these.  I think it makes sense to have one at the
end of the script, although mine doesn't and it works.

What I don't understand (because I'm clueless), is what testing for,
removing and creating /var/run/ppp-mail would accomplish.

Below is my script (with the boring connect/disconnect stuff removed).
Any input is welcome.  If you can give me a clue as to how your idea would
fit into this mess, that would be great.

#!/bin/sh
#
# Stuff to initiate ppp connection
#
# /home/pppusers/pppd.log is created by ip-up when connection
# is established.  This waits for that to happen.

until test -r /home/pppusers/pppd.log
do
	sleep 5s
done

fetchmail &

sleep 4m

killall fetchmail

# Stuff to kill ppp connection below




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