Re: fetchmail gives me headache (was: Strange things like drwx--S--- with elm...)
On 22, aug, 2000 at 01:07:58 +0200, Andreas Hetzmannseder wrote:
> Morten Liebach wrote:
> > [...] I don't have any mda defined in my ~/fetchmailrc,
> > delivering to port 25 on localhost is the default.
>
> Does this mean /var/spool/mail/... ?
It means that it delivers to your ``mailserver'' on localhost, which is
exim.
As far as exim is concerned it is a normal TCP/IP connection with a mail
for <local_username>@localhost ... exim then delivers according to it's
config (/var/spool/mail/<local_username> by default).
> > My fetchmailrc:
> >
> > set postmaster "<local_username>"
>
> ...OK...
>
> > set bouncemail
> > set properties ""
>
> Fetchmail complained about these two options (parse error),
> so I disabled them. Bouncemail doesn't even seem to be available in my
> fetchmailrc template file. What version of fetchmail do you have?
> Mine is 4.6.4-1.1.
Mine is 5.3.3, so they are probably not ``~/.fetchmailrc-compatible''.
> > poll <my_pop3_server> with proto POP3
> > user <userid> there with password <very_secret> is <local_username> here warnings 3600
> > antispam 571 550 501 554
> > It works very well, and has done so for a year now. :-)
>
> I envy you... :)
>
> Now have a look at my fetchmailrc:
> set postmaster "<local_username>"
> #set bouncemail
> #set properties ""
> poll <my_pop3_server> with proto pop3
> user <userid> there with password <very_secret>
> is <local_username> here
> warnings 3600
> antispam 571 550 501 554
>
> This looks like it should work, don't you think? Instead I always get
> an "SMTP Transaction error". It reads the first incoming message for a
> few seconds, then it exits with "connection failed" and I tried it over
> and over again...
Amazing as it seems, I just got a thought!
_IS_ exim running and listening on port 25?
If not, ``SMTP Transaction error'' would be the error message, since
fetchmail speaks SMTP to exim on port 25 (fetchmail says ``Hi, I've got
mail for you'', and exim says nothing, so fetchmail times out and tell
you ``SMTP Transaction error'').
Look in /etc/inetd.conf for a line that starts with ``smtp'', what does
it say?
Try a portscanner too (nmap f.ex., do a `nmap localhost', look for this
line: 25 open tcp smtp )
If exim isn't listenig, that's the real problem, not fetchmail.
> Do I really need 'set bouncemail' and 'set properties ""'?
No, it seems not to be supported by your version of fetchmail, so you
were right when you disabled them.
> Let me get the following clear: I am not having X yet, fetchmailconfig
> doesn't work for me, so I set up ~/.fetchmailrc by myself.
> For the time being all I want is to have mail delivered anywhere, so
> I am not even talking about any MUA, be it mutt, elm, mozilla or
> whatever. This will be my next big problem ;)
That's no problem, just choose mutt! ;-)
Look at my homepage at http://home1.stofanet.dk/liebach/, there's a link
to my muttrc and a screenshot of how it looks in version 1.2.5i
(selfcompiled, not from a Debian package, it's easy to do).
> Do you invoke fetchmail via your MUA?
>
> Sorry for my confused asking, but there are just too many problems
> all at once. I never thought this would become so complicated...
It isn't, but only when you just know how ... but so is everything.
The way I have it set up is:
Fetchmail does it's thing, delivers on port 25 to exim, exim passes the
mail on to procmail (it does so because I have a ~/.procmailrc file, if
not it delivers to /var/spool/mail), procmail reads the recipes from my
~/.procmailrc, and delivers according to that (to ~/Maildir/<folder>)
and when I feel like reading mail I just start mutt and read away ...
The _only_ thing mutt does is reading mail! A kind of sophisticated
filebrowser!
When I want to send/reply-to mail mutt passes it on to exim, which in
turn passes it on to the addressee(s).
It's a very classical UNIX way of doing things, and when you get used to
it, you don't wanna loose it!
I hope this clarifies things a bit for you.
HAND
Morten
--
UNIX, reach out and grep someone!
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