Re: EXIM / FETCHMAIL Question

[Will Trillich <will@serensoft.com>]

On Wed, Aug 30, 2000 at 09:50:15AM -0400, Christopher W. Aiken wrote:
> In previous flavors of Linux and Freebsd, I had sendmail
> running.  I would do a "fetchmail" to get my email from
> my ISP, and I had a ".forward" file that would send my
> mail to "procmail" for sorting/filtering.
> 
> I now have Debian 2.2 Potato set up and it uses exim.
> I do NOT have a ".forward" file, but I do have my
> ".procmailrc" recipe file.  When I do a "fetchmail" my
> incoming mail is sorted/filtered using my ".procmailrc"
> recipe file.  Is this normal behavior for exim?  Can I
> get rid of my ".forward" file?

here's my understanding (all those who wish to correct me,
please stand up):


1. get mail waiting at a pop3 mailbox

fetchmail goes out and does the pop3 communication with
your various isp accounts.


2. send your messages to your smtp listener

it then sends the results to the smtp port on your local
linux machine (unless you have other settings in your
.fetchmailrc file) fooling exim into thinking that it's
receiving email. (okay, maybe it really is receiving
email, but from a local process, instead of a remote
sender frmo Out There.)

exim goes through its /etc/exim.conf file checking this
and that to determine where each message should go,
how it should be 'filtered' and so forth.


3. run recipient's filters on the message

one of the default rules there (exim.conf) is to see
if the intended recipient has a ~/.procmailrc file,
and if so, to pipe the message thru procmail, which
will use the .procmailrc file settings for each of
that recipient's messages.


--

so you'll notice that if you have a constant connection
(say, cablemodem or t1) you can be set up to receive
email as a smtp server; exim will listen and catch incoming
mail that way. fetchmail goes out and finds your waiting pop3
messages, and forwards them to your local exim as if you
were a Significant Mail Hub all your own.