Re: Gathering mail from multiple POP servers

[will trillich <will@serensoft.com>]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 06:52:16PM -0500, Samuel Hathaway wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have been thinking about this for a while, and haven't really found much
> comprehensible documentation on it...
> 
> I like to be able to check my mail from several locations. I also have a
> bunch of pop mail accounts. I want to have my debian box "collect" mail from
> all of those accounts and put each account's mail into a separate mail box
> in my home directory. Then, I'd like to be able to access all of these mail
> boxes (as well any others I create to store mail in) through a IMAP
> interface. I can probably figure out the IMAP part once I have the mail
> gathering set up.
> 
> Could someone recommend a HOWTO or tell me how to do this? Thanks in
> advance.

you can use fetchmail to yank email from pop3 or imap
servers. here's my ~/.fetchmailrc :

	# fetchmail -a -u trillich mail.speedex.net
	defaults
		user ispLoginName is will
		password hiddn4now
		server mail.speedex.net

	poll mail.pinncomp.net protocol pop3
		user remoteName is will
		password isSekrit
		fetchall

then when i "fetchmail" (or leave "fetchmail -d 300" running to
yank stuff every so often) it gets email from
<ispLoginName@mail.speedex.net> and
<remoteName@mail.pinncomp.net> ... directing them both to
<will@localhost>

but wait -- you need to have EXIM set up, first (i think).
it'll take a few weeks before you understand THAT manual! exim
listens for incoming mail connections, which is what fetchmail
forwards your 'email yanks' to. i'll let someone else step in
with a wise configuration setup there.

then with debian, exim defaults to looking for a ~/.procmailrc
file and if it exists, your email is filtered thru procmail
according to the recipes you've got there. here's a sample:

	#  based on settings from aclark@ghoti.org ('fish'.org')

	PATH=$HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin

	MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail
	PROCMAILDIR=$HOME/.procmail
	LOGFILE=$PROCMAILDIR/procmail.log

	SENDMAIL=/usr/sbin/sendmail

	DEBIAN=$MAILDIR/debian
	DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/inbox


	#
	# pinncomp and speedex mail (via fetchmail)
	#
	:0:
	* ^TO_.*@.*\/(pinncomp|speedex)\....
	$MATCH
	# stow it into mbox "pinncomp.com" or "speedex.net"


	#
	# debian mailing lists
	#
	:0
	* ^X-Loop: debian-.+@lists.debian.org
	* ^X-Loop: debian-\/[^@]+
	{ DN=`echo $MATCH | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'` }
	:0A:
	$DEBIAN-$DN


	#
	# if all else fails, forward it to different local user
	#

	:0
	!otherguy
	# <otherguy@localhost> will get anything else that isn't
	# routed above

there's an awful lot you can do with all these -- it's kinda
like killing a mosquito with a nuclear bomb...

"man fetchmail" has several nice examples to get you started.
also,
	man exim.conf
	man procmailrc
	man procmailex

-- 
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something.  But the government will spend it, thereby
creating jobs.      -- Dave Barry

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