Re: fetchmail at boot
On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 10:56:43AM +0100, Phillip Deackes wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Jul 2001 01:59:06 -0500
> xucaen@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > currently I have fetchmail being run at login from ~/.bash_profile.
> > this is fine for myself at login, however, I would like to have
> > fetchmail run as a daemon at boot time so it can poll for multiple
> > users. Where should I have fetchmail loaded from to do this?
>
> This is exactly what I do.
>
> Fetchmail needs to run as root so you need a .fetchmailrc in /root like
> this:
>
> set daemon 600
> poll pop.xxx.xxx
> protocol pop3
> username gsmh@gmx.co.uk to gsmh@scgf.gmx.co.uk
> password xxxxxxx
> poll pop.xxxxx.xxxxx
> protocol pop3
> username scgf01 to gsmh@scgf.gmx.co.uk
> password xxxxxxx
> poll pop.xxxxxx.xxxxxx
> protocol pop3
> username scgf02 to gsmh@scgf.gmx.co.uk
> password xxxxxxx
>
> As you can see, I poll three mailboxes. The daemon 600 ensures that
> fetchmail runs as a daemon and polls the mailboxes at intervals of 10
> minutes. I have a cable connection to the internet so this works well.
>
> All you need to do is start fetchmail during bootup:
>
> #! /bin/sh
> # /etc/init.d/fetchmail
> # Hacked by Ross Boylan from the exim script which was...
> #
> # Written by Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels@drinkel.ow.org>.
> # Modified for Debian GNU/Linux by Ian Murdock <imurdock@gnu.ai.mit.edu>.
> # Modified for exim by Tim Cutts <timc@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> # To start fetchmail as a system service, copy this file to
> # /etc/init.d/fetchmail and run "update-rc.d fetchmail
> # defaults". A fetchmailrc file containg hosts and
> # passwords for all local users should be placed in /root
> # and should contain a line of the form "set daemon <nnn>".
> #
> # To remove the service, delete /etc/init.d/fetchmail and run
> # "update-rc.d fetchmail remove".
>
> set -e
>
>
> DAEMON=/usr/bin/fetchmail
> ARGS="--fetchmailrc /root/.fetchmailrc"
> DEBUGLOG=/var/log/fetchmail.log
> NAME=fetchmail
>
> echo `whoami` `date` >> $DEBUGLOG
> # This was not my only test of uid. I created a shell script and
> # ran it from start-stop-deamon. The script printed whoami as root.
>
> test -x $DAEMON || exit 0
>
> case "$1" in
> start)
> echo -n "Starting fetchmail: "
> start-stop-daemon --start -v --exec $DAEMON -- $ARGS >> $DEBUGLOG
> # Note the use of -- before args to the program
> echo "Done."
> ;;
> stop)
> echo -n "Stopping fetchmail: "
> start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --exec $DAEMON
> echo "Done."
> ;;
> restart|reload|force-reload)
> echo "Restarting fetchmail: "
> start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --exec $DAEMON
> start-stop-daemon --start -v --exec $DAEMON -- $ARGS >> $DEBUGLOG
> echo "Done."
> ;;
> *)
> echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/$NAME {start|stop|restart}"
> exit 1
> ;;
> esac
>
> exit 0
>
>
> I also have a .forward file in my home directory which sorts mail for
> other users:
>
> # Exim filter <<== do not edit or remove this line!
>
> if error_message then finish endif
> logfile $home/eximfilter.log
>
> if $h_To: contains "scott@gmx.co.uk"
> then deliver scott
>
> elif $h_To: contains "sah1"
> then deliver scott
>
> endif
>
> 'scott; is obviously a user on my system. Not sure why I have this file in
> *my* home directory, but it works so I just leave it there. I assume it
> works because in my .fetchmailrc I am telling fetchmail to send all mail
> initially to me as gsmh, therefore mail becomes my property before exim
> takes over to filter it.
>
> All credit to those who originally supplied me with this info.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
This is all fine and good, but on my system, the /etc/init.d/fetchmail
script was set up by default to check for the presence of a
/etc/fetchmailrc file, and if it exists, would start up a system-wide
fetchmail daemon. So instead of putting that stuff in
/root/.fetchmailrc, put it in /etc/fetchmailrc and the rest should
happen automatically...
--
Brian Nelson <nelson@bignachos.com>
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