Re: exim: misleading package description?
On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 07:37:29PM -0800, Kurt Lieber wrote:
> On Thursday 29 November 2001 07:05 pm, cmasters wrote:
>
> > Hope you don't mind the interruption. You may have noticed my slew of
> > postings about difficulties with sorting mail. I read your reponse to mean
> > that I may not even require the services of procmail, as I ~am~ using exim
> > as my MTA. Is this correct? I just want fairly simple pre-sorting of mail
> > before I read it with mutt.
>
> Um -- I haven't followed the other threads too closely, so I'm not intimately
> familiar with your predicament. However, my recommendation is to use
> fetchmail, procmail and mutt together and cut exim out of the picture.
> Procmail has a nasty, ugly, horrible syntax, but it's a more flexible
> filtering program than exim. Also, once you get up to speed with
> fetchmail/procmail/mutt, you'll likely want to improve upon your filtering
> capabilities to cull spam and other niceties. That's where you probably want
> to have procmail.
>
Well now I'm confused yet again. All the documentation that I've read states
that some sort of mail-transport-agent is required in order to send/receive
mail. Sendmail was ornery in setup, so I installed exim (which in turn
removed sendmail). Are you saying that I don't ~need~ a
mail-transport-agent? I have several users (roommates) on this box and still
need to get my syslogs sent to me - as they are now.
Please clarify.
> Fetchmail can use procmail as the MDA -- just put:
>
> mda "procmail"
>
I tried that at the very beginning, but it's been established that exim is
likely interrupting the flow *shaking head*.
> in your .fetchmailrc file and exim should be completely removed from the
> equation.
>
> You'll also want to modify your .procmailrc file to use formail, which will
> regenerate the "From" field so you don't lose your mail. (see man procmail
> for more info -- look for the -f option)
>
This would then rewrite the 'from' field, requiring sorting by subject
contents, correct? *can't even imagine at this point*
> Note: that's just my opinion on how I would do things It's worth about as
> much as the e-paper this is printed on.
>
> > No doubt a very helpful book. Unfortunately this "capital" city on the east
> > caost of Canada has just discovered that M$ is ~not~ the only OS. I'd have
> > to order said book, and wait 4 - 6 weeks for delivery of it. Not sure I can
> > go through another few weeks of this dilemma.
>
> One thing that I've learned in my time with linux is that there are always
> 472 different ways of doing the exact same damn thing. I cannot tell you how
> frustrating and wonderful that is, all at the same time. There is no "one
> right answer" for whatever you're trying to do.
>
Not feeling much of the wonderful right now ... although I do remember that
feeling when I removed gpm and got a fully functioning mouse *g*.
> So, my advice is to pick one way that seems to make the most sense and stick
> with it. Once you get more comfortable with linux, you can go back and
> change things if you want. But if you keep jumping around to different
> configuration options, then you'll continue to spin your wheels and never get
> anything done.
>
> --kurt
>
Good advice. Off to check the 'newbie' sites that you mentioned elsewhere.
Thank you again,
C. Masters
Reply to: