Re: fetchmailconf problem

[Paul Mackinney <paul@mackinney.net>]

Thomas H. George,,, muttered:
> Test configuration fails with the message: "fetchmailrc:6; parse error 
> at 123456" where 123456 is the password for the account.  From the man 
> page the 6 might refer to a permission problem but parse error suggests 
> to me that an all numeric password may not be allowed.  If the latter is 
> the problem is there a way around this or must I have the service 
> provider change my password?
> 
My solution (not sure where I got this from, probably dman or one of 
Will Trillich's newbie hints) is to use a ~/.netrc file. This was 
developed for use w/ftp, but fetchmail will use it. The format is:

  machine <dns-name> login <name> password <password>

If the last line is

  default login anonymous password <your email address>

Then the command line ftp client will usually be able to connect to
arbitrary systems for anonymous ftp without prompting you for the
password.

I keep all of my pop account info in here, it's the only file on my
system that has passwords in plain text. Permissions on the file are 
400, I'm both the user and the group.

HTH, Paul
-- 
Paul Mackinney
paul@mackinney.net