Re: fetchmail failing in fetching mail from a pop server

[Elizabeth Barham <lizzy@soggytrousers.net>]

Robert.Land@t-online.de (Robert Wilhelm Land) writes:

> The file below shows errors relating to unexpected message
> lengths. Could it have something to do with the
> missing options exim is complaining about?
> 
> Any help is grately appreciated

Probably. From fetchmail(1):

       -m <command>, --mda <command>
              (Keyword: mda) You can force mail to be  passed  to
              an  MDA directly (rather than forwarded to port 25)
              with the -mda or -m option.  To avoid losing  mail,
              use  this  option  only  with MDAs like procmail or
              sendmail that return a nonzero status on  disk-full
              and  other  resource-exhaustion errors; the nonzero
              status tells fetchmail  that  delivery  failed  and
              prevents  the  message  from  being deleted off the
              server.  If fetchmail is running as root,  it  sets
              its  userid to that of the target user while deliv­
              ering mail through an MDA.  Some possible MDAs  are
              "/usr/sbin/sendmail     -oem     -f     %F     %T",
              "/usr/bin/deliver" and  "/usr/bin/procmail  -d  %T"
              (but  the  latter is usually redundant as it's what
              SMTP listeners normally forward to).  Local  deliv­
              ery addresses will be inserted into the MDA command
              wherever you place a %T; the  mail  message's  From
              address will be inserted where you place an %F.  Do
              not use an MDA invocation like "sendmail  -oem  -t"
              that  dispatches  on  the contents of To/Cc/Bcc, it
              will create mail loops and bring the just wrath  of
              many postmasters down upon your head.

Exim doubles as sendmail, so the:

       mda /usr/sbin/sendmail -oem -f %F %T

will probably work.

Elizabeth