Re: The Unix Philosophy (was Re: POP3 mail fetcher that supportsunreliable connections?)
> On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 09:34:09AM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
>> On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 09:08, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
>> > On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 03:42:40PM -0700, Monique Y. Herman wrote:
>> > > On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 at 21:54 GMT, Vincent Lefevre penned:
>> > > > On 2003-11-04 10:41:10 -0700, Monique Y. Herman wrote:
>> > > >> That's because fetchmail didn't lose the mail; the delivery
>> system
>> > > >> did.
>> > > >
>> > > > In some sense, yes. But if fetchmail didn't use the delivery
>> system, I
>> > > > wouldn't have lost mail.
>> > >
>> > > And if I hadn't typed 'rm -rf' in my root directory, I wouldn't have
>> > > lost my system. In both cases, the behavior is well documented, and
>> in
>> > > both cases, user error can end in disaster.
>> >
>> > The purpose of rm is to delete files. The purpose of fetchmail is not
>> to
>> > send my emails to /dev/null. It's not ok for a program to have
>> dangerous
>> > defaults. Nowhere in the fetcmail manpage does it say:
>> > WARNING if your MTA is badly configured there will be MASSIVE LOSSAGE!
>> > If you don't know what an MTA is do not proceed!
>>
>> The purpose of fetchmail is to take mails from a pop server and
>> give it to the MTA. If the MTA then sends it to /dev/null, in
>> *no* way is that fetchmail's fault.
>
> Ok, I know, but it would be nice if people didn't lose mail this way.
> This is all the more reason for the warning:
> WARNING if your MTA is badly configured there will be MASSIVE LOSSAGE!
> Fetchmail will blindly send it email, and can't verify where the email
> is actually going. You have been warned!
In the howtos that i found of fetchmail back when i was setting it up,
most of them told to use the "keep" command in the config file so that
it always keeps a copy on the server. That way you don't have to worry
about possible loss of data.
Benedict
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