On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 11:37:16AM -0500, Mike Mueller wrote: > On Wednesday 14 January 2004 04:59, Kevin Mark wrote: > > On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 02:39:21PM -0500, Mike Mueller wrote: > > > I am a MTA/MDA/MUA email noob. I am doing things piecemeal to understand > > > the functioning of each component. > <snip> > > > How are maildir and folders usually set up? With an MUA? > > > -- > > > > Hi Mike, > > here is something I recall. > > I have sendmail and procmail and fetchmail. > > fetchmail (using cron) get my email and passes it to sendmail for local > > delivery. Sendmail using procmail to sortout what to do with my mail and > > where to drop it. > > so: > > fetchmail->sendmail->procmail->mailboxes > > Thanks for the reply Kevin. > > I was thinking about doing this: > > 1. POP3->getmail->mailboxes this is the basic way. no frills. > 2. POP3->getmail->procmail->mailboxes > 3. POP3->getmail->procmail->mailboxes<-MUA (Mutt for example) this is what I use. this allows you to do mbox or maildir. mutt can do either. > 4. throw in spam filtering you can do basic spam filtering with procmail OR add other stuff-spamassasin... > 5. MUA->nullmailer->SMTP Smart Relay dont know what this is. > > I am avoiding sendmail because (IMO) it's big and does things I don't need. it was MY choice but it is not DEBIAN's default. exim3 or 4 can be configured with d-u peoples' help in a flash. > I wish I could find the Young Folks Book of OSS Email Solutions with big > colorful pictures and simple statements about the benefits and drawbacks of > each configuration (links appreciated). Without that book I am left to > assemble what I think is the simplest collection of tools for my situation in > a trial-and-error fashion. At the outset, by using getmail, I am faced with > the daunting choice of mbox versus maildirs. Great. All I need is a > controversy. I think these become more of an issue when you want to: store GB of mail, backup GB of mail or do custom searches of GB of mail. maildir is better for those. there is also noproblem with mbox<->maildir conversion if ever there is a need. This is the benefit of open source. choices and freedom. > > Long discussion on debian-devel on maildirmake: > http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200306/msg01420.html > > Tools for converting mbox to maildir: > http://qmail.mscnetworks.com/top.html#maildir > > As I go through the steps above I wonder where the mailboxes come from. The as I said before, after you set up the procmail script and setup either a file or a directory, procmail will do what you said. no need to do anything else. SO, if you do: touch /home/$USER/mail/debian-user you have made a mbox if you do: mkdir /home/$USER/mail/debian-user you have made a maildir voila! > various agents need to know about the mailboxes (obviously). So the choices > are: > > 1. use maildirmake which is not a part of base debian; I suppose I could load > in qmail and get it, but drag in that monster for a script? Should I ask the > Debian getmail package maintainer to include maildirmake? > 2. create them manually which worked; still haven't found how folders are > specified but I have found some source code to read; not enthused about > reading source when I'm in the noob stage; never enthused about reading PERL > ;-) > 3. start learning Mutt and use it to create maildir targets; haven't really > got the hang of getmail yet and now I've got to get Mutt out of the box? it's > probably not that hard > > In the end, 3. is probably the preferred choice. Then you modify the > procmail recipes to use the new mail folder as desired. I haven't actually > done this yet, I am plotting a course. > > > this is a portion of my .procmailrc > > ---------------------- > > > > PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin > > MAILDIR=$HOME/mail > > DEFAULT=$HOME/mbox > > LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/rules/from > > > > :0 c > > > > $MAILDIR/backup > > > > :0 > > > > * ^To:.*perlsemny > > $MAILDIR/monthly/perlsemny > > > > :0 > > > > * ^From:.*handspring > > $MAILDIR/other/handspring > > ---------------------------------- > > Here is sort of an answer to your question. > > the 'mail rule' ^To:.*perlsemny asks if the message is from someone with > > the address containing the word 'perlsemny'. if it does it moves the > > mail into $MAILDIR/monthly/perlsemny. > > if $MAILDIR/monthly/perlsemny is a file, then > > the mail is saved in mbox format inside the file. > > BUT if it is a directory, the mail is > > saved in maildir format inside the directory. > > This is how things work with procmail. > > -Kev > > Are you using mbox or maildir? I started out with mbox and still use it. but one day I will take the maildir plunge. with maildir there are many benefits. -Kev
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