%general-entities; ]> $Date$ Fetchmail The Fetchmail package contains a mail retrieval program. It retrieves mail from remote mail servers and forwards it to the local (client) machine's delivery system, so it can then be read by normal mail user agents. &lfs101_checked; Package Information Download (HTTP): Download (FTP): Download MD5 sum: &fetchmail-md5sum; Download size: &fetchmail-size; Estimated disk space required: &fetchmail-buildsize; Estimated build time: &fetchmail-time; Fetchmail Dependencies Recommended a local MDA () Optional and libgssapi Optional (for running fetchmailconf) , built after , with the py-future package User Notes: Create a dedicated user for the fetchmail program. Issue the following commands as the root user: useradd -c "Fetchmail User" -d /dev/null -g nogroup \ -s /bin/false -u 38 fetchmail Install Fetchmail by running the following commands: PYTHON=python3 \ ./configure --prefix=/usr \ --enable-fallback=procmail && make To test the results, issue: make check. Now, as the root user: make install && chown -v fetchmail:nogroup /usr/bin/fetchmail PYTHON=python3: a version of Python is required, but only used to install a module to allow fetchmailconf to be run. That module is unmaintained and should not be used. --enable-fallback=procmail: This tells Fetchmail to hand incoming mail to Procmail for delivery, if the port 25 mail server is not present or not responding. ~/.fetchmailrc ~/.fetchmailrc cat > ~/.fetchmailrc << "EOF" # The logfile needs to exist when fetchmail is invoked, otherwise it will # dump the details to the screen. As with all logs, you will need to rotate # or clear it from time to time. set logfile fetchmail.log set no bouncemail # You probably want to set your local username as the postmaster set postmaster <username> poll SERVERNAME : user <isp_username> pass <password>; mda "/usr/bin/procmail -f %F -d %T"; EOF touch ~/fetchmail.log && chmod -v 0600 ~/.fetchmailrc This is an example configuration that should suffice for most people. You can add as many users and servers as you need using the same syntax. man fetchmail: Look for the section near the bottom named CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES. It gives some quick examples. There are countless other configuration options once you get used to it. If you expect to receive very little mail you can invoke fetchmail when you wish to receive any incoming mail. More commonly, it is either invoked in daemon mode with the -d option either on the command line, or in .fetchmailrc (see 'DAEMON MODE' in man fetchmailconf), or alternatively it is invoked from a cron job. Installed Programs Installed Libraries Installed Directories fetchmail and fetchmailconf None None Short Descriptions fetchmail when executed as a user, this will source ~/.fetchmailrc and download the appropriate mail fetchmail fetchmailconf is intended to assist you in setting up and editing a ~/.fetchmailrc configuration file, by using a Tk GUI interface. It is written for Python and the Tkinter module but is labelled with a WARNING that it needs to be updated for fetchmail 6.4's SSL options and other recent new options fetchmailconf