Fetchmail

[redwhip]

After having become vaguely familiar with sendmail, I am now told that I will need something called Fetchmail for mail delivery.
I have installed it and read some of the documentation but I am having some difficulty in understanding how it works.
The way it is explained seems to suggest that there should be a fetchmailrc file in each user's home directory.
However what I don't understand is why each user should have a home directory on the server from which they wish to download their mail (Does it need to be on their client machine instead?) and does this file has to be manually created.

What I basically need to do is retreive mail from sendmail using pop3 on a windows machine. Thats why I'm a bit confused as to where this file should be.

Also how do I start the fetchmail process? ps -ax | grep fetchmail shows no matching processes even though it has been installed. And there is nothing in /etc/init.d.
(Running RedHat 9)

I am just starting out with Sendmail so please forgive my ignorance and many thanks for any help you can offer.

D

 

[jad]

ok ...

fetchmail has to have a .fetchmailrc in the current users home directory.

however i believe you can get mail for any user on your system. (at least as root you can)

so if you set up a .fetchmailrc in root's home directory as:

poll pop3.some.isp.com with protocol POP3:
    user &quot;<user>&quot; password &quot;<password>&quot; is <user> here

for each person in your organisation.

then run 'fetchmail -d 900' which should poll all your mail servers every 900 seconds (15 mins)

if you want it to do this at boot then you'll need to create an init.d/rc.d script.

 

[danielhozac]

It sounds to me as if you don't need fetchmail at all, but rather a POP3 server.

//Daniel

 

[jad]

ohh, yeah, i agree erad that statement wrongly

look for imapd (

http://www.washington.edu/imap/

)

 

[redwhip]

OK I realize now Fetchmail is for something else completely.
So

How do I set up a POP3 server?

Damian

 

[jad]

get hold of imapd (university of washington one is good)

that has a pop2, pop3 and imap server in it.

you then need to set up inetd so that it serves the correct ports to the pop3 and imapd daemons.

 

[redwhip]

Thanks I will try that tonight

 

[redwhip]

OK I have installed imap and started the pop3 daemons by editing /etc/xinetd/ipop3 (disable = no).
Now though when I telnet localhost 110,
user root
pass password

I get -ERR bad login

Are pop3/sendmail users the same as the local system users or do I need to edit the passwords elsewhere?

 

[danielhozac]

They are system users. Try another user than root.

//Daniel

 

[redwhip]

Still getting the same error with another user.
What am I doing wrong. Are there any other parameters I need to configure anywhere else for the users?

 

[jad]

there shouldn't be ...

if you telnet to port 23 and use that user and password does it connect?

i know it's a silly question, but it'd be better to check now rather than later.

 

[rouse01]

damianh, You can use fetchmail if you're popping email for multiple users from a isp like comcast. But if you have mail for your domain pointing to your inhouse sendmail server, then you don't need fetchmail. danielhozac is right in suggesting pop server.
(I'm talking redhat now) When you setup your mail users, you'll add them to the 'mail' or 'popusers' group and also make up passwords for them. You should see their mailboxes in \var\spool\mail folder. The permissions are probably 660.
So, from the user's windows client(outlook?), you enter the sendmail server's pop & smtp info, tell it that it's a pop server & enter the user name & password for a mailbox you set up above.
jad's first post is right to create the .fetchmailrc in the root directory if you are popping from something like comcast for multiple mail users. You still need to set up the mailboxes & the pop service on the sendmail server so you're able to retrieve mail with the windows client.
Hope you get this going.
keith

 

[redwhip]

Thanks for all your help guys,
I was a bit hasty in sending out a reply last time as a new user I created did work |

I will keep an eye on the postings in here and hopefully will be answering other peoples questions before too long!
Thanks again