newbie: fetch and directory ?

[ezplan]

Hello,

I've set up a mail server for our office using RH9 with postfix right out of the box for about 20 users.
Our ISP provides a multi-drop mailbox which our server accesses via a fetchmail script run thru cron. This seem to be working OK - although every once in a while I see a message in the log saying something about "there is another fetchmail running as a foreground process..."
The incoming mail seems to be delivered to two directories: /var/spool/mail and /var/mail. They appear to be duplicates of each other. Users can pop the server with Outlook & OE, enter user/password, and download mail fine -but it seems to download from both directories!?!?

What's going on? Does postfix need fetchmail to get mail from ISP? Or is there a process which can do that from within postfix? Do I need both in-mail directories? I could use the space on /var.

Any light anyone can shed on this would be helpful!

thanks.

 

[bluegroper]

Does postfix need fetchmail to get mail from ISP?"

If you're running an off-line postfix mail server, then yes, you need fetchmail.

"there is another fetchmail running as a foreground process..."

This is caused by your ISP's mailserver being a bit slow, or flakey. In your cron jib, just try increasing the time distance between each fetchmail cycle.

- BG

 

[ericbrunson]

Is either /var/mail or /var/spool/mail a symlink to the other?

 

[ezplan]

Thanks all.
And yes, /var/mail is a symlink to /var/spool/mail - I should have seen that!
The "another fetchmail..." issue was actually my fault. In the course of setting things up I seem to have created two cron jobs to do the same thing, one at widely spaced intervals, so it only stepped on the other's toes every so often. I discovered it after installing "Webmin 1.130" - showed up in the cron job config.
Thanks again!