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13 <td width="30%" align=right>$Date: 1999/09/14 07:38:00 $
16 <H1>Frequently Asked Questions About Fetchmail</H1>
18 Before reporting any bug, please read <a href="#G3">G3</a> for advice
19 on how to include diagnostic information that will get your bug fixed
20 as quickly as possible. <p>
22 If you have a question or answer you think ought to be added to this FAQ list,
23 mail it to fetchmail's maintainer, Eric S. Raymond, at
24 <A HREF="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com">esr@snark.thyrsus.com</A>.<p>
26 <h1>General questions:</h1>
28 <a href="#G1">G1. What is fetchmail and why should I bother?</a><br>
29 <a href="#G2">G2. Where do I find the latest FAQ and fetchmail sources?</a><br>
30 <a href="#G3">G3. I think I've found a bug. Will you fix it?</a><br>
31 <a href="#G4">G4. I have this idea for a neat feature. Will you add it?</a><br>
32 <a href="#G5">G5. Is there a mailing list for exchanging tips?</a><br>
33 <a href="#G6">G6. So, what's this I hear about a fetchmail paper?</a><br>
34 <a href="#G7">G7. What is the best server to use with fetchmail?</a><br>
35 <a href="#G8">G8. How can I avoid sending my password en clair?</a><br>
36 <a href="#G9">G9. Is any special configuration needed to use a dynamic
38 <a href="#G10">G10. Is any special configuration needed to use firewalls?</a><br>
39 <a href="#G11">G11. Is any special configuration needed to <em>send</em> mail?</a><br>
41 <a href="#G12">G12. Is fetchmail Y2K-compliant?</a><br>
43 <h1>Build-time problems:</h1>
45 <a href="#B1">B1. Lex bombs out while building the fetchmail lexer.</a><br>
46 <a href="#B2">B2. I get link failures when I try to build fetchmail.</a><br>
48 <h1>Fetchmail configuration file grammar questions:</h1>
50 <a href="#F1">F1. Why does my old .fetchmailrc no longer work?</a><br>
51 <a href="#F2">F2. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept my all-numeric user name.</a><br>
52 <a href="#F3">F3. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept my host or username beginning with `no'.</a><br>
53 <a href="#F4">F4. I'm migrating from popclient. How do I need to modify my .poprc?</a><br>
54 <a href="#F5">F5. I'm getting a `parse error' message I don't understand.</a><br>
56 <h1>Configuration questions:</h1>
58 <a href="#C1">C1. Why do I need a .fetchmailrc when running as root on my own machine?</a><br>
59 <a href="#C2">C2. How can I arrange for a fetchmail daemon to get killed when I log out?</a><br>
60 <a href="#C3">C3. How do I know what interface and address to use with --interface?</a><br>
61 <a href="#C4">C4. How can I set up support for sendmail's anti-spam features?</a><br>
63 <h1>How to make fetchmail play nice with various MTAs:</h1>
65 <a href="#T1">T1. How can I use fetchmail with sendmail?</a><br>
66 <a href="#T2">T2. How can I use fetchmail with qmail?</a><br>
67 <a href="#T3">T3. How can I use fetchmail with exim?</a><br>
68 <a href="#T4">T4. How can I use fetchmail with smail?</a><br>
69 <a href="#T5">T5. How can I use fetchmail with SCO's MMDF?</a><br>
70 <a href="#T6">T6. How can I use fetchmail with Lotus Notes?</a><br>
72 <h1>How to make fetchmail work with various servers:</h1>
74 <a href="#S1">S1. How can I use fetchmail with qpopper?</a><br>
75 <a href="#S2">S2. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft Exchange?</a><br>
76 <a href="#S3">S3. How can I use fetchmail with Compuserve RPA?</a><br>
77 <a href="#S4">S4. How can I use fetchmail with Demon Internet's SDPS?</a><br>
78 <a href="#S5">S5. How can I use fetchmail with usa.net's servers?</a><br>
79 <a href="#S6">S6. How can I use fetchmail with HP OpenMail?</a><br>
80 <a href="#S7">S7. How can I use fetchmail with geocities POP3 servers?</a><br>
81 <a href="#S8">S8. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail?</a><br>
82 <a href="#S9">S9. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?</a><br>
83 <a href="#S10">S10. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?</a><br>
85 <h1>How to set up well-known security and authentication methods:</h1>
87 <a href="#K1">K1. How can I use fetchmail with SOCKS?</a><br>
88 <a href="#K2">K2. How can I use fetchmail with IPv6 and IPsec?</a><br>
89 <a href="#K3">K3. How can I get fetchmail to work with ssh?</a><br>
90 <a href="#K4">K4. What do I have to do to use the IMAP-GSS protocol?</a><br>
91 <a href="#K5">K5. How can I use fetchmail with SSL?</a><br>
93 <h1>Runtime fatal errors:</h1>
95 <a href="#R1">R1. Fetchmail isn't working, and -v shows `SMTP connect failed' messages.</a><br>
96 <a href="#R2">R2. When I try to configure an MDA, fetchmail doesn't work.</a><br>
97 <a href="#R3">R3. Fetchmail dumps core when given an invalid rc file.</a><br>
98 <a href="#R4">R4. Fetchmail dumps core in -V mode, but operates normally otherwise.</a><br>
99 <a href="#R5">R5. Running fetchmail in daemon mode doesn't work.</a><br>
100 <a href="#R6">R6. Fetchmail hangs when used with pppd.</a><br>
101 <a href="#R7">R7. Fetchmail randomly dies with socket errors.</a><br>
102 <a href="#R8">R8. Fetchmail running as root stopped working after an OS upgrade</a><br>
103 <a href="#R9">R9. Fetchmail is timing out after fetching certain
104 messages but before deleting them</a><br>
106 <h1>Disappearing mail</h1>
108 <a href="#D1">D1. I think I've set up fetchmail correctly, but I'm not getting any mail.</a><br>
109 <a href="#D2">D2. All my mail seems to disappear after a dropped connection.</a><br>
110 <a href="#D3">D3. Mail that was being fetched when I interrupted my fetchmail seems to have been vanished.</a><br>
112 <h1>Multidrop-mode problems:</h1>
114 <a href="#M1">M1. I've declared local names, but all my multidrop mail is going to root anyway.</a><br>
115 <a href="#M2">M2. I can't seem to get fetchmail to route to a local domain properly.</a><br>
116 <a href="#M3">M3. I tried to run a mailing list using multidrop, and I have a mail loop!</a><br>
117 <a href="#M4">M4. My multidrop fetchmail seems to be having DNS problems.</a><br>
118 <a href="#M5">M5. I'm seeing long DNS delays before each message is processed.</a><br>
119 <a href="#M6">M6. How do I get multidrop mode to work with majordomo?</a><br>
120 <a href="#M7">M7. Multidrop mode isn't parsing envelope addresses from
121 my Received headers as it should.</a><br>
123 <h1>Mangled mail:</h1>
125 <a href="#X1">X1. Spurious blank lines are appearing in the headers of fetched mail.</a><br>
126 <a href="#X2">X2. My mail client can't see a Subject line.</a><br>
127 <a href="#X3">X3. Messages containing "From" at start of line are being split.</a><br>
128 <a href="#X4">X4. My mail is being mangled in a new and different way.</a><br>
129 <a href="#X5">X5. Using POP3, retrievals seems to be fetching too much!</a><br>
131 <h1>Other problems:</h1>
133 <a href="#O1">O1. The --logfile option doesn't work if the logfile doesn't exist.</a><br>
134 <a href="#O2">O2. Every time I get a POP or IMAP message the header is
135 dumped to all my terminal sessions.</a><br>
136 <a href="#O3">O3. Does fetchmail reread its rc file every poll cycle?</a><br>
137 <a href="#O4">O4. Why do deleted messages show up again when I take
138 a line hit while downloading?</a><br>
139 <a href="#O5">O5. Why is fetched mail being logged with my name, not the real From address?</a><br>
140 <a href="#O6">O6. I'm seeing long sendmail delays or hangs near the start of each poll cycle.</a><br>
141 <a href="#O7">O7. Why doesn't fetchmail deliver mail in date-sorted order?</a><br>
142 <a href="#O8">O8. I'm using pppd. Why isn't my monitor option working?</a><br>
146 <h2><a name="G1">G1. What is fetchmail and why should I bother?</a></h2>
148 Fetchmail is a one-stop solution to the remote mail retrieval problem
149 for Unix machines, quite useful to anyone with an intermittent PPP or
150 SLIP connection to a remote mailserver. It can collect mail using any
151 variant of POP or IMAP and forwards via port 25 to the local SMTP
152 listener, enabling all the normal forwarding/filtering/aliasing
153 mechanisms that would apply to local mail or mail arriving via a
154 full-time TCP/IP connection.<p>
156 Fetchmail is not a toy or a coder's learning exercise, but an
157 industrial-strength tool capable of transparently handling every
158 retrieval demand from those of a simple single-user ISP connection up
159 to mail retrieval and rerouting for an entire client domain.
160 Fetchmail is easy to configure, unobtrusive in operation, powerful,
161 feature-rich, and well documented. <P>
163 Fetchmail is <a href="http://www.opensource.org">Open Source</a>
164 software. The openness of the sources is the strongest assurance of
165 quality you can have. Extensive peer review by a large,
166 multi-platform user community has shown that fetchmail is as near
167 bulletproof as the underlying protocols permit.<p>
169 Fetchmail is licensed under the <a
170 href="http://gnu.org//copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public
173 If you found this FAQ in the distribution, see the README for fetchmail's
174 full feature list.<p>
177 <h2><a name="G2">G2. Where do I find the latest FAQ and fetchmail
180 The latest HTML FAQ is available alongside the latest fetchmail
181 sources at the fetchmail home page:
182 <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail">
183 http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail</a>. You can also usually find
185 href="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/pop/!INDEX.html">POP
186 mail tools directory on Sunsite</a>.<p>
188 A text dump of this FAQ is included in the fetchmail
189 distribution. Because it freezes at distribution release time, it may
190 not be completely current.<p>
193 <h2><a name="G3">G3. I think I've found a bug. Will you fix it?</a></h2>
195 Yes I will, provided you include enough diagnostic information for me
196 to go on. Send bugs to <a
197 href="mailto:fetchmail-friends@ccil.org">fetchmail-friends</a>. When reporting
198 bugs, please include the following:
201 <li>Your operating system and compiler version.
202 <li>A copy of your POP or IMAP server's greeting line.
203 <li>The name and version of the SMTP listener or MDA you are forwarding to.
204 <li>Any command-line options you used.
205 <li>The output of fetchmail -V called with whatever other
206 command-line options you used.
209 Often, the first thing I will do when you report a bug is tell you to
210 upgrade to the newest version, and then see if the problem reproduces.
211 So you'll probably save us both time if you upgrade and test with
212 the latest version <em>before</em> sending in a bug report.<P>
214 It is helpful if you include your .fetchmailrc file, but not necessary
215 unless your symptom seems to involve an error in configuration
216 parsing. If you do send in your .fetchmailrc, mask the passwords
219 If fetchmail seems to run and fetch mail, but the headers look mangled
220 (that is, headers are missing or blank lines are inserted in the
221 headers) then read the FAQ items in section <a href="#X1">X</a>
222 before submitting a bug report. Pay special attention to the item on
223 <a href="#generic_mangling">diagnosing mail mangling</a>. There are
224 lots of ways for other programs in the mail chain to screw up that
225 look like fetchmail's fault, but you may be able to fix these by
226 tweaking your configuration.<P>
228 A transcript of the failed session with -v -v (yes, that's
229 <em>two</em> -v options, enabling debug mode) will almost always be useful.
230 It is very important that the transcript include your POP/IMAP server's
231 greeting line, so I can identify it in case of server problems. This
232 transcript will not reveal your passwords, which are specially masked
233 out precisely so the transcript can be passed around.<P>
235 If the bug involves a core dump or hang, a gdb stack trace is good to have.
236 (Bear in mind that you can attach gdb to a running but hung process by
237 giving the process ID as a second argument.) You will need to
241 CFLAGS=-g LDFLAGS=" " ./configure
244 and then rebuild in order to generate a version that can be gdb-traced.<p>
246 Best of all is a mail file which, when fetched, will reproduce the
247 bug under the latest (current) version.<p>
249 Any bug I can reproduce will usually get fixed very quickly, often
250 within 48 hours. Bugs I can't reproduce are a crapshoot. If the
251 solution isn't obvious when I first look, it may evade me for a long
252 time (or to put it another way, fetchmail is well enough tested that the
253 easy bugs have long since been found). So if you want your bug fixed
254 rapidly, it is not just sufficient but nearly <em>necessary</em> that
255 you give me a way to reproduce it.<p>
258 <h2><a name="G4">G4. I have this idea for a neat feature. Will you add it?</a></h2>
260 Probably not. Most of the feature suggestions I get are for ways to
261 set various kinds of administrative policy or add more spam filtering
262 (the most common one, which I used to get about four million times a week
263 and got <em>really</em> tired of, is for tin-like kill files).<p>
265 You can do spam filtering better with procmail or maildrop on the
266 server side and (if you're the server sysadmin) sendmail.cf domain
267 exclusions. You can do other policy things better with the
268 <CODE>mda</CODE> option and script wrappers around fetchmail. If
269 it's a prime-time-vs.-non-prime-time issue, ask yourself whether a
270 wrapper script called from crontab would do the job.<p>
272 I'm not going to do these; fetchmail's job is transport, not policy, and I
273 refuse to change it from doing one thing well to attempting many things badly.
274 One of my objectives is to keep fetchmail simple so it stays reliable.<p>
276 Furthermore, since about version 4.3.0 fetchmail has passed out of active
277 development and been essentially stable. It is no longer my top
278 project, and I am going to be quite reluctant to add features that
279 might either jeopardize its stability or involve me in large
280 amounts of coding.<p>
282 All that said, if you have a feature idea that really is about a transport
283 problem that can't be handled anywhere but fetchmail, lay it on me. I'm
284 very accommodating about good ideas.<p>
287 <h2><a name="G5">G5. Is there a mailing list for exchanging tips?</a></h2>
289 There is a fetchmail-friends list for people who want to discuss fixes
290 and improvements in fetchmail and help co-develop it. It's at <a
291 href="mailto:fetchmail-friends@thyrsus.com">fetchmail-friends@thyrsus.com</a>.
292 There is also an announcements-only list, <em>fetchmail-announce@thyrsus.com</em>.<P>
294 Both lists are SmartList reflectors; sign up in the usual way with a
295 message containing the word "subscribe" in the subject line sent to
296 <a href="mailto:fetchmail-friends-request@thyrsus.com?subject=subscribe">
297 fetchmail-friends-request@thyrsus.com</a> or
298 <a href="mailto:fetchmail-announce-request@thyrsus.com?subject=subscribe">
299 fetchmail-announce-request@thyrsus.com</a>. (Similarly, "unsubscribe"
300 in the Subject line unsubscribes you, and "help" returns general list help) <p>
303 <h2><a name="G6">G6. So, what's this I hear about a fetchmail paper?</a></h2>
305 The fetchmail development was also a sociological experiment, an
306 extended test to see if my theory about the critical features of the
307 Linux development model is correct.<p>
309 The experiment was a success. I wrote a paper about it titled <a
310 href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html">The
311 Cathedral and the Bazaar</a> which was first presented at Linux
312 Kongress '97 in Bavaria and very well received there. It was also
313 given at Atlanta Linux Expo, Linux Pro '97 in Warsaw, and the first
314 Perl Conference, at UniForum '98, and was the basis of an invited
315 presentation at Usenix '98. The folks at Netscape tell me it helped
317 href="http://www.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease558.html"> give
318 away the source for Netscape Communicator</a>.<p>
320 If you're reading a non-HTML dump of this FAQ, you can find the paper
321 on the Web with a search for that title.<p>
324 <h2><a name="G7">G7. What is the best server to use with fetchmail?</a></h2>
326 The short answer: IMAP4rev1 running over Unix.<P>
328 Here's a longer answer: <P>
330 Fetchmail will work with any POP, IMAP, or ESMTP/ETRN server that
331 conforms to the relevant RFCs (and even some outright broken ones like
332 <a href="#S2">Microsoft Exchange</a>). This doesn't mean it works
333 equally well with all, however. POP2 servers, and POP3 servers
334 without LAST, limit fetchmail's capabilities in various ways described
335 on the manual page.<P>
337 Most modern Unixes (and effectively all Linux/*BSD systems) come with
338 POP3 support preconfigured (but beware of the horribly broken POP3
339 server mentioned in <a href="#D2">D2</a>). An increasing minority
340 also feature IMAP (you can detect IMAP support by running fetchmail in
341 AUTO mode, or by using the `Probe for a server' function in the
342 fetchmailconf utility).<P>
344 If you have the option, we recommend using or installing an IMAP4rev1
345 server; it has the best facilities for tracking message `seen' states.
346 It also recovers from interrupted connections more gracefully than
347 POP3, and enables some significant performance optimizations.<P>
349 Don't be fooled by NT/Exchange propaganda. M$ Exchange is just plain
350 broken (see item <a href="#S2">S2</a>) and NT cannot handle the
351 sustained load of a high-volume remote mail server. Even Microsoft
352 itself knows better than to try this; their own Hotmail service runs
353 over Solaris! For extended discussion, see John Kirch's excellent <a
354 href="http://unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/">white paper</a> on Unix
355 vs. NT performance.<P>
357 You can find sources for IMAP software at <a
358 href="http://www.imap.org">The IMAP Connection</a>; we like the
359 open-source <a href="ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap/">UW IMAP</a>
360 server, which is the reference implementation of IMAP. UW IMAP's
361 support for GSSAPI gives you a good way to authenticate without
362 sending a password en clair.<P>
364 Source for a high-quality supported implementation of POP is available
365 from the <a href="ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/eudora/servers/unix/popper/">Eudora
366 FTP site</a>. Don't use 2.5, which has a rather restrictive license.
367 The 2.5.2 version appears to restore the open-source license of
372 <h2><a name="G8">G8. How can I avoid sending my password en clair?</a></h2>
374 Depending on what your mail server you are talking to, this ranges
375 from trivial to impossible. It may even be next to useless.<P>
377 Most people use fetchmail over phone wires, which are hard to tap.
378 Anybody with the skill and resources to do this could get into your
379 server mailbox with much less effort by subverting the server host.
380 So if your provider setup is modem wires going straight into a service
381 box, you probably don't need to worry.<P>
383 In general there is little point in trying to secure your fetchmail
384 transaction unless you trust the security of the server host you are
385 retrieving mail from. Your vulnerability is more likely to be an
386 insecure local network on the server end (e.g. to somebody with a TCP/IP
387 packet sniffer intercepting Ethernet traffic between the modem
388 concentrator you dial in to and the mailserver host).<P>
390 Having realized this, you need to ask whether password encryption
391 alone will really address your security exposure. If you think you
392 might be snooped, it's better to use end-to-end encryption on your
393 whole mail stream so none of it can be read. One of the advantages of
394 fetchmail over conventional SMTP-push delivery is that you may be able
395 to arrange this by using ssh(1); see <a href="#K3">K3</a>.<P>
397 If ssh/sshd isn't available, or you find it too complicated for you to
398 set up, password encryption will at least keep a malicious cracker
399 from deleting your mail, and require him to either tap your connection
400 continuously or crack root on the server in order to read it.<P>
402 You can deduce what encryptions your mail server has available
403 by looking at the server greeting line (and, for IMAP, the
404 response to a CAPABILITY query). Do a <code>fetchmail -v</code>
405 to see these, or telnet direct to the server port (110 for POP3, 143 for
408 The facility you are most likely to have available is APOP. This is a
409 POP3 feature supported by many servers (fetchmailconf's autoprobe
410 facility will detect it and tell you if you have it). If you see
411 something in the greeting line that looks like an
412 angle-bracket-enclosed Internet address with a numeric left-hand part,
413 that's an APOP challenge (it will vary each time you log in). You can
414 register a secret on the host (using <code>popauth(8)</code> or some
415 program like it). Specify the secret as your password in your
416 .fetchmailrc; it will be used to encrypt the current challenge, and
417 the encrypted form will be sent back the the server for
420 Alternatively, you may have Kerberos available. This may require you
421 to set up some magic files in your home directory on your client
422 machine, but means you can omit specifying any password at all.<P>
424 Fetchmail supports two different Kerberos schemes. One is a
425 POP3 variant called KPOP; consult the documentation of your mail
426 server to see if you have it (one clue is the string "krb-IV" in the
427 greeting line on port 110). The other is an IMAP facility described
428 by RFC1731. You can tell if this one is present by looking for
429 AUTH=KERBEROS_V4 in the CAPABILITY response.<P>
431 If you are fetching mail from a CompuServe POP3 account, you can use
432 their RPA authentication (which works much like APOP). See <a
433 href="#S3">S3</a> for details.<P>
435 Your POP3 server may have the RFC1938 OTP capability to use one-time
436 passwords (if it doesn't, you can get OTP patches for the 2.2 version
437 of the Qualcomm popper from <a href="#cmetz">Craig Metz</a>). To check
438 this, look for the string "otp-" in the greeting line. If you see it,
439 and your fetchmail was built with OPIE support compiled in (see the
440 distribution INSTALL file), fetchmail will detect it also. When using
441 OTP, you will specify a password but it will not be sent en clair.<P>
443 Sadly, there is at present (July 1998) no OTP or APOP-like
444 facility generally available on IMAP servers. However, there do exist
445 patches which will OTP-enable the University of Washington IMAP
446 daemon, version 4.2-FINAL. And we have a report that the GSSAPI
447 support in fetchmail works with the GSSAPI support in the most recent
448 version of UW IMAP.<P>
450 You can get both POP3 and IMAP OTP patches from <a name="cmetz">Craig
451 Metz</A>, over FTP via either
452 <a href="ftp://ftp.inner.net/pub/opie/patches">
453 ftp://ftp.inner.net/pub/opie/patches</a> (IPv4) or
454 <a href="ftp://ftp.ipv6.inner.net/pub/opie/patches">
455 ftp://ftp.ipv6.inner.net/pub/opie/patches</a> (IPv6).<P>
457 These patches use a SASL authentication method named "X-OTP" because there is
458 not currently a standard way to do this; fetchmail also uses this method, so
459 the two will interoperate happily. They better, because this is how Craig gets
462 (One important win of OTP is that it's not subject to EAR restrictions.)<P>
465 <h2><a name="G9">G9. Is any special configuration needed to use a dynamic IP address?</a></h2>
467 Yes. In order to avoid giving indigestion to certain picky MTAs
468 (notably <a href="#T3">exim</a>), fetchmail always makes the RCPT TO
469 address it feeds the MTA a fully qualified one with a hostname part.
470 Normally it does this by appending @ and "localhost", but when you are
471 using Kerberos or ETRN mode it will append @ and your machine's
472 fully-qualified domain name (FQDN).<P>
474 Appending the FQDN can create problems when fetchmail is running in daemon
475 mode and outlasts the dynamic IP address assignment your client
476 machine had when it started up.<P>
478 Since the new IP address (looked up at RCPT TO interpretation time)
479 doesn't match the original, the most benign possible result is that
480 your MTA thinks it's seeing a relaying attempt and refuses. More
481 frequently, fetchmail will try to connect to a nonexistent host
482 address and time out. Worst case, you could up forwarding your mail
483 to the wrong machine!<P>
485 Use the <code>smtpaddress</code> option to force the appended hostname
486 to one with a (fixed) IP address of 127.0.0.1 in your
487 <code>/etc/hosts</code>. (The name `localhost' will usually work; or
488 you can use the IP address itself).<P>
490 Only one fetchmail option interacts directly with your IP address,
491 `<code>interface</code>'. This option can be used to set the gateway
492 device and restrict the IP address range fetchmail will use. Such a
493 restriction is sometimes useful for security reasons, especially on
494 multihomed sites. See <a href="#C3">C3</a>.<P>
496 I recommend against trying to set up the <code>interface</code> option
497 when initially developing your poll configuration -- it's never
498 necessary to do this just to get a link working. Get the link working
499 first, observe the actual address range you see on connections, and
500 add an <code>interface</code> option (if you need one) later.<P>
502 If you're using a dynamic-IP configuration, one other (non-fetchmail)
503 problem you may run into with outgoing mail is that some sites will
504 bounce your email because the hostname your giving them isn't real
505 (and doesn't match what they get doing a reverse DNS on your
506 dynamically-assigned IP address). If this happens, you need to hack
507 your sendmail so it masquerades as your host. Setting<P>
513 in your <code>sendmail.cf</code> will work, or you can set<P>
516 MASQUERADE_AS(smarthost.here)
519 in the m4 configuration and do a reconfigure. (In both cases, replace
520 <code>smarthost.here</code> with the actual name of your mailhost.)
521 See the <a href="http://www.lege.com/sendmail-FAQ.txt">sendmail
522 FAQ</a> for more details.<P>
525 <h2><a name="G10">G10. Is any special configuration needed to use firewalls?</a></h2>
527 No. You can use fetchmail with SOCKS, the standard tool for
528 indirecting TCP/IP through a firewall. You can find out about SOCKS,
529 and download the SOCKS software including server and client code, at
530 the <a href="http://www.socks.nec.com/">SOCKS distribution
533 The specific recipe for using fetchmail with a firewall is at <a
537 <h2><a name="B1">B1. Lex bombs out while building the fetchmail lexer.</a></h2>
539 In the immortal words of Alan Cox the last time this came up: ``Take
540 the Solaris lex and stick it up the backside of a passing Sun
541 salesman, then install <a
542 href="ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/ftp/pub/gnu">flex</a> and use that. All
543 will be happier.''<P>
545 I couldn't have put it better myself, and ain't going to try now.<P>
548 <h2><a name="G11">G11. Is any special configuration needed to <em>send</em> mail?</a></h2>
550 A user asks: but how do we send mail out to the POP3 server? Do I need
551 to implement another tool or will fetchmail do this too?<p>
553 Fetchmail only handles the receiving side. The sendmail or other
554 preinstalled MTA on your client machine will handle sending mail
555 automatically; it will ship mail that is submitted while the
556 connection is active, and put mail that is submitted while
557 the connection is inactive into the outgoing queue.<P>
559 Normally, sendmail is also run periodically (every 15 minutes on most
560 Linux systems) in a mode that tries to ship all the mail in the
561 outgoing queue. If you have set up something like pppd to
562 automatically dial out when your kernel is called to open a TCP/IP
563 connection, this will ensure that the mail gets out.<P>
566 <h2><a name="G12">G12. Is fetchmail Y2K-compliant?</a></h2>
568 Fetchmail is fully Y2K-compliant.<P>
570 Fetchmail could theoretically have problems when the 32-bit time_t's roll
571 over in 2038, but I doubt it. Timestamps aren't used for anything but
572 log entry generation.<P>
575 <h2><a name="B2">B2. I get link failures when I try to build fetchmail.</a></h2>
577 If you get errors resembling these<P>
580 mxget.o(.text+0x35): undefined referenceto `__res_search'
581 mxget.o(.text+0x99): undefined reference to`__dn_skipname'
582 mxget.o(.text+0x11c): undefined reference to`__dn_expand'
583 mxget.o(.text+0x187): undefined reference to`__dn_expand'
584 make: *** [fetchmail] Error 1
587 then you must add "-lresolv" to the LOADLIBS line in your Makefile
588 once you have installed the `bind' package.<P>
591 <h2><a name="F1">F1. Why does my old .fetchmailrc file no longer work?</a></h2>
593 <h3>If your file predates 4.5.5</h3>
595 If the <code>dns</code> option is on (the default), you may need to
596 make sure that any hostname you specify (for mail hosts or for an SMTP
597 target) is a canonical fully-qualified hostname). In order to avoid
598 DNS overhead and complications, fetchmail no longer tries to derive
599 the fetchmail client machine's canonical DNS name at startup.<P>
601 <h3>If your file predates 4.0.6:</h3>
603 Just after the `<CODE>via</CODE>' option was introduced, I realized
604 that the interactions between the `<CODE>via</CODE>',
605 `<CODE>aka</CODE>', and `<CODE>localdomains</CODE>' options were out
606 of control. Their behavior had become complex and confusing, so much so
607 that I was no longer sure I understood it myself. Users were being
608 unpleasantly surprised.<P>
610 Rather than add more options or crock the code, I re-thought it. The
611 redesign simplified the code and made the options more orthogonal, but
612 may have broken some complex multidrop configurations.
614 Any multidrop configurations that depended on the name just after the
615 `<CODE>poll</CODE>' or `<CODE>skip</CODE>' keyword being still
616 interpreted as a DNS name for address-matching purposes, even in the
617 presence of a `<CODE>via</CODE>' option, will break.<P>
619 It is theoretically possible that other unusual configurations (such
620 as those using a non-FQDN poll name to generate Kerberos IV tickets) might
621 also break; the old behavior was sufficiently murky that we can't be
622 sure. If you think this has happened to you, contact the maintainer.<P>
624 <h3>If your file predates 3.9.5:</h3>
626 The `<code>remote</code>' keyword has been changed to `<code>folder</code>'.
627 If you try to use the old keyword, the parser will utter a warning.<P>
629 <h3>If your file predates 3.9:</h3>
631 It could be because you're using a .fetchmailrc that's written in the
632 old popclient syntax without an explicit `<CODE>username</CODE>'
633 keyword leading the first user entry attached to a server entry.
635 This error can be triggered by having a user option such as `<CODE>keep</CODE>'
636 or `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>' before the first explicit username. For
637 example, if you write<p>
640 poll openmail protocol pop3
641 keep user "Hal DeVore" there is hdevore here
644 the `<CODE>keep</CODE>' option will generate an entire user entry with
645 the default username (the name of fetchmail's invoking user).<p>
647 The popclient compatibility syntax was removed in 4.0. It complicated
648 the configuration file grammar and confused users.<p>
650 <h3>If your file predates 2.8:</h3>
652 The `<CODE>interface</CODE>', `<CODE>monitor</CODE>' and
653 `<CODE>batchlimit</CODE>' options changed after 2.8.<p>
655 They used to be global options with `<CODE>set</CODE>' syntax like the
656 batchlimit and logfile options. Now they're per-server options, like
657 `<CODE>protocol</CODE>'.<p>
659 If you had something like<p>
662 set interface = "sl0/10.0.2.15"
665 in your .fetchmailrc file, simply delete that line and insert
666 `interface sl0/10.0.2.15' in the server options part of your `defaults'
669 Do similarly for any `<CODE>monitor</CODE>' or `<CODE>batchlimit</CODE>' options.<p>
672 <h2><a name="F2">F2. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept my all-numeric user name.</a></h2>
674 Either upgrade to a post-5.0.5 fetchmail or put string quotes around it. :-)<p>
676 The configuration file parser in older fetchmail versions treated any
677 all-numeric token as a number, which confused it when it was
678 expecting a name. String quoting forces the token's class.<p>
680 The lexical analyzer in 5.0.6 and beyond is smarter and assumes
681 any token following "username" or "password" is a string.
684 <h2><a name="F3">F3. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept my host or username beginning with `no'.</a></h2>
686 See <a href="#F2">F2</a> You're caught in an unfortunate crack between
687 the newer-style syntax for negated options (`no keep', `no rewrite'
688 etc.) and the older style run-on syntax (`nokeep', `norewrite'
691 Upgrade to a 5.0.6 or later fetchmail, or put string quotes around your
695 <h2><a name="F4">F4. I'm migrating from popclient. How do I need to modify my .poprc?</a></h2>
697 If you have been using popclient (the ancestor of this program)
698 at version 3.0b6 or later, start with this<p>
701 (cd; mv .poprc .fetchmailrc)
704 and do <code>fetchmail -V</code> to see if fetchmail's parser understands
705 your configuration.<p>
707 Be aware that some of popclient's unnecessary options have been
708 removed (see the NOTES file in the distribution for explanation). You
709 can't deliver to a local mail file or to standard output any more, and
710 using an MDA for delivery is discouraged. If you throw those options
711 away, fetchmail will now forward your mail into your system's normal
712 Internet-mail delivery path.<p>
714 Actually, using an MDA is now almost always the wrong thing; the MDA
715 facility has been retained only for people who can't or won't run a
716 sendmail-like SMTP listener on port 25. The default, SMTP forwarding
717 to port 25, is better for at least three major reasons. One: it feeds
718 retrieved POP and IMAP mail into your system's normal delivery path
719 along with local mail and normal Internet mail, so all your normal
720 filtering/aliasing/forwarding setup for local mail works. Two:
721 because the port 25 listener returns a positive acknowledge, fetchmail
722 can be sure you're not going to lose mail to a disk-full or some other
723 resource-exhaustion problem. Three: it means fetchmail doesn't have
724 to know where the system mailboxes are, or futz with file locking
725 (which makes two fewer places for it to potentially mess up).<p>
727 If you used to use <CODE>-mda "procmail -d</CODE>
728 <em><you></em><CODE>"</CODE> or something similar, forward to port
729 25 and do "<CODE>| procmail -d</CODE> <em><you></em><CODE>"</CODE> in
730 your ~/.forward file.<p>
732 As long as your new .fetchmailrc file does not use the removed
733 `localfolder' option or `<CODE>limit</CODE>' (which now takes a
734 maximum byte size rather than a line count), a straight move or copy
735 of your .poprc will often work. (The new run control file syntax also
736 has to be a little stricter about the order of options than the old,
737 in order to support multiple user descriptions per server; thus you
738 may have to rearrange things a bit.)<p>
740 Run control files in the minimal .poprc format (without the `username'
741 token) will trigger a warning. To eliminate this warning, add the
742 `<CODE>username</CODE>' keyword before your first user entry per server (it is
743 already required before second and subsequent user entries per server.<p>
745 In some future version the `<CODE>username</CODE>' keyword will be required.<p>
748 <h2><a name="F5">F5. I'm getting a `parse error' message I don't understand.</a></h2>
750 The most common cause of mysterious parse errors is putting a server
751 option after a user option. Check the manual page; you'll probably
752 find that by moving one or more options closer to the `poll' keyword
753 you can eliminate the problem.<p>
755 Yes, I know these ordering restrictions are hard to understand.
756 Unfortunately, they're necessary in order to allow the `defaults'
760 <h2><a name="C1">C1. Why do I need a .fetchmailrc when running as root on my own machine?</a></h2>
762 Ian T. Zimmerman <itz@rahul.net> asked:<p>
764 On the machine where I'm the only real user, I run fetchmail as root
765 from a cron job, like this:<p>
768 fetchmail -u "itz" -p POP3 -s bolero.rahul.net
771 This used to work as is (with no .fetchmailrc file in root's home
772 directory) with the last version I had (1.7 or 1.8, I don't
773 remember). But with 2.0, it RECPs all mail to the local root user,
774 unless I create a .fetchmailrc in root's home directory containing:<p>
777 skip bolero.rahul.net proto POP3
781 It won't work if the second line is just "<CODE>user itz</CODE>". This is silly.<p>
783 It seems fetchmail decides to RECP the `default local user' (i.e. the
784 uid running fetchmail) unless there are local aliases, and the
785 `default' aliases (itz->itz) don't count. They should.<p>
789 No they shouldn't. I thought about this for a while, and I don't much
790 like the conclusion I reached, but it's unavoidable. The problem is
791 that fetchmail has no way to know, in general, that a local user `itz'
794 "Ah!" you say, "Why doesn't it check the password file to see if the remote
795 name matches a local one?" Well, there are two reasons.<p>
797 One: it's not always possible. Suppose you have an SMTP host declared
798 that's not the machine fetchmail is running on? You lose.<p>
800 Two: How do you know server itz and SMTP-host itz are the same person?
801 They might not be, and fetchmail shouldn't assume they are unless
802 local-itz can explicitly produce credentials to prove it (that is, the
803 server-itz password in local-itz's .fetchmailrc file.).<p>
805 Once you start running down possible failure modes and thinking about
806 ways to tinker with the mapping rules, you'll quickly find that all the
807 alternatives to the present default are worse or unacceptably
808 more complicated or both.<p>
811 <h2><a name="C2">C2. How can I arrange for a fetchmail daemon to get killed when I log out?</a></h2>
813 The easiest way to dispatch fetchmail on logout (which will work
814 reliably only if you have just one login going at any time) is to
815 arrange for the command `fetchmail -q' to be called on logout. Under
816 bash, you can arrange this by putting `fetchmail -q' in the file
817 `~/.bash_logout'. Most csh variants execute `~/.logout' on logout.
818 For other shells, consult your shell manual page.<p>
820 Automatic startup/shutdown of fetchmail is a little harder to arrange
821 if you may have multiple login sessions going. In the contrib
822 subdirectory of the fetchmail distribution there is some shell code
823 you can add to your .bash_login and .bash_logout profiles that will
824 accomplish this. Thank James Laferriere <babydr@nwrain.net> for
827 Some people start up and shut down fetchmail using the ppp-up and
828 ppp-down scripts of pppd.<p>
831 <h2><a name="C3">C3. How do I know what interface and address to use with --interface?</a></h2>
833 This depends a lot on your local networking configuration (and right
834 now you can't use it at all except under Linux). However, here are
835 some important rules of thumb that can help. If they don't work, ask
836 your local sysop or your Internet provider.<p>
838 First, you may not need to use --interface at all. If your machine
839 only ever does SLIP or PPP to one provider, it's almost certainly by a
840 point to point modem connection to your provider's local subnet that's
841 pretty secure against snooping (unless someone can tap your phone or
842 the provider's local subnet!). Under these circumstances, specifying
843 an interface address is fairly pointless.<p>
845 What the option is really for is sites that use more than one
846 provider. Under these circumstances, typically one of your provider
847 IP addresses is your mailserver (reachable fairly securely via the
848 modem and provider's subnet) but the others might ship your packets
849 (including your password) over unknown portions of the general
850 Internet that could be vulnerable to snooping. What you'll use
851 --interface for is to make sure your password only goes over the
854 To determine the device:<p>
857 <li> If you're using a SLIP link, the correct device is probably sl0.
858 <li> If you're using a PPP link, the correct device is probably ppp0.
859 <li> If you're using a direct connection over a local network such as
860 an ethernet, use the command `netstat -r' to look at your routing table.
861 Try to match your mailserver name to a destination entry; if you don't
862 see it in the first column, use the `default' entry. The device name
863 will be in the rightmost column.
866 To determine the address and netmask:<p>
869 <li> If you're talking to slirp, the correct address is probably 10.0.2.15,
870 with no netmask specified. (It's possible to configure slirp to present
871 other addresses, but that's the default.)
873 <li> If you have a static IP address, run `ifconfig <device>', where <device>
874 is whichever one you've determined. Use the IP address given after
875 "inet addr:". That is the IP address for your end of the link, and is
876 what you need. You won't need to specify a netmask.
878 <li> If you have a dynamic IP address, your connection IP will vary randomly
879 over some given range (that is, some number of the least significant bits
880 change from connection to connection). You need to declare an address
881 with the variable bits zero and a complementary netmask that sets
885 To illustrate the rule for dynamic IP addresses, let's suppose you're
886 hooked up via SLIP and your IP provider tells you that the dynamic
887 address pool is 255 addresses ranging from 205.164.136.1 to
888 205.164.136.255. Then<p>
891 interface "sl0/205.164.136.0/255.255.255.0"
894 would work. To range over any value of the last two octets
895 (65536 addresses) you would use<p>
898 interface "sl0/205.164.0.0/255.255.0.0"
902 <h2><a name="C4">C4. How can I set up support for sendmail's anti-spam features?</a></h2>
904 This answer covers versions of sendmail from 8.8.7 (the version
905 installed in Red Hat 5.1) upwards. If you have an older version,
906 upgrade to sendmail 8.9.<P>
908 Stock sendmails can now do anti-spam exclusions based on a database of
909 filter rules. The human-readable form of the database is at
910 <tt>/etc/mail/deny</tt>. The database itself is at
911 <tt>/etc/mail/deny.db</tt>.<P>
913 The table itself uses email addresses, domain names, and network
914 numbers as keys. For example,</P>
916 spammer@aol.com REJECT
917 cyberspammer.com REJECT
920 <P>would refuse mail from spammer@aol.com, any user from
921 cyberspammer.com (or any host within the cyberspammer.com domain), and
922 any host on the 192.168.212.* network. (This feature can be used to
923 do other things as well; see the <a
924 href="http://www.sendmail.org/m4/anti-spam.html">sendmail
925 documentation</a> for details)</P>
927 To actually set up the database, run
930 makemap hash deny <deny
934 To test, send a message to your mailing address from that host and
935 then pop off the message with fetchmail, using the -v argument. You
936 can monitor the SMTP transaction, and when the FROM address is parsed,
937 if sendmail sees that it is an address in spamlist, fetchmail will
938 flush and delete it.<p>
940 Under no circumstances put your <strong>mailhost</strong> or <strong>any host
941 you accept mail from</strong> using fetchmail into your reject file. You
942 <strong>will</strong> lose mail if you do this!!!<p>
945 <h2><a name="T1">T1. How can I use fetchmail with sendmail?</a></h2>
947 For most sendmails, no special configuration is required. Eric Allman
948 tells me that if <code>FEATURE(always_add_domain)</code> is included
949 in sendmail's configuration, you can leave the <code>rewrite</code>
952 If your sendmail complains ``sendmail does not relay'', make sure
953 your sendmail,cf file says
959 so that sendmail recognizes `localhost' as a name of its host.<p>
961 If you're mailing from another machine on your local network, also
962 ensure that its IP address is listed in ip_allow or name in name_allow
963 (usually in /etc/mail/)<p>
965 If you find that your sendmail doesn't like the address
966 `FETCHMAIL-DAEMON@localhost' (which is used in the bouncemail
967 that fetchmail generates), you may have to set
968 <code>FEATURE(accept_unqualified_senders)</code>.<P>
970 Günther Leber reports that Digital Unix sendmails won't work with
971 fetchmail. The symptom is an error message "<code>553 Local configuration
972 error, hostname not recognized as local</code>". The problem is that
973 fetchmail normally feeds sendmail with the client machine's host
974 address in the MAIL FROM line. These sendmails think this means
975 they're seeing the result of a mail loop and suppress the mail. You
976 may be able to work around this by running in <code>--invisible</code> mode.<P>
978 If you want to support multidrop mode, and you can get access to your
979 mailserver's sendmail.cf file, it's a good idea to add this rule:<P>
985 and declare `<CODE>envelope "Delivered-To:"</CODE>'. This will cause the
986 mailserver's sendmail to reliably write the appropriate envelope
987 address into each message before fetchmail sees it, and tell fetchmail
988 which header it is. With this change, multidrop mode should work
989 reliably even when the Received header omits the envelope address
990 (which will typically be the case when the message has multiple
994 <h2><a name="T2">T2. How can I use fetchmail with qmail?</a></h2>
996 Turn on the <CODE>forcecr</CODE> option; qmail's listener mode doesn't like
997 header or message lines terminated with bare linefeeds.<p>
999 (This information is thanks to Robert de Bath
1000 <robert@mayday.cix.co.uk>.)<p>
1002 If a mailhost is using the qmail package (see <a
1003 href="http://pobox.com/~djb/qmail.html">http://pobox.com/~djb/qmail.html</a>)
1004 then, providing the local hosts are also using qmail, it is possible
1005 to set up one fetchmail link to be reliably collect the mail for an
1008 One of the basic features of qmail is the `Delivered-To:' message
1009 header. Whenever qmail delivers a message to a local mailbox it puts
1010 the username and hostname of the envelope recipient on this line. The
1011 major reason for this is to prevent mail loops. <p>
1013 To set up qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site the ISP-mailhost
1014 will have normally put that site in its `virtualhosts' control file so
1015 it will add a prefix to all mail addresses for this site. This results
1016 in mail sent to 'username@userhost.userdom.dom.com' having a
1017 'Delivered-To:' line of the form:<p>
1020 Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.userdom.dom.com
1023 A single host maildrop will be slightly simpler:
1026 Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.dom.com
1029 The ISP can make the 'mbox-userstr-' prefix anything they choose
1030 but a string matching the user host name is likely.<p>
1032 To use this line you must:<p>
1035 <li>Ensure the option `envelope Delivered-To:' is in the fetchmail
1038 <li>Ensure you have a localdomains containing 'userdom.dom.com' or
1039 `userhost.dom.com' respectively.
1042 So far this reliably delivers messages to the correct machine of the
1043 local network, to deliver to the correct user the 'mbox-userstr-'
1044 prefix must be stripped off of the user name. This can be done by
1045 setting up an alias within the qmail MTA on each local machine.
1046 Simply create a dot-qmail file called '.qmail-mbox-userstr-default'
1047 in the alias directory (normally /var/qmail/alias) with the contents:<p>
1050 | ../bin/qmail-inject -a -f"$SENDER" "${LOCAL#mbox-userstr-}@$HOST"
1053 Note this <em>does</em> require a modern /bin/sh.<p>
1055 Peter Wilson adds: <P>
1057 ``My ISP uses "alias-unzzippedcom-" as the prefix, which means that I
1058 need to name my file ".qmail-unzzippedcom-default". This is due to
1059 qmail's assumption that a message sent to user-xyz is handled by the
1060 file ~user/.qmail-xyz (or ~user/.qmail-default).''<p>
1062 Luca Olivetti adds:<P>
1064 If you aren't using qmail locally, or you don't want to set up the
1065 alias mechanism described above, you can use the option `<code>qvirtual
1066 "mbox-userstr-"</code>' in your fetchmail config file to strip the prefix
1067 from the local user name.<p>
1070 <h2><a name="T3">T3. How can I use fetchmail with exim?</a></h2><p>
1072 If you have <CODE>rewrite</CODE> on: <P>
1074 There is an RFC1123 requirement that MAIL FROM and RCPT TO addresses
1075 you pass to it have to be canonical (e.g. with a fully qualified
1076 hostname part). Therefore fetchmail tries to pass fully qualified
1077 RCPT TO addresses. But exim does not by default accept `localhost' as
1078 a fully qualified domain. This can be fixed.<P>
1080 In exim.conf, add `localhost' to your local_domains declaration if it's not
1081 already present. For example, the author's site at thyrsus.com would
1082 have a line reading:<P>
1085 local_domains = thyrsus.com:localhost
1088 If you have <CODE>rewrite</CODE> off:<P>
1090 MAIL FROM is a potential problem if the MTAs upstream from your fetchmail
1091 don't necessarily pass canonicalized From and Return-Path addresses,
1092 and fetchmail's <CODE>rewrite</CODE> option is off. The specific case
1093 where this has come up involves bounce messages generated by sendmail
1094 on your mailer host, which have the (un-canonicalized) origin address
1097 The right way to fix this is to enable the <CODE>rewrite</CODE> option and
1098 have fetchmail canonicalize From and Return-Path addresses with the
1099 mailserver hostname before exim sees them. This option is enabled by
1100 default, so it won't be off unless you turned it off.<p>
1102 If you must run with <CODE>rewrite</CODE> off, there is a switch in exim's
1103 configuration files that allows it to accept domainless MAIL FROM
1104 addresses; you will have to flip it by putting the line <p>
1107 sender_unqualified_hosts = localhost
1110 in the main section of the exim configuration file. Note that this
1111 will result in such messages having an incorrect domain name attached
1112 to their return address (your SMTP listener's hostname rather than
1113 that of the remote mail server). <p>
1116 <h2><a name="T4">T4. How can I use fetchmail with smail?</a></h2><p>
1118 Smail 3.2 is very nearly plug-compatible with sendmail, and may work
1119 fine out of the box.<P>
1121 We have one report that when processing multiple messages from a
1122 single fetchmail session, smail sometimes delivers them in an
1123 order other than received-date order. This can be annoying because it
1124 scrambles conversational threads. This is not fetchmail's problem,
1125 it is an smail `feature' and has been reported to the maintainers
1128 Very recent smail versions require an <code>-smtp_hello_verify</code>
1129 option in the smail config file. This overrides smail's check to see
1130 that the HELO address is actually that of the client machine, which
1131 is never going to be the case when fetchmail is in the picture.
1132 According to RFC1123 an SMTP listener <em>must</em> allow this
1133 mismatch, so smail's new behavior (introduced sometime between
1134 3.2.0.90 and 3.2.0.95) is a bug.<P>
1137 <h2><a name="T5">T5. How can I use fetchmail with SCO's MMDF?</a></h2><p>
1139 We're told this is possible, but difficult and tricky (and we don't
1140 have the recipe for it). Our informant suggests dropping MMDF and
1141 using sendmail instead.<P>
1144 <h2><a name="T6">T6. How can I use fetchmail with Lotus Notes?</a></h2><p>
1146 The Lotus Notes SMTP gateway tries to deduce when it should convert \n
1147 to \r\n, but its rules are not the intuitive and correct-for-RFC822
1148 ones. Use `forcecr'.<P>
1151 <h2><a name="S1">S1. How can I use fetchmail with qpopper?</a></h2>
1153 Qualcomm's qpopper is probably the best-of-breed among POP3 servers, and
1154 is very widely deployed. Nevertheless, it has some problems which
1155 fetchmail exposes. We recommend using <a href="#G7">IMAP</a> instead if at
1156 all possible. If you must talk to qpopper, here are some problems to
1159 <h3>Problems with retrieving large messages from qpopper 2.53</h3>
1161 Tony Tang <a href="mailto:tyw@atnhk.com"><tyw@atnhk.com></a>
1162 reports that there is a bad intercation between fetchmail and qpopper
1163 2.5.3 under Red Hat Linux versions 5.0 to 5.2, kernels 2.0.34 to
1164 2.0.35. When fetching very large messages (over 700K) from 2.5.3,
1165 fetchmail will hang with a socket error.<p>
1167 This is probably not a fetchmail bug, but rather a symptom of some
1168 problem in the networking stack that qpopper's transmission pattern is
1169 tickling, as fetchpop (another Linux POP client) also displays the hang
1170 but Netscape running under Win95 does not. The problem can also be
1172 href="http://www.eudora.com/freeware/qpop.html">upgrading to qpopper
1175 <h3>Bad interaction with fetchmail 4.4.2 to 4,4.7</h3>
1177 Versions of fetchmail from 4.4.2 through 4.4.7 had a bad interaction
1178 with Eudora qpopper versions 2.3 and later. See <a href="#X5">X5</a>
1179 for details. The solution is to upgrade your fetchmail.<p>
1182 <h2><a name="S2">S2. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft Exchange?</a></h2>
1184 Fetchmail now supports the proprietary NTLM mode used with M$ Exchange
1185 servers. To enable this, configure fetchmail with the --enable-NTLM
1186 option and recompile it.<P>
1188 M$ Exchange violates the POP3 RFCs. Its LIST command does not reveal
1189 the real sizes of mail in the pop mailbox, but the sizes of the
1190 compressed versions in the exchange mail database (thanks to Arjan De
1191 Vet and Guido Van Rooij for alerting us to this problem).<P>
1193 Fetchmail works with M$ Exchange, despite this brain damage. Two
1194 features are compromised. One is that the --limit option will not
1195 work right (it will check against compressed and not actual sizes).
1196 The other is that a too-small SIZE argument may be passed to your
1197 ESMTP listener, assuming you're using one (this should not be a
1198 problem unless the actual size of the message is above the listener's
1199 configured length limit).<P>
1201 Somewhat belatedly, I've learned that there's supposed to be a
1202 registry bit that can fix this breakage:<P>
1205 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MsExchangeIs\Parameters
1206 System\Pop3 Compatibility
1209 This is a bitmask that controls the variations from the standard protocol.
1210 The bits defined are:<P>
1214 <DD>Report exact message sizes for the LIST command
1216 <DD>Allow arbitrary linear whitespace between commands and arguments
1218 <DD>Enable the LAST command
1220 <DD>Allow an empty PASS command (needed for users with blank
1221 passwords, but illegal in the protocol)
1223 <DD>Relax the length restrictions for arguments to commands (protocol
1224 requires 40, but some user names may be longer than that).
1226 <DD>Allow spaces in the argument to the USER command.
1229 There's another one that may be useful to know about:<P>
1232 KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MsExchangeIs\Parameters
1233 System\Pop3 Performance
1238 <DD>Render messages to a temporary stream instead of sending directly
1239 from the database (should always be on)
1241 Flag unrenderable messages (instead of just failing commands)
1242 (should only be on if you are seeing the problems reported
1245 <DD>Return from the QUIT command before all messages have been deleted.
1248 The Microsoft pod-person who revealed this information to me admitted
1249 that he couldn't find it anywhere in their public knowledge base.<P>
1251 You can mess with these bits. Or, better yet, you can lose that
1252 brain-dead Microsoft crap and install a real operating system on your
1256 <h2><a name="S3">S3. How can I use fetchmail with CompuServe RPA?</a></h2>
1258 First, make sure your fetchmail has the RPA support compiled in.
1259 Stock fetchmail binaries (such as you might get from an RPM) don't.
1260 You can check this by looking at the output of <code>fetchmail -V</code>;
1261 if you see the string "+RPA" after the version ID you're good to go,
1262 otherwise you'll have to build your own from sources (see the INSTALL
1263 file in the source distribution for directions).<P>
1265 Give your CompuServe pass-phrase in lower case as your password. Add
1266 `@compuserve.com' to your user ID so that it looks like `user
1267 <UserID>@compuserve.com', where <UserID> can be either
1268 your numerical userID or your E-mail nickname. An RPA-enabled
1269 fetchmail will automatically check for csi.com in the POP server's
1270 greeting line. If that's found, and your user ID ends with
1271 `@compuserve.com', it will query the server to see if it
1272 is RPA-capable, and if so do an RPA transaction rather than a
1273 plain-text password handshake.<P>
1275 <strong>Warning:</strong> the debug (-v -v) output of fetchmail will show
1276 your pass-phrase in Unicode!<P>
1278 These two .fetchmailrc entries show the difference between an RPA and
1279 non-RPA configuration:
1282 # This version will use RPA
1283 poll csi.com via "pop.site1.csi.com" with proto POP3 and options no dns
1284 user "CSERVE_USER@compuserve.com" there with password "CSERVE_PASSWORD"
1285 is LOCAL_USER here options fetchall stripcr
1287 # This version will not use RPA
1288 poll non-rpa.csi.com via "pop.site1.csi.com" with proto POP3 and options no dns
1289 user "CSERVE_USER" there with password "CSERVE_POP3_PASSWORD"
1290 is LOCAL_USER here options fetchall stripcr
1294 <h2><a name="S4">S4. How can I use fetchmail with Demon Internet's SDPS?</a></h2>
1296 <h3>Single-drop mode</h3>
1298 You can get fetchmail to download the email for just one user from
1299 Demon Internet's POP3 server by giving it a username consisting of your
1300 Demon user name followed by your account name, with an at-sign between
1303 For example, to download email for the user <philh@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
1304 you could use the following .fetchmailrc file:<P>
1307 set postmaster "philh"
1308 poll pop3.demon.co.uk with protocol POP3:
1309 user "philh@vision25" is philh
1312 <h3>Multi-drop mode</h3>
1314 Demon Internet's SDPS service is an implementation of POP3. All messages
1315 have a Received: header added when they enter the maildrop, like this:
1318 Received: from punt-1.mail.demon.net by mailstore for fred@xyz.demon.co.uk
1319 id 899963657:10:27896:0; Thu, 09 Jul 98 05:54:17 GMT
1322 To enable multi-drop mode you need to tell fetchmail that 'mailstore' is
1323 the name of the host which accepted the mail, and let it know the
1324 hostname part(s) of your E-mail address. The following example assumes
1325 that your hostname is xyz.demon.co.uk, and that you have also bought
1326 "mail forwarding" for the domain my-company.co.uk (in which case your
1327 MTA must also be configured to accept mail sent to user@my-company.co.uk)
1330 poll pop3.demon.co.uk proto pop3 aka mailstore no dns:
1331 localdomains xyz.demon.co.uk my-company.co.uk
1332 user xyz is * fetchall
1335 The `fetchall' command ensures that all mail is downloaded. If you
1336 want to leave mail on the server use `uidl' and `keep'; Demon does not
1337 implement the obsolete `top' command, because SDPS combines messages
1338 residing on two separate punt clusters into a single POP3 maildrop.
1339 If you do use UIDL, be aware that the "user@host" form for fetching
1340 mail from a particular Demon host will confuse fetchmail's UIDL code;
1343 Note that Demon may delete mail on the server which is more than 30
1344 days old; see their <a
1345 href="http://www.demon.net/services/mail/pop3.html">POP3 page</a> for
1348 <h3>The SDPS extension</h3>
1350 There's a different way to do multidrop. It's not necessary on Demon
1351 Internet, since fetchmail can parse Received addresses, but the person
1352 who implemented this didn't know that. It may be useful if Demon
1353 Internet ever changes mail transports.<P>
1355 SDPS includes a non-standard extension for retrieving the envelope of a
1356 message (*ENV), which fetchmail optionally supports if compiled with the
1357 --enable-SDPS option. If you have it, the first line of the fetchmail -V
1358 response will include the string "+SDPS".<P>
1360 Once you have SDPS compiled in, fetchmail in POP3 mode will
1361 automatically detect when it's talking to a Demon Internet host in
1362 multidrop mode, and use the *ENV extension to get an envelope To address.<P>
1364 The autodetection works by looking at the hostname in the POP3
1365 greeting line; if you're accessing Demon Internet through a proxy it
1366 may fail. To force SDPS mode, pick "sdps" as your protocol.<P>
1369 <h2><a name="S5">S5. How can I use fetchmail with usa.net's servers?</a></h2>
1371 Enable `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>'. A user reports that the 2.2 version
1372 of USA.NET's POP server reports that you must use the
1373 `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>' option to make sure that all of the mail is
1374 retrieved, otherwise some may be left on the server. This is almost
1375 certainly a server bug.<P>
1377 The usa.net servers (at least in their 2.2 version, June 1998) don't
1378 handle the TOP command properly, either. Regardless of the argument
1379 you give it, they retrieve only about 10 lines of the message.
1380 Fetchmail normally uses TOP for message retrieval in order to avoid
1381 marking messages seen, but `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>' forces it to use
1384 (Note: Other failure modes have been reported on usa.net's servers.
1385 They seem to be chronically flaky. We recommend finding another
1389 <h2><a name="S6">S6. How can I use fetchmail with HP OpenMail?</a></h2>
1391 No special configuration is required, but OpenMail versions prior to
1392 6.0 have an annoying bug similar to the big one in <a
1393 href="#S2">Microsoft Exchange</a>. The message sizes it gives in the
1394 LIST are rounded to the nearest 1024 bytes. It also has a nasty habit
1395 of discarding headers it doesn't recognize, such as X- and Resent-
1398 As with M$ Exchange, the only real fix for these problems is to get a
1399 POP (or preferably IMAP) server that isn't brain-dead. OpenMail's
1400 project manager claims these bugs have been fixed in 6.0<P>
1403 <h2><a name="S8">S8. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail?</a></h2>
1405 You can't, yet. But Hugo Rabson has written a script called `hotmole'
1406 that can retrieve Hotmail mail via the web using Lynx. The script
1408 href="http://www.jin-sei-kai.demon.co.uk/hugo/linux.html">
1409 Hugo Rabson's Linux page</a>.<P>
1412 <h2><a name="S9">S9. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?</a></h2>
1414 You can't. MSN uses something that looks like POP3, except the
1415 authentication part is nonstandard. And of course they don't
1416 document it, so nobody but their Windows clients can speak it.<p>
1418 This is a customer lock-in tactic; we recommend boycotting MSN as the
1419 only appropriate response.<p>
1421 As of 5.0.8, we have support for the client side of NTLM
1422 authentication. It's possible this may enable fetchmail to talk to
1423 MSN; if so, somebody should report it so this FAQ can be corrected.<p>
1426 <h2><a name="S10">S10. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?</a></h2>
1428 The SpryNet POP3 servers mark a message queried with TOP as seen.
1429 This means that if your connection drops in mid-message, it may end
1430 up invisibly stuck on your mail spool. Use the <code>fetchall</code>
1431 flag to ensure that it's recovered on the next cycle.<p>
1434 <h2><a name="K1">K1. How can I use fetchmail with SOCKS?</a></h2>
1436 Daniel Sobral <<a href="mailto:dcs@gns.com.br">dcs@gns.com.br</a>
1437 gave us the following recipe:<P>
1440 <LI> Install socks5. You don't need to have a socks server, you just
1441 want the "runsocks" program.
1442 <LI> Set the environment variable SOCKS_SERVER to the server you'll be
1443 using. Alternatively, you may set SOCKS4_SERVER and/or
1444 SOCKS5_SERVER. E.g.:
1446 export SOCKS5_SERVER=socks.my.domain.com
1448 <LI> Set SOCKS5_USER and SOCKS5_PASSWD if needed.
1449 <LI> Run fetchmail through runsocks. Just like this:
1451 runsocks fetchmail [parameters to fetchmail]
1455 It wasn't that hard, was it? :-)<P>
1457 Giuseppe Guerini added a --with-socks option that supports linking
1458 with socks library. If you specify the value of this option as
1459 ``yes'', the configure script will try to find the Rconnect library
1460 and set the makefile up to link it. You can also specify a directory
1461 containing the Rconnect library.<p>
1464 <h2><a name="S7">S7. How can I use fetchmail with geocities POP3 servers?</a></h2>
1466 Nathan Cutler reports that the the mail.geocities.com POP3 servers
1467 fail to include the first Received line of the message in the send to
1468 fetchmail. This can solve problems if your MUA interprets Received
1469 continuations as body lines and doesn't parse any of the following
1472 Workaround is to use "mda" keyword or "-mda" switch:
1474 mda "sed -e '1s/^\t/Received: /' | formail | /usr/bin/procmail -d <user>"
1476 Replace \t with exactly one tabulation character.
1478 You should also consider using "fetchall" option because Geocities' servers
1479 sometimes think that the first 45 messages have already been read.<P>
1481 Fix: Get an email provider that doesn't suck. Geocities' pop-up adds
1482 are lame, you should boycott them anyway.<P>
1485 <h2><a name="K2">K2. How can I use fetchmail with IPv6 and IPsec?</a></h2>
1487 To use fetchmail with IPv6, you need a system that supports IPv6, the "Basic
1488 Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6" (RFC 2133), and the inet6-apps kit.
1489 This currently means that you need to have a BSD/OS or NetBSD system with
1490 the NRL IPv6+IPsec software distribution or a Linux system with the latest
1491 experimental kernel and net-tools. It should not be hard to build fetchmail on
1492 other IPv6 implementations if you can port the inet6-apps kit.<P>
1494 To use fetchmail with networking security (read: IPsec), you need a system that
1495 supports IPsec, the API described in the "Network Security API for Sockets"
1496 (draft-metz-net-security-api-01.txt), and the inet6-apps kit. This currently
1497 means that you need to have a BSD/OS or NetBSD system with the NRL IPv6+IPsec
1498 software distribution. A Linux IPsec implementation supporting this API will
1499 probably appear in the coming months.<P>
1501 The NRL IPv6+IPsec software distribution can be obtained from: <a
1502 href="http://web.mit.edu/network/isakmp">http://web.mit.edu/network/isakmp</a>
1505 The inet6-apps kit can be obtained from <a
1506 href="ftp://ftp.ipv6.inner.net/pub/ipv6">ftp://ftp.ipv6.inner.net/pub/ipv6</a>
1507 (via IPv6) or <a href="ftp://ftp.inner.net/pub/ipv6">
1508 ftp://ftp.inner.net/pub/ipv6</a> (via IPv4).<P>
1510 More information on using IPv6 with Linux can be obtained from:
1513 <a href="http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html">
1514 http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html</a>
1516 <a href="http://www.ipv6.inner.net/ipv6">http://www.ipv6.inner.net/ipv6</a>
1519 <a href="http://www.inner.net/ipv6">http://www.inner.net/ipv6</a> (via IPv4)
1523 <h2><a name="K3">K3. How can I get fetchmail to work with ssh?</a></h2>
1525 We have three recipes for this. The first is easy to set up,
1526 but only supports one user at a time.<P>
1528 First, a lightly edited version of a recipe from Masafumi NAKANE:<p>
1530 1. You must have ssh (the ssh client) on the local host and sshd (ssh
1531 server) on the remote mail server. And you have to configure ssh so
1532 you can login to the sshd server host without a password. (Refer to ssh
1533 man page for several authentication methods.)<p>
1535 2. Add something like following to your .fetchmailrc file: <p>
1538 poll mailhost port 1234 via localhost with proto pop3:
1539 preconnect "ssh -f -L 1234:mailhost:110 mailhost sleep 20 </dev/null >/dev/null";
1542 (Note that 1234 can be an arbitrary port number. Privileged ports can
1543 be specified only by root.) The effect of this ssh command is to
1544 forward connections made to localhost port 1234 (in above example) to
1547 This configuration will enable secure mail transfer. All the
1548 conversation between fetchmail and remote pop server will be
1551 If sshd is not running on the remote mail server, you can specify
1552 intermediate host running it. If you do this, however, communication
1553 between the machine running sshd and the POP server will not be encrypted.
1554 And the preconnect line would be like this:<p>
1557 preconnect "ssh -f -L 1234:mailhost:110 sshdhost sleep 20 </dev/null >/dev/null"
1560 You can work this trick with IMAP too, but the port number 110 in the
1561 above would need to become 143.<p>
1563 Second, a recipe from Charlie Brady <cbrady@ind.tansu.com.au>:<p>
1565 Charlie says: "The [previous] recipe certainly works, but
1566 the solution I post here is better in a few respects":
1569 <LI>this method will not fail if two or more users attempt to use fetchmail
1571 <LI>you are able to use the full facilities of tcpd to control access
1572 <LI>this method does not depend on the preconnect feature of fetchmail, so
1573 can be used for tunneling of other services as well.
1580 Make sure that the "socket" program is installed on the server
1581 machine. Presently it lives at <a
1582 href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/system/network/misc/socket-1.1.tar.gz">
1583 ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/system/network/misc/socket-1.1.tar.gz</a>,
1584 but watch out for a change in version number.<P>
1586 Set up an unprivileged account on your system with a .ssh directory
1587 containing an SSH identity file "identity" with no pass phrase,
1588 "identity.pub" and "known_hosts" containing the host key of your
1589 mailhost. Let's call this account "noddy".
1591 On mailhost, set up no-password access for noddy@yourhost. Add to your
1592 SSH authorized_keys file:
1595 command="socket localhost 110",no-port-forwarding 1024 ......
1598 where "<code>1024</code> ......" is the content of noddy's identity.pub file.
1600 Create a script /usr/local/bin/ssh.fm and make it executable:
1604 exec ssh -q -C -l your.login.id -e none mailhost socket localhost 110
1607 Add an entry in inetd.conf for whatever port you choose to use - say:
1610 1234 stream tcp nowait noddy /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/bin/ssh.fm
1613 Send a HUP signal to your inetd.
1616 Now just use localhost:1234 to access your POP server.<P>
1618 For yet a third recipe, see <a href="http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Secure-POP+SSH.html">Secure POP via SSH mini-HOWTO</a>.<P>
1621 <h2><a name="K4">K4. What do I have to do to use the IMAP-GSS protocol?</a></h2>
1623 Fetchmail can use RFC1731 GSSAPI authorization to safely identify you
1624 to your IMAP server, as long as you can share Kerberos V credentials
1625 with your mail host and you have a GSSAPI-capable IMAP server.
1626 UW-IMAP (available via FTP at <a
1627 href="ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/mail/">ftp.cac.washington.edu</a>)
1628 is the only one I'm aware of and the one I recommend anyway for other
1629 reasons. You'll need version 4.1-FINAL or greater though, and it has
1630 to have GSS support compiled in.<p>
1632 Neither UW-IMAP nor fetchmail compile in support for GSS by default, since
1633 it requires libraries from the Kerberos V distribution (available via FTP at
1634 <a href="ftp://athena-dist.mit.edu/pub/ATHENA/kerberos">athena-dist.mit.edu</a>
1635 but mind the export restrictions). If you have these, compiling in GSS support
1636 is simple: add a <pre>--with-gssapi=[/path/to/krb5/root]</pre> option to
1637 configure. For instance, I have all of my Kerberos V libraries installed under
1638 /usr/krb5 so I run <pre>configure --with-gssapi=/usr/krb5</pre><p>
1640 Setting up Kerberos V authentication is beyond the scope of this FAQ
1641 (you may find Jim Rome's paper <a
1642 href="http://www.ornl.gov/~jar/HowToKerb.html"> How to Kerberize your
1643 site</a> helpful), but you'll at least need to add a credential for
1644 imap/[mailhost] to the keytab of the mail server (IMAP doesn't just
1645 use the host key). Then you'll need to have your credentials ready on
1646 your machine (cf. kinit).<p>
1648 After that things are very simple. Set your protocol to imap-gss in your
1649 .fetchmailrc, and omit the password, since imap-gss doesn't need one. You
1650 can specify a username if you want, but this is only useful if your mailbox
1651 belongs to a username different from your Kerberos principal. <p>
1653 Now you don't have to worry about your password appearing in cleartext in
1654 your .fetchmailrc, or across the network.<p>
1657 <h2><a name="K5">K5. How can I use fetchmail with SSL?</a></h2>
1659 The U.S. government's never-to-be-sufficiently-damned EAR regulations
1660 prevent me from including SSL library hooks in the distribution.
1661 However, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution hasn't been
1662 eviscerated (not yet, anyway -- our would-be totalitarians are
1663 working on trashing the Second Amendment first).<P>
1667 I can therefore safely <em>tell</em> you, in documentation, that there
1668 appears to be a way to set up an SSL command chain using the `plugin'
1669 option (originally designed for handling proxy connections across
1672 Get your hands on the <a
1673 href="http://www.psy.uq.edu.au:8080/~ftp/Crypto/">SSLeay</a> code.
1674 Now make yourself a script called `ssl_connect' that calls the SSLeay
1675 utility `s_client' as follows:<P>
1678 /usr/local/ssl/bin/s_client -quiet -ssl2 -connect $1:$2
1681 Now add `plugin ssl_connect' to the server options for your connection.<P>
1685 For those in the U.S., there is a set of SSL patches for fetchmail
1686 available from the <a href="http://www.cryptography.org">North
1687 American Cryptographic Archives</a>, in the SSL directory. You have
1688 to answer three questions about your qualification to access the
1689 archive, before you are allowed in. You can enter through the main
1690 page for the server and browse the archive, or you can go <a
1691 href="http://www.cryptography.org/cgi-bin/crypto.cgi/SSL">straight to
1692 the SSL directory</a>. There you will find patch files against the
1693 fetchmail release sources as well as patched source tarballs.<P>
1695 While we cannot make the SSL sources available to anyone outside of the
1696 U.S. at this time, if the patches do leak out of the U.S. through no
1697 fault of our own, and someone informs us of their location, we can
1698 provide the URL pointing to archive sites outside of the U.S.<P>
1700 Newer versions of the SSL patches make appear in the `new' directory
1701 and stay there a while until they can be processed and moved to the SSL
1702 directory. Check for patches in `new' if you do not find patches
1703 for the latest fetchmail release.<P>
1706 <h2><a name="R1">R1. Fetchmail isn't working, and -v shows `SMTP connect failed' messages.</a></h2>
1708 Fetchmail itself is probably working, but your SMTP port 25 listener
1709 is down or inaccessible.<p>
1711 The first thing to check is if you can telnet to port 25 on your smtp
1712 host (which is normally `localhost' unless you've specified an smtp
1713 option in your .fetchmailrc or on the command line) and get a greeting
1714 line from the listener. If the SMTP host is inaccessible or the listener
1715 is down, fix that first.<p>
1717 If the listener seems to be up when you test with telnet, the most
1718 benign and typical problem is that the listener had a momentary seizure
1719 due to resource exhaustion while fetchmail was polling it -- process
1720 table full or some other problem that stopped the listener process
1721 from forking. If your SMTP host is not `localhost' or something else
1722 in /etc/hosts, the fetchmail glitch could also have been caused by
1723 transient nameserver failure. <p>
1725 Try running fetchmail -v again; if it succeeds, you had one of these
1726 kinds of transient glitch. You can ignore these hiccups, because a
1727 future fetchmail run will get the mail through. <p>
1729 If the listener tests up, but you have chronic failures trying to
1730 connect to it anyway, your problem is more serious. One way to work
1731 around chronic SMTP connect problems is to use --mda. But this only
1732 attacks the symptom; you may have a DNS or TCP routing problem. You
1733 should really try to figure out what's going on underneath before it
1734 bites you some other way. <p>
1736 We have one report (from toby@eskimo.com) that you can sometimes solve
1737 such problems by doing an <CODE>smtp</CODE> declaration with an IP
1738 address that your routing table maps to something other than the
1739 loopback device (he used ppp0).<p>
1741 We also have a report that this error can be caused by having an
1742 /etc/hosts file that associates your client host name with more than
1745 It's also possible that your DNS configuration isn't
1746 looking at <code>/etc/hosts</code> at all. If you're using libc5,
1747 look at <code>/etc/resolv.conf</code>; it should say something like
1753 so your <code>/etc/hosts</code> file is checked first. If you're
1754 running GNU libc6, check your <code>/etc/nsswitch.conf</code> file. Make
1755 sure it says something like
1761 again, in order to make sure <code>/etc/hosts</code> is seen first.<P>
1763 If you have a hostname set for your machine, and this hostname does
1764 not appear in /etc/hosts, you will be able to telnet to port 25 and
1765 even send a mail with rcpt to: user@host-not-in-/etc/hosts, but
1766 fetchmail can't seem to get in touch with sendmail, no matter what you
1767 set smtpaddress to.<p>
1769 We had another report from a Linux user of fetchmail 2.1 who solved his SMTP
1770 connection problem by removing the reference to -lresolv from his link
1771 line and relinking. Apparently in some older Linux distributions the
1772 libc bind library version works better.<p>
1774 As of 2.2, the configure script has been hacked so the bind library is
1775 linked only if it is actually needed. So under Linux it won't be, and
1776 this particular cause should go away.<p>
1779 <h2><a name="R2">R2. When I try to configure an MDA, fetchmail doesn't work.</a></h2>
1781 (I hear this one from people who have run into the blank-line problem in <a href="#X1">X1</a>.)<p>
1783 Try sending yourself test mail and retrieving it using the
1784 command-line options `<CODE>-k -m cat</CODE>'. This will dump exactly what
1785 fetchmail retrieves to standard output (plus the Received line
1786 fetchmail itself adds to the headers). <p>
1788 If the dump doesn't match what shows up in your mailbox when you
1789 configure an MDA, your MDA is mangling the message. If it doesn't
1790 match what you sent, then fetchmail or something on the server is
1794 <h2><a name="R3">R3. Fetchmail dumps core when given an invalid rc file.</a></h2>
1796 This is usually reported from AIX or Ultrix, but has even been known
1797 to happen on Linuxes without a recent version of <code>flex</code>
1798 installed. The problem appears to be a result of building with an
1799 archaic version of lex.<P>
1801 Workaround: fix the syntax of your .fetchmailrc file.<P>
1803 Fix: build and install the latest version of <a
1804 href="ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/~ftp/pub/gnu">flex</a> from the Free
1805 Software Foundation. An FSF <a
1806 href="http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/order/ftp.html">mirror site</a>
1807 will help you get it faster.<P>
1810 <h2><a name="R4">R4. Fetchmail dumps core in -V mode, but operates normally otherwise.</a></h2>
1812 We've had this reported to us under Linux using libc-5.4.17 and gcc-2.7.2.
1813 It does not occur with libc-5.3.12 or earlier versions.<p>
1815 Workaround: link with GNU malloc rather than the stock C library malloc.<p>
1817 We're told there is some problem with the malloc() code in that
1818 version which makes it fragile in the presence of multiple free()
1819 calls on the same pointer (the malloc arena gets corrupted).
1820 Unfortunately it appears from doing gdb traces that whatever free()
1821 calls producing the problem are being made by the C library itself, not the
1822 fetchmail code (they're all from within fclose, and not an fclose called
1823 directly by fetchmail, either).<p>
1826 <h2><a name="R5">R5. Running fetchmail in daemon mode doesn't work.</a><br></h2>
1828 We have one report from a SunOS 4.1.4 user that trying to run
1829 fetchmail in detached daemon mode doesn't work, but that using the
1830 same options with -N (nodetach) is OK.<P>
1832 If this happens, you have a specific portability problem with the code
1833 in daemon.c that detaches and backgrounds the daemon fetchmail. Tell
1834 me about it so I can try to fix it. As a workaround, you can start
1835 fetchmail with -N and an ampersand to background it.<P>
1837 This should not happen under Linux or any truly POSIX-conformant Unix.<P>
1840 <h2><a name="R6">R6. Fetchmail hangs when used with pppd.</a></h2>
1842 Your problem may be with pppd's `demand' option. We have a report that
1843 fetchmail doesn't play well with it, but works with pppd if `demand'
1844 is turned off. We have no idea why this is.<p>
1847 <h2><a name="R7">R7. Fetchmail randomly dies with socket errors.</a></h2>
1849 Check the MTU value in your PPP interface reported by
1850 <code>/sbin/ifconfig</code>. If it's over 600, change it in your PPP
1851 options file. (<code>/etc/ppp/options</code> on my box). Here are
1852 option values that work:<P>
1860 <a name="R8">R8. Fetchmail running as root stopped working after an OS upgrade</a></h2>
1862 In RH 6.0, the HOME value in the boot-time root environment changed
1863 from /root to / as the result of a change in init. Move your
1864 .fetchmailrc or use a -f option to explicitly point at the file.
1865 (Oddly, a similar problem has been reported from Debian systems.)<P>
1868 <h2><a name="#R9">R9. Fetchmail is timing out after fetching certain
1869 messages but before deleting them</a></h2>
1871 There's a TCP/IP stalling problem under Redhat 6.0 (and possibly other
1872 recent Linuxes) that can cause this symptom. Brian Boutel writes:<p>
1875 TCP timestamps are turned on on my Linux boxes (I assume it's now the
1876 default). This uses 12 extra bytes per segment.
1877 When the tcp connection starts, the other end agrees a MSS of 1460,
1878 and then fragments 1460 byte chunks into 1448 and 12, because
1879 is is not allowing for the timestamp.<p>
1881 Then, for reasons I can't explain, it waits a long time (typically 2
1882 minutes) after the ack is sent before sending the next (fragmented)
1883 packet. Turning off tcp timestamps avoids the fragmentation and
1884 restores normal behaviour. To do this, [execute]<p>
1886 echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps<p>
1888 I'm still unclear about the details of why this is happening. At least
1889 [now] I am now getting good performance and no queue blocking.
1893 <h2><a name="D1">D1. I think I've set up fetchmail correctly, but I'm not getting any mail.</a></h2>
1895 Maybe you have a .forward or alias set up that you've forgotten about. You
1896 should probably remove it.<p>
1898 Or maybe you're trying to run fetchmail in multidrop mode as root
1899 without a .fetchmailrc file. This doesn't do what you think it
1900 should; see question <a href="#C1">C1</a>.<p>
1902 Or you may not be connecting to the SMTP listener. Run fetchmail -v
1903 and see <a href="#R1">R1</a>.<p>
1906 <h2><a name="D2">D2. All my mail seems to disappear after a dropped connection.</a></h2>
1908 One POP3 daemon used in the Berkeley Unix world that reports itself as
1909 POP3 version 1.004 actually throws the queue away. 1.005 fixed that.
1910 If you're running this one, upgrade immediately. (It also truncates
1911 long lines at column 1024)<P>
1913 Many POP servers, if an interruption occurs, will restore the whole
1914 mail queue after about 10 minutes. Others will restore it right
1915 away. If you have an interruption and don't see it right away, cross
1916 your fingers and wait ten minutes before retrying.<P>
1918 Some servers (such as Microsoft's NTMail) are mis-designed to restore
1919 the entire queue, including messages you have deleted. If you have
1920 one of these and it flakes out on you a lot, try setting a small
1921 <code>--fetchlimit</code> value. This will result in more IP connects
1922 to the server, but will mean it actually executes changes to the queue
1925 Qualcomm's qpopper, used at many BSD Unix sites, is better behaved.
1926 If its connection is dropped, it will first execute all DELE commands as
1927 though you had issued a QUIT (this is a technical violation of
1928 the POP3 RFCs, but a good idea in a world of flaky phone lines). Then it
1929 will re-queue any message that was being downloaded at hangup time.
1930 Still, qpopper may require a noticeable amount of time to do deletions
1931 and clean up its queue. (Fetchmail waits a bit before retrying in
1932 order to avoid a `lock busy' error.)<P>
1935 <h2><a name="D3">D3. Mail that was being fetched when I interrupted my fetchmail seems to have been vanished.</a></h2>
1937 Fetchmail only sends a delete mail request to the server when either
1938 (a) it gets a positive delivery acknowledgment from the SMTP
1939 listener, or (b) it gets an error 571 (the spam-filter error) from the
1940 listener. No interrupt can cause it to lose mail.<p>
1942 However, IMAP2bis has a design problem in that its normal fetch
1943 command marks a message `seen' as soon as the fetch command to get it
1944 is sent down. If for some reason the message isn't actually delivered
1945 (you take a line hit during the download, or your port 25 listener
1946 can't find enough free disk space, or you interrupt the delivery in
1947 mid-message) that `seen' message can lurk invisibly in your server
1950 Workaround: add the `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>' keyword to your fetch options.<p>
1952 Solution: switch to an <a href="http://www.imap.org">IMAP4</a> server.<p>
1955 <h2><a name="M1">M1. I've declared local names, but all my multidrop
1956 mail is going to root anyway.</a></h2>
1958 Somehow your fetchmail is never recognizing the hostname part of
1959 recipient names it parses out of To/Cc/envelope-header lines as
1960 matching the name of the mailserver machine. To check this, run
1961 fetchmail in foreground with -v -v on. You will probably see a lot of
1962 messages with the format ``line rejected, %s is not an alias of the
1963 mailserver'' or ``no address matches; forwarding to %s.'' <p>
1965 These errors usually indicate some kind of DNS configuration problem
1966 either on the server or your client machine. <p>
1968 The easiest workaround is to add a `<CODE>via</CODE>' option (if
1969 necessary) and add enough aka declarations to cover all of your
1970 mailserver's aliases, then say `<CODE>no dns</CODE>'. This will take
1971 DNS out of the picture (though it means mail may be uncollected if
1972 it's sent to an alias of the mailserver that you don't have
1975 It would be better to fix your DNS, however. DNS problems can hurt
1976 you in lots of ways, for example by making your machines
1977 intermittently or permanently unreachable to the rest of the net.<P>
1979 Occasionally these errors indicate the sort of header-parsing problem
1980 described in <a href="#M7">M7</a>.<P>
1983 <h2><a name="M2">M2. I can't seem to get fetchmail to route to a local domain properly.</a></h2>
1985 A lot of people want to use fetchmail as a poor man's internetwork
1986 mail gateway, picking up mail accumulated for a whole domain in a single
1987 server mailbox and then routing based on what's in the To/Cc/Bcc lines.<p>
1989 In general, this is not really a good idea. It would be smarter to
1990 just let the mail sit in the mailserver's queue and use fetchmail's
1991 ETRN mode to trigger SMTP sends periodically (of course, this means
1992 you have to poll more frequently than the mailserver's expiration period).
1993 If you can't arrange this, try setting up a UUCP feed.<P>
1995 If neither of these alternatives is available, multidrop mode may do
1996 (though you <em>are</em> going to get hurt by some mailing list
1997 software; see the caveats under THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP
1998 MAILBOXES on the man page). If you want to try it, the way to do it
1999 is with the `<CODE>localdomains</CODE>' option.<p>
2001 In general, if you use localdomains you need to make sure of two other
2004 <strong>1. You've actually set up your .fetchmailrc entry to invoke multidrop mode.</strong><p>
2006 Many people set a `<CODE>localdomains</CODE>' list and then forget
2007 that fetchmail wants to see more than one name (or the wildcard `*')
2008 in a `<CODE>here</CODE>' list before it will do multidrop routing.<p>
2010 <strong>2. You may have to set `no envelope'.</strong><p>
2012 Normally, multidrop mode tries to deduce an envelope address from a message
2013 before parsing the To/Cc/Bcc lines (this enables it to avoid losing to mailing
2014 list software that doesn't put a recipient address in the To lines).<p>
2016 Some ways of accumulating a whole domain's messages in a single server
2017 mailbox mean it all ends up with a single envelope address that is
2018 useless for rerouting purposes. You may have to set `<CODE>no
2019 envelope</CODE>' to prevent fetchmail from being bamboozled by this.<p>
2021 Check also answer <a href="#T1">T1</a> on a reliable way to do multidrop
2022 delivery if your ISP (or your mail redirection provider) is using qmail.<p>
2025 <h2><a name="M3">M3. I tried to run a mailing list using multidrop, and I have a mail loop!</a></h2>
2027 This isn't fetchmail's fault. Check your mailing list. If the list
2028 expansion includes yourself or anybody else at your mailserver (that is, not on
2029 the client side) you've created a mail loop. Just chop the host part off any
2030 local addresses in the list.<p>
2032 If you use sendmail, you can check the list expansion with
2033 <CODE>sendmail -bv</CODE>.<p>
2036 <h2><a name="M4">M4. My multidrop fetchmail seems to be having DNS problems.</a></h2>
2038 We have one report from a Linux user (not the same one as in <a
2039 href="#R1">R1</a>!) who solved this problem by removing the reference
2040 to -lresolv from his link line and relinking. Apparently in some
2041 older Linux distributions the libc5 bind library version works
2044 As of 2.2, the configure script has been hacked so the bind library is linked
2045 only if it is actually needed. So under Linux it won't be, and this problem
2049 <h2><a name="M5">M5. I'm seeing long DNS delays before each message is processed.</a></h2>
2051 Use the `<CODE>aka</CODE>' option to pre-declare as many of your
2052 mailserver's DNS names as you can. When an address's host part
2053 matches an aka name, no DNS lookup needs to be done to check it.<p>
2055 If you're sure you've pre-declared all of your mailserver's DNS names,
2056 you can use the `<CODE>no dns</CODE>' option to prevent other hostname
2057 parts from being looked up at all.<p>
2059 Sometimes delays are unavoidable. Some SMTP listeners try to call DNS
2060 on the From-address hostname as a way of checking that the address is valid.<p>
2063 <h2><a name="M6">M6. How do I get multidrop mode to work with majordomo?</a></h2>
2065 In order for sendmail to execute the command strings in the majordomo
2066 alias file, it is necessary for sendmail to think that the mail it
2067 receives via SMTP really is destined for a local user name. A normal
2068 virtual-domain setup results in delivery to the default mailbox,
2069 rather than expansion through majordomo.<P>
2071 Michael <michael@bizsystems.com> gave us a recipe for dealing
2072 with this case that pairs a run control file like this:<P>
2075 poll your.pop3.server proto pop3:
2077 localdomains virtual.localdomain1.com virtual.localdomain2.com ...
2078 user yourISPusername is root * here,
2079 password yourISPpassword fetchall
2082 with a hack on your local sendmail.cf like this:<P>
2085 #############################################
2086 # virtual info, local hack for ruleset 98 #
2087 #############################################
2089 # domains to treat as direct mapped local domain
2091 CVvirtual.localdomain1.com virtual.localdomain2.com ...
2092 ---------------------------
2094 -------------------------
2095 # handle virtual users
2097 R$+ <@ $=V . > $: $1 < @ $j . >
2098 R< @ > $+ < @ $=V . > $: $1 < @ $j . >
2099 R< @ > $+ $: $1
2100 R< error : $- $+ > $* $#error $@ $1 $: $2
2101 R< $+ > $+ < @ $+ > $: $>97 $1
2104 This ruleset just strips virtual domain names off the addresses of incoming
2105 mail. Your sendmail must be 8.8 or newer for this to work. Michael
2109 I use this scheme with 2 virtual domains and the default ISP
2110 user+domain and service about 30 mail accounts + majordomo on my
2111 inside pop3 server with fetchmail and sendmail 8.83
2115 <h2><a name="M7">M7. Multidrop mode isn't parsing envelope addresses from
2116 my Received headers as it should.</a></h2>
2118 It may happen that you're getting what appear to be well-formed
2119 sendmail Received headers, but fetchmail can't seem to extract an
2120 envelope address from them. There can be a couple of reasons for
2123 <h3>Spurious Received lines need to be skipped:</h3>
2125 First, fetchmail might be looking at the wrong Received header.
2126 Normally it looks only on the first one it sees, on the theory that
2127 that one was last added and is going to be the one containing your
2128 mailserver's theory of who the message was addressed to.<P>
2130 Some (unusual) mailserver configurations will generate extra Received
2131 lines which you need to skip. To arrange this, use the optional
2132 skip prefix argument of the `envelope' option; you may need to say
2133 something like `<code>envelope 1 Received</code>' or `<code>envelope 2
2136 <h3>The `by' clause doesn't contain a mailserver alias:</h3>
2138 When fetchmail parses a Received line that looks like
2141 Received: from send103.yahoomail.com (send103.yahoomail.com [205.180.60.92])
2142 by iserv.ttns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA10088
2143 for <ksturgeon@fbceg.org>; Wed, 9 Sep 1998 17:01:59 -0700
2146 it checks to see if `iserv.ttns.net' is a DNS alias of your mailserver
2147 before accepting `ksturgeon@fbceg.org' as an envelope address. This
2148 check might fail if your DNS were misconfigured, or if you were using `no dns'
2149 and had failed to declare iserv.ttns.net as an alias of your server.<P>
2152 <h2><a name="X1">X1. Spurious blank lines are appearing in the headers of fetched mail.</a></h2>
2154 What's probably happening is that the POP/IMAP daemon on your
2155 mailserver is inserting a non-RFC822 header (like X-POP3-Rcpt:) and
2156 something in your delivery path (most likely an old version of the
2157 <em>deliver</em> program, which sendmail often calls to do local delivery) is
2158 failing to recognize it as a header.<p>
2160 This is not fetchmail's problem. The first thing to try is installing
2161 a current version of <em>deliver</em>. If this doesn't work, try to
2162 figure out which other program in your mail path is inserting the
2163 blank line and replace that. If you can't do either of these things,
2164 pick a different MDA (such as procmail) and declare it with the
2165 `<CODE>mda</CODE>' option.<p>
2168 <h2><a name="X2">X2. My mail client can't see a Subject line.</a></h2>
2170 First, see <a href="#X1">X1</a>. This is quite probably the same
2171 problem (X-POP3-Rcpt header or something similar being inserted by
2172 the server and choked on by an old version of <em>deliver</em>).<p>
2174 The O'Reilly sendmail book does warn that IDA sendmail doesn't process
2175 X- headers correctly. If this is your problem, all I can suggest is
2176 replacing IDA sendmail, because it's broken and not RFC822 conformant.<p>
2179 <h2><a name="X3">X3. Messages containing "From" at start of line are being split.</a></h2>
2181 If you know the messages aren't split in your server mailbox, then this
2182 is a problem with your POP/IMAP server, your client-side SMTP listener or
2183 your local delivery agent. Fetchmail cannot split messages.<p>
2185 Some POP server daemons ignore Content-Length headers and split messages on
2186 From lines. We have one report that the 2.1 version of the BSD popper
2187 program (as distributed on Solaris 2.5 and elsewhere) is broken this way.<p>
2189 You can test this. Declare an mda of `cat' and send yourself one
2190 piece of mail containing "From" at start of a line. If you see a
2191 split message, your POP/IMAP server is at fault. Upgrade to a more
2194 Sendmail and other SMTP listeners don't split RFC822 messages either.
2195 What's probably happening is either sendmail's local delivery agent or
2196 your mail reader are not quite RFC822-conformant and are breaking
2197 messages on what it thinks are Unix-style From headers. You can
2198 figure out which by looking at your client-side mailbox with vi or
2199 more. If the message is already split in your mailbox, your local
2200 delivery agent is the problem. If it's not, your mailreader is the
2203 If you can't replace the offending program, take a look at your
2204 sendmail.cf file. There will likely be a line something like<p>
2207 Mlocal, P=/usr/bin/procmail, F=lsDFMShP, S=10, R=20/40, A=procmail -Y -d $u
2210 describing your local delivery agent. Try inserting the `E' option in the
2211 flags part (the F= string). This will make sendmail turn each dangerous
2212 start-of-line From into a >From, preventing programs further downstream
2216 <h2><a name="generic_mangling"><a name="X4">X4. My mail is being mangled in a new and different way</a></a></h2>
2218 The first thing you need to do is pin down what program is doing the
2219 mangling. We don't like getting bug reports about fetchmail that are
2220 actually due to some other program's malfeasance, so please go through
2221 this diagnostic sequence before sending us a complaint.<P>
2223 There are five possible culprits to consider, listed here in the order
2224 they pass your mail:<P>
2227 <li> Programs upstream of your server mailbox.
2228 <li> The POP or IMAP server on your mailserver host.
2229 <li> The fetchmail program itself.
2230 <li> Your local sendmail.
2231 <li> Your LDA (local delivery agent), as called by sendmail or
2232 specified by <code>mda</CODE>.
2235 Often it happens that fetchmail itself is OK, but using it exposes
2236 pre-existing bugs in your downstream software, or your downstream
2237 software has a bad interaction with POP/IMAP. You need to pin down
2238 exactly where the message is being garbled in order to deduce what is
2239 actually going on.<P>
2241 The first thing to do is send yourself a test message, and retrieve it
2242 with a .fetchmailrc entry containing the following (or by running with
2243 the equivalent command-line options):<P>
2246 mda "cat >MBOX" keep fetchall
2249 This will capture what fetchmail gets from the server, except for (a)
2250 the extra Received header line fetchmail prepends, (b) header address
2251 changes due to <code>rewrite</code>, and (c) any end-of-line changes
2252 due to the <code>forcecr</code> and <code>stripcr</code> options.
2253 MBOX will in fact contain what programs downstream of fetchmail
2256 The most common causes of mangling are bugs and misconfigurations in
2257 those downstream programs. If MBOX looks unmangled, you will know
2258 that is what is going on and that it is not fetchmail's problem. Take
2259 a look at the other FAQ items in this section for possible clues about
2260 how to fix your problem.<P>
2262 If MBOX looks mangled, the next thing to do is compare it with your
2263 actual server mailbox (if possible). That's why you specified
2264 <code>keep</code>, so the server copy would not be deleted. If your
2265 server mailbox looks mangled, programs upstream of your server mailbox
2266 are at fault. Unfortunately there is probably little you can do about
2267 this aside from complaining to your site postmaster, and nothing at
2268 all fetchmail can do about it!<P>
2270 More likely you'll find that the server copy looks OK. In that case
2271 either the POP/IMAP server or fetchmail is doing the mangling. To
2272 determine which, you'll need to telnet to the server port and simulate
2273 a fetchmail session yourself. This is not actually hard (both POP3
2274 and IMAP are simple, text-only, line-oriented protocols) but requires
2275 some attention to detail. You should be able to use a fetchmail -v
2276 log as a model for a session, but remember that the "*" in your LOGIN
2277 or PASS command dump has to be replaced with your actual password.<P>
2279 The objective of manually simulating fetchmail is so you can see
2280 exactly what fetchmail sees. If you see a mangled message, then your
2281 server is at fault, and you probably need to complain to your
2282 mailserver administrators. However, we like to know what the broken
2283 servers are so we can warn people away from them. So please send
2284 us a transcript of the session including the mangling <em>and the
2285 server's initial greeting line</em>. Please tell us anything else
2286 you think might be useful about the server, like the server host's
2287 operating system.<P>
2289 If your manual fetchmail simulation shows an unmangled message,
2290 congratulations. You've found an actual fetchmail bug, which is a
2291 pretty rare thing these days. Complain to us and we'll fix it.
2292 Please include the session transcript of your manual fetchmail
2293 simulation along with the other things described in the FAQ entry on
2294 <a href="#G3">reporting bugs</a>.
2297 <h2><a name="X5">X5. Using POP3, retrievals seems to be fetching too much!</a></h2>
2299 This may happen in versions of fetchmail after 4.4.1 and before 4.4.8.
2300 Versions after 4.4.1 use POP3's TOP command rather than RETR, in order
2301 to avoid marking the message seen (leaving it unseen is helpful for
2302 later recovery if you lose your connection in the middle of a
2305 Versions of fetchmail from 4.4.2 through 4.4.7 had a bad interaction
2306 with Eudora qpopper versions 2.3 and later. The TOP bounds check was
2307 fooled by an overflow condition in the TOP argument. Decrementing the
2308 TOP argument in 4.4.7 fixed this.<P>
2310 Fix: Upgrade to a later version of fetchmail.<P>
2312 Workaround: set the <code>fetchall</code> option. Under POP3 in these
2313 fetchmail version only, this had the side effect of forcing RETR
2317 <h2><a name="O1">O1. The --logfile option doesn't work if the logfile doesn't exist.</a></h2>
2319 This is a feature, not a bug. It's in line with normal practice for
2320 system daemons and allows you to suppress logging by removing the log,
2321 without hacking potentially fragile startup scripts. To get around
2322 it, just touch(1) the logfile before you run fetchmail (this will have
2323 no effect on the contents of the logfile if it already exists).<P>
2326 <h2><a name="O2">O2. Every time I get a POP or IMAP message the header
2327 is dumped to all my terminal sessions.</a></h2>
2329 Fetchmail uses the local sendmail to perform final delivery, which
2330 Netscape and other clients doesn't do; the announcement of new messages
2331 is done by a daemon that sendmail pokes. There should be a ``biff''
2332 command to control this. Type
2338 to turn it off. If this doesn't work, try the command
2344 which is essentially what <code>biff -n</code> will do. If this
2345 doesn't work, comment out any reference to ``comsat'' in your
2346 /etc/inetd.conf file and restart inetd.<P>
2348 In Slackware Linux distributions, the last line in /etc/profile is
2360 to solve the problem system-wide.<P>
2363 <h2><a name="O3">O3. Does fetchmail reread its rc file every poll cycle?</a></h2>
2365 No. Fetchmail only reads the rc file once, when it starts up. To
2366 force an rc file reread, do <code>fetchmail -q; fetchmail</code>.<P>
2369 <h2><a name="O4">O4. Why do deleted messages show up again when I take
2370 a line hit while downloading?</a></h2>
2372 Because you're using a POP3 other than Qualcomm qpopper, or an IMAP
2373 with a long expunge interval.<P>
2375 According to the POP3 RFCs, deletes aren't actually performed until
2376 you issue the end-of-session QUIT command. Fetchmail cannot fix this,
2377 because doing it right takes cooperation from the server. There are
2378 two possible remedies:<P>
2380 One is to switch to qpopper (the free POP3 server from Qualcomm,
2381 the Eudora people). The qpopper software violates the POP3 RFCs by
2382 doing an expunge (removing deleted messages) on a line hangup, as well
2383 as on processing a QUIT command.<P>
2385 The other (which we recommend) is to switch to <a
2386 href="http://www.imap.org">IMAP</a>. IMAP has an explicit expunge
2387 command and fetchmail normally uses it to delete messages immediately
2388 after they are downloaded.<P>
2390 If you get very unlucky, you might take a line hit in the window
2391 between the delete and the expunge. If you've set a longer expunge
2392 interval, the window gets wider. This problem should correct itself
2393 the next time you complete a successful query.<P>
2396 <h2><a name="O5">O5. Why is fetched mail being logged with my name, not the real From address?</a></h2>
2398 Because logging is done based on the address indicated by the sending
2399 SMTP's MAIL FROM, and some listeners are picky about that address.<p>
2401 Some SMTP listeners get upset if you try to hand them a MAIL FROM
2402 address naming a different host than the originating site for your
2403 connection. This is a feature, not a bug -- it's supposed to help
2404 prevent people from forging mail with a bogus origin site. (RFC 1123
2405 says you shouldn't do this exclusion...)<p>
2407 Since the originating site of a fetchmail delivery connection is
2408 localhost, this effectively means these picky listeners will barf on
2409 any MAIL FROM address fetchmail hands them with an @ in it!<p>
2411 Versions 2.1 and up try the header From address first and fall back to
2412 the calling-user ID. So if your SMTP listener isn't picky, the log
2416 <h2><a name="O6">O6. I'm seeing long sendmail delays or hangs near the start of each poll cycle.</a></h2>
2418 Sendmail does a hostname lookup when it first starts up, and also each
2419 time it gets a HELO in listener mode.<p>
2421 Your resolver configuration may be causing one of these lookups to
2422 fail and time out. Check <code>/etc/resolv.conf</code> and
2423 <code>/etc/hosts</code> file. Make sure your hostname and
2424 fully-qualified domain name are both in <code>/etc/hosts</code>, and
2425 that hosts is looked at before DNS is queried. You probably also want
2426 your remote mail server(s) to be in the hosts file.<p>
2428 You can suppress the startup-time lookup if need to by reconfiguring
2429 with <code>FEATURE(nodns)</code>.<p>
2431 Configuring your bind library to cache DNS lookups locally may help,
2432 and is a good idea for speeding up other services as well. Switching to
2433 a faster MTA like qmail or exim might help. <p>
2436 <h2><a name="O7">O7. Why doesn't fetchmail deliver mail in date-sorted order?</a></h2>
2438 Because that's not the order the server hands it to fetchmail in.<P>
2440 Fetchmail getting mail from a POP server delivers mail in the order
2441 that your server delivers mail. Fetchmail can't do anything about
2442 this; it's a limitation of the underlying POP protocol.<P>
2444 In theory it might be possible for fetchmail in IMAP mode to sort
2445 messages by date, but this would be in violation of two basics of
2446 fetchmail's design philosophy: (a) to be as simple and transparent a
2447 pipe as possible, and (b) to <em>hide</em>, rather than emphasize, the
2448 differences between the remote-fetch protocols it uses.<P>
2450 Re-ordering messages is a user-agent function, anyway.<P>
2453 <h2><a name="O8">O8. I'm using pppd. Why isn't my monitor option working?</a></h2>
2455 There is a combination of circumstances that can confuse fetchmail.
2456 If you have set up demand dialing with pppd, and pppd has an idle
2457 timeout, and you have lcp-echo-interval set, then the
2458 lcp-echo-interval time must be longer than the pppd idle timeout.
2459 Otherwise it is going keep increasing the packet counters that fetchmail
2460 relies upon, triggering fetchmail into polling after its own delay
2461 interval and thus preventing the pppd link from ever reaching its
2462 inactivity timeout.<p>
2465 <table width="100%" cellpadding=0><tr>
2466 <td width="30%">Back to <a href="index.html">Fetchmail Home Page</a>
2467 <td width="30%" align=center>To <a href="/~esr/sitemap.html">Site Map</a>
2468 <td width="30%" align=right>$Date: 1999/09/14 07:38:00 $
2471 <P><ADDRESS>Eric S. Raymond <A HREF="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com"><esr@snark.thyrsus.com></A></ADDRESS>
projects / ~andy / fetchmail / blob