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13 <td width="30%" align=right>$Date: 1999/11/30 19:26:15 $
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>
40 <a href="#G12">G12. Is fetchmail Y2K-compliant?</a><br>
41 <a href="#G13">G13. Is there a way in fetchmail to support disconnected IMAP mode?<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>
84 <a href="#S11">S11. How can I use fetchmail with FTGate?</a><br>
85 <a href="#S12">S12. How can I use fetchmail with MailMax?</a><br>
87 <h1>How to set up well-known security and authentication methods:</h1>
89 <a href="#K1">K1. How can I use fetchmail with SOCKS?</a><br>
90 <a href="#K2">K2. How can I use fetchmail with IPv6 and IPsec?</a><br>
91 <a href="#K3">K3. How can I get fetchmail to work with ssh?</a><br>
92 <a href="#K4">K4. What do I have to do to use the IMAP-GSS protocol?</a><br>
93 <a href="#K5">K5. How can I use fetchmail with SSL?</a><br>
95 <h1>Runtime fatal errors:</h1>
97 <a href="#R1">R1. Fetchmail isn't working, and -v shows `SMTP connect failed' messages.</a><br>
98 <a href="#R2">R2. When I try to configure an MDA, fetchmail doesn't work.</a><br>
99 <a href="#R3">R3. Fetchmail dumps core when given an invalid rc file.</a><br>
100 <a href="#R4">R4. Fetchmail dumps core in -V mode, but operates normally otherwise.</a><br>
101 <a href="#R5">R5. Running fetchmail in daemon mode doesn't work.</a><br>
102 <a href="#R6">R6. Fetchmail hangs when used with pppd.</a><br>
103 <a href="#R7">R7. Fetchmail randomly dies with socket errors.</a><br>
104 <a href="#R8">R8. Fetchmail running as root stopped working after an OS upgrade</a><br>
105 <a href="#R9">R9. Fetchmail is timing out after fetching certain
106 messages but before deleting them</a><br>
108 <h1>Disappearing mail</h1>
110 <a href="#D1">D1. I think I've set up fetchmail correctly, but I'm not getting any mail.</a><br>
111 <a href="#D2">D2. All my mail seems to disappear after a dropped connection.</a><br>
112 <a href="#D3">D3. Mail that was being fetched when I interrupted my fetchmail seems to have been vanished.</a><br>
114 <h1>Multidrop-mode problems:</h1>
116 <a href="#M1">M1. I've declared local names, but all my multidrop mail is going to root anyway.</a><br>
117 <a href="#M2">M2. I can't seem to get fetchmail to route to a local domain properly.</a><br>
118 <a href="#M3">M3. I tried to run a mailing list using multidrop, and I have a mail loop!</a><br>
119 <a href="#M4">M4. My multidrop fetchmail seems to be having DNS problems.</a><br>
120 <a href="#M5">M5. I'm seeing long DNS delays before each message is processed.</a><br>
121 <a href="#M6">M6. How do I get multidrop mode to work with majordomo?</a><br>
122 <a href="#M7">M7. Multidrop mode isn't parsing envelope addresses from
123 my Received headers as it should.</a><br>
125 <h1>Mangled mail:</h1>
127 <a href="#X1">X1. Spurious blank lines are appearing in the headers of fetched mail.</a><br>
128 <a href="#X2">X2. My mail client can't see a Subject line.</a><br>
129 <a href="#X3">X3. Messages containing "From" at start of line are being split.</a><br>
130 <a href="#X4">X4. My mail is being mangled in a new and different way.</a><br>
131 <a href="#X5">X5. Using POP3, retrievals seems to be fetching too much!</a><br>
133 <h1>Other problems:</h1>
135 <a href="#O1">O1. The --logfile option doesn't work if the logfile doesn't exist.</a><br>
136 <a href="#O2">O2. Every time I get a POP or IMAP message the header is
137 dumped to all my terminal sessions.</a><br>
138 <a href="#O3">O3. Does fetchmail reread its rc file every poll cycle?</a><br>
139 <a href="#O4">O4. Why do deleted messages show up again when I take
140 a line hit while downloading?</a><br>
141 <a href="#O5">O5. Why is fetched mail being logged with my name, not the real From address?</a><br>
142 <a href="#O6">O6. I'm seeing long sendmail delays or hangs near the start of each poll cycle.</a><br>
143 <a href="#O7">O7. Why doesn't fetchmail deliver mail in date-sorted order?</a><br>
144 <a href="#O8">O8. I'm using pppd. Why isn't my monitor option working?</a><br>
148 <h2><a name="G1">G1. What is fetchmail and why should I bother?</a></h2>
150 Fetchmail is a one-stop solution to the remote mail retrieval problem
151 for Unix machines, quite useful to anyone with an intermittent PPP or
152 SLIP connection to a remote mailserver. It can collect mail using any
153 variant of POP or IMAP and forwards via port 25 to the local SMTP
154 listener, enabling all the normal forwarding/filtering/aliasing
155 mechanisms that would apply to local mail or mail arriving via a
156 full-time TCP/IP connection.<p>
158 Fetchmail is not a toy or a coder's learning exercise, but an
159 industrial-strength tool capable of transparently handling every
160 retrieval demand from those of a simple single-user ISP connection up
161 to mail retrieval and rerouting for an entire client domain.
162 Fetchmail is easy to configure, unobtrusive in operation, powerful,
163 feature-rich, and well documented. <P>
165 Fetchmail is <a href="http://www.opensource.org">Open Source</a>
166 software. The openness of the sources is the strongest assurance of
167 quality you can have. Extensive peer review by a large,
168 multi-platform user community has shown that fetchmail is as near
169 bulletproof as the underlying protocols permit.<p>
171 Fetchmail is licensed under the <a
172 href="http://gnu.org//copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public
175 If you found this FAQ in the distribution, see the README for fetchmail's
176 full feature list.<p>
179 <h2><a name="G2">G2. Where do I find the latest FAQ and fetchmail
182 The latest HTML FAQ is available alongside the latest fetchmail
183 sources at the fetchmail home page:
184 <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail">
185 http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail</a>. You can also usually find
187 href="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/pop/!INDEX.html">POP
188 mail tools directory on Sunsite</a>.<p>
190 A text dump of this FAQ is included in the fetchmail
191 distribution. Because it freezes at distribution release time, it may
192 not be completely current.<p>
195 <h2><a name="G3">G3. I think I've found a bug. Will you fix it?</a></h2>
197 Yes I will, provided you include enough diagnostic information for me
198 to go on. Send bugs to <a
199 href="mailto:fetchmail-friends@ccil.org">fetchmail-friends</a>. When reporting
200 bugs, please include the following:
203 <li>Your operating system and compiler version.
204 <li>A copy of your POP or IMAP server's greeting line.
205 <li>The name and version of the SMTP listener or MDA you are forwarding to.
206 <li>Any command-line options you used.
207 <li>The output of fetchmail -V called with whatever other
208 command-line options you used.
211 Often, the first thing I will do when you report a bug is tell you to
212 upgrade to the newest version, and then see if the problem reproduces.
213 So you'll probably save us both time if you upgrade and test with
214 the latest version <em>before</em> sending in a bug report.<P>
216 It is helpful if you include your .fetchmailrc file, but not necessary
217 unless your symptom seems to involve an error in configuration
218 parsing. If you do send in your .fetchmailrc, mask the passwords
221 If fetchmail seems to run and fetch mail, but the headers look mangled
222 (that is, headers are missing or blank lines are inserted in the
223 headers) then read the FAQ items in section <a href="#X1">X</a>
224 before submitting a bug report. Pay special attention to the item on
225 <a href="#generic_mangling">diagnosing mail mangling</a>. There are
226 lots of ways for other programs in the mail chain to screw up that
227 look like fetchmail's fault, but you may be able to fix these by
228 tweaking your configuration.<P>
230 A transcript of the failed session with -v -v (yes, that's
231 <em>two</em> -v options, enabling debug mode) will almost always be useful.
232 It is very important that the transcript include your POP/IMAP server's
233 greeting line, so I can identify it in case of server problems. This
234 transcript will not reveal your passwords, which are specially masked
235 out precisely so the transcript can be passed around.<P>
237 If the bug involves a core dump or hang, a gdb stack trace is good to have.
238 (Bear in mind that you can attach gdb to a running but hung process by
239 giving the process ID as a second argument.) You will need to
243 CFLAGS=-g LDFLAGS=" " ./configure
246 and then rebuild in order to generate a version that can be gdb-traced.<p>
248 Best of all is a mail file which, when fetched, will reproduce the
249 bug under the latest (current) version.<p>
251 Any bug I can reproduce will usually get fixed very quickly, often
252 within 48 hours. Bugs I can't reproduce are a crapshoot. If the
253 solution isn't obvious when I first look, it may evade me for a long
254 time (or to put it another way, fetchmail is well enough tested that the
255 easy bugs have long since been found). So if you want your bug fixed
256 rapidly, it is not just sufficient but nearly <em>necessary</em> that
257 you give me a way to reproduce it.<p>
260 <h2><a name="G4">G4. I have this idea for a neat feature. Will you add it?</a></h2>
262 Probably not. Most of the feature suggestions I get are for ways to
263 set various kinds of administrative policy or add more spam filtering
264 (the most common one, which I used to get about four million times a week
265 and got <em>really</em> tired of, is for tin-like kill files).<p>
267 You can do spam filtering better with procmail or maildrop on the
268 server side and (if you're the server sysadmin) sendmail.cf domain
269 exclusions. You can do other policy things better with the
270 <CODE>mda</CODE> option and script wrappers around fetchmail. If
271 it's a prime-time-vs.-non-prime-time issue, ask yourself whether a
272 wrapper script called from crontab would do the job.<p>
274 I'm not going to do these; fetchmail's job is transport, not policy, and I
275 refuse to change it from doing one thing well to attempting many things badly.
276 One of my objectives is to keep fetchmail simple so it stays reliable.<p>
278 Furthermore, since about version 4.3.0 fetchmail has passed out of active
279 development and been essentially stable. It is no longer my top
280 project, and I am going to be quite reluctant to add features that
281 might either jeopardize its stability or involve me in large
282 amounts of coding.<p>
284 All that said, if you have a feature idea that really is about a transport
285 problem that can't be handled anywhere but fetchmail, lay it on me. I'm
286 very accommodating about good ideas.<p>
289 <h2><a name="G5">G5. Is there a mailing list for exchanging tips?</a></h2>
291 There is a fetchmail-friends list for people who want to discuss fixes
292 and improvements in fetchmail and help co-develop it. It's at <a
293 href="mailto:fetchmail-friends@thyrsus.com">fetchmail-friends@thyrsus.com</a>.
294 There is also an announcements-only list, <em>fetchmail-announce@thyrsus.com</em>.<P>
296 Both lists are SmartList reflectors; sign up in the usual way with a
297 message containing the word "subscribe" in the subject line sent to
298 <a href="mailto:fetchmail-friends-request@thyrsus.com?subject=subscribe">
299 fetchmail-friends-request@thyrsus.com</a> or
300 <a href="mailto:fetchmail-announce-request@thyrsus.com?subject=subscribe">
301 fetchmail-announce-request@thyrsus.com</a>. (Similarly, "unsubscribe"
302 in the Subject line unsubscribes you, and "help" returns general list help) <p>
305 <h2><a name="G6">G6. So, what's this I hear about a fetchmail paper?</a></h2>
307 The fetchmail development was also a sociological experiment, an
308 extended test to see if my theory about the critical features of the
309 Linux development model is correct.<p>
311 The experiment was a success. I wrote a paper about it titled <a
312 href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html">The
313 Cathedral and the Bazaar</a> which was first presented at Linux
314 Kongress '97 in Bavaria and very well received there. It was also
315 given at Atlanta Linux Expo, Linux Pro '97 in Warsaw, and the first
316 Perl Conference, at UniForum '98, and was the basis of an invited
317 presentation at Usenix '98. The folks at Netscape tell me it helped
319 href="http://www.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease558.html"> give
320 away the source for Netscape Communicator</a>.<p>
322 If you're reading a non-HTML dump of this FAQ, you can find the paper
323 on the Web with a search for that title.<p>
326 <h2><a name="G7">G7. What is the best server to use with fetchmail?</a></h2>
328 The short answer: IMAP4rev1 running over Unix.<P>
330 Here's a longer answer: <P>
332 Fetchmail will work with any POP, IMAP, or ESMTP/ETRN server that
333 conforms to the relevant RFCs (and even some outright broken ones like
334 <a href="#S2">Microsoft Exchange</a> and <a href="#S12">Novell
335 GroupWise</a>). This doesn't mean it works equally well with all,
336 however. POP2 servers, and POP3 servers without LAST, limit
337 fetchmail's capabilities in various ways described on the manual
340 Most modern Unixes (and effectively all Linux/*BSD systems) come with
341 POP3 support preconfigured (but beware of the horribly broken POP3
342 server mentioned in <a href="#D2">D2</a>). An increasing minority
343 also feature IMAP (you can detect IMAP support by running fetchmail in
344 AUTO mode, or by using the `Probe for supported protocols' function in
345 the fetchmailconf utility).<P>
347 If you have the option, we recommend using or installing an IMAP4rev1
348 server; it has the best facilities for tracking message `seen' states.
349 It also recovers from interrupted connections more gracefully than
350 POP3, and enables some significant performance optimizations.<P>
352 Don't be fooled by NT/Exchange propaganda. M$ Exchange is just plain
353 broken (see item <a href="#S2">S2</a>) and NT cannot handle the
354 sustained load of a high-volume remote mail server. Even Microsoft
355 itself knows better than to try this; their own Hotmail service runs
356 over Solaris! For extended discussion, see John Kirch's excellent <a
357 href="http://unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/">white paper</a> on Unix
358 vs. NT performance.<P>
360 You can find sources for IMAP software at <a
361 href="http://www.imap.org">The IMAP Connection</a>; we like the
362 open-source <a href="ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap/">UW IMAP</a>
363 server, which is the reference implementation of IMAP. UW IMAP's
364 support for GSSAPI gives you a good way to authenticate without
365 sending a password en clair.<P>
367 Source for a high-quality supported implementation of POP is available
368 from the <a href="ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/eudora/servers/unix/popper/">Eudora
369 FTP site</a>. Don't use 2.5, which has a rather restrictive license.
370 The 2.5.2 version appears to restore the open-source license of
371 previous versions.<P>
374 <h2><a name="G8">G8. How can I avoid sending my password en clair?</a></h2>
376 Depending on what your mail server you are talking to, this ranges
377 from trivial to impossible. It may even be next to useless.<P>
379 Most people use fetchmail over phone wires, which are hard to tap.
380 Anybody with the skill and resources to do this could get into your
381 server mailbox with much less effort by subverting the server host.
382 So if your provider setup is modem wires going straight into a service
383 box, you probably don't need to worry.<P>
385 In general there is little point in trying to secure your fetchmail
386 transaction unless you trust the security of the server host you are
387 retrieving mail from. Your vulnerability is more likely to be an
388 insecure local network on the server end (e.g. to somebody with a TCP/IP
389 packet sniffer intercepting Ethernet traffic between the modem
390 concentrator you dial in to and the mailserver host).<P>
392 Having realized this, you need to ask whether password encryption
393 alone will really address your security exposure. If you think you
394 might be snooped, it's better to use end-to-end encryption on your
395 whole mail stream so none of it can be read. One of the advantages of
396 fetchmail over conventional SMTP-push delivery is that you may be able
397 to arrange this by using ssh(1); see <a href="#K3">K3</a>.<P>
399 If ssh/sshd isn't available, or you find it too complicated for you to
400 set up, password encryption will at least keep a malicious cracker
401 from deleting your mail, and require him to either tap your connection
402 continuously or crack root on the server in order to read it.<P>
404 You can deduce what encryptions your mail server has available
405 by looking at the server greeting line (and, for IMAP, the
406 response to a CAPABILITY query). Do a <code>fetchmail -v</code>
407 to see these, or telnet direct to the server port (110 for POP3, 143 for
410 The facility you are most likely to have available is APOP. This is a
411 POP3 feature supported by many servers (fetchmailconf's autoprobe
412 facility will detect it and tell you if you have it). If you see
413 something in the greeting line that looks like an
414 angle-bracket-enclosed Internet address with a numeric left-hand part,
415 that's an APOP challenge (it will vary each time you log in). You can
416 register a secret on the host (using <code>popauth(8)</code> or some
417 program like it). Specify the secret as your password in your
418 .fetchmailrc; it will be used to encrypt the current challenge, and
419 the encrypted form will be sent back the the server for
422 Alternatively, you may have Kerberos available. This may require you
423 to set up some magic files in your home directory on your client
424 machine, but means you can omit specifying any password at all.<P>
426 Fetchmail supports two different Kerberos schemes. One is a
427 POP3 variant called KPOP; consult the documentation of your mail
428 server to see if you have it (one clue is the string "krb-IV" in the
429 greeting line on port 110). The other is an IMAP facility described
430 by RFC1731. You can tell if this one is present by looking for
431 AUTH=KERBEROS_V4 in the CAPABILITY response.<P>
433 If you are fetching mail from a CompuServe POP3 account, you can use
434 their RPA authentication (which works much like APOP). See <a
435 href="#S3">S3</a> for details. If you are fetching mail from
436 Microsoft Exchange, you will be able to use NTLM.<P>
438 Your POP3 server may have the RFC1938 OTP capability to use one-time
439 passwords (if it doesn't, you can get OTP patches for the 2.2 version
440 of the Qualcomm popper from <a href="#cmetz">Craig Metz</a>). To check
441 this, look for the string "otp-" in the greeting line. If you see it,
442 and your fetchmail was built with OPIE support compiled in (see the
443 distribution INSTALL file), fetchmail will detect it also. When using
444 OTP, you will specify a password but it will not be sent en clair.<P>
446 Sadly, there is at present (September 1999) no OTP or APOP-like
447 facility generally available on IMAP servers. However, there do exist
448 patches which will OTP-enable the University of Washington IMAP
449 daemon, version 4.2-FINAL. We have a report that the GSSAPI support
450 in fetchmail works with the GSSAPI support in the most recent version
451 of UW IMAP. Or you can use <a href="#K5">SSL</a> for complete
452 end-to-end encryption if you have an SSL-enabled mailserver.<P>
454 You can get both POP3 and IMAP OTP patches from <a name="cmetz">Craig
455 Metz</A>, over FTP via either
456 <a href="ftp://ftp.inner.net/pub/opie/patches">
457 ftp://ftp.inner.net/pub/opie/patches</a> (IPv4) or
458 <a href="ftp://ftp.ipv6.inner.net/pub/opie/patches">
459 ftp://ftp.ipv6.inner.net/pub/opie/patches</a> (IPv6).<P>
461 These patches use a SASL authentication method named "X-OTP" because there is
462 not currently a standard way to do this; fetchmail also uses this method, so
463 the two will interoperate happily. They better, because this is how Craig gets
466 (One important win of OTP is that it's not subject to U.S. export
470 <h2><a name="G9">G9. Is any special configuration needed to use a dynamic IP address?</a></h2>
472 Yes. In order to avoid giving indigestion to certain picky MTAs
473 (notably <a href="#T3">exim</a>), fetchmail always makes the RCPT TO
474 address it feeds the MTA a fully qualified one with a hostname part.
475 Normally it does this by appending @ and "localhost", but when you are
476 using Kerberos or ETRN mode it will append @ and your machine's
477 fully-qualified domain name (FQDN).<P>
479 Appending the FQDN can create problems when fetchmail is running in daemon
480 mode and outlasts the dynamic IP address assignment your client
481 machine had when it started up.<P>
483 Since the new IP address (looked up at RCPT TO interpretation time)
484 doesn't match the original, the most benign possible result is that
485 your MTA thinks it's seeing a relaying attempt and refuses. More
486 frequently, fetchmail will try to connect to a nonexistent host
487 address and time out. Worst case, you could up forwarding your mail
488 to the wrong machine!<P>
490 Use the <code>smtpaddress</code> option to force the appended hostname
491 to one with a (fixed) IP address of 127.0.0.1 in your
492 <code>/etc/hosts</code>. (The name `localhost' will usually work; or
493 you can use the IP address itself).<P>
495 Only one fetchmail option interacts directly with your IP address,
496 `<code>interface</code>'. This option can be used to set the gateway
497 device and restrict the IP address range fetchmail will use. Such a
498 restriction is sometimes useful for security reasons, especially on
499 multihomed sites. See <a href="#C3">C3</a>.<P>
501 I recommend against trying to set up the <code>interface</code> option
502 when initially developing your poll configuration -- it's never
503 necessary to do this just to get a link working. Get the link working
504 first, observe the actual address range you see on connections, and
505 add an <code>interface</code> option (if you need one) later.<P>
507 If you're using a dynamic-IP configuration, one other (non-fetchmail)
508 problem you may run into with outgoing mail is that some sites will
509 bounce your email because the hostname your giving them isn't real
510 (and doesn't match what they get doing a reverse DNS on your
511 dynamically-assigned IP address). If this happens, you need to hack
512 your sendmail so it masquerades as your host. Setting<P>
518 in your <code>sendmail.cf</code> will work, or you can set<P>
521 MASQUERADE_AS(smarthost.here)
524 in the m4 configuration and do a reconfigure. (In both cases, replace
525 <code>smarthost.here</code> with the actual name of your mailhost.)
526 See the <a href="http://www.lege.com/sendmail-FAQ.txt">sendmail
527 FAQ</a> for more details.<P>
530 <h2><a name="G10">G10. Is any special configuration needed to use firewalls?</a></h2>
532 No. You can use fetchmail with SOCKS, the standard tool for
533 indirecting TCP/IP through a firewall. You can find out about SOCKS,
534 and download the SOCKS software including server and client code, at
535 the <a href="http://www.socks.nec.com/">SOCKS distribution
538 The specific recipe for using fetchmail with a firewall is at <a
542 <h2><a name="B1">B1. Lex bombs out while building the fetchmail lexer.</a></h2>
544 In the immortal words of Alan Cox the last time this came up: ``Take
545 the Solaris lex and stick it up the backside of a passing Sun
546 salesman, then install <a
547 href="ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/ftp/pub/gnu">flex</a> and use that. All
548 will be happier.''<P>
550 I couldn't have put it better myself, and ain't going to try now.<P>
553 <h2><a name="G11">G11. Is any special configuration needed to <em>send</em> mail?</a></h2>
555 A user asks: but how do we send mail out to the POP3 server? Do I need
556 to implement another tool or will fetchmail do this too?<p>
558 Fetchmail only handles the receiving side. The sendmail or other
559 preinstalled MTA on your client machine will handle sending mail
560 automatically; it will ship mail that is submitted while the
561 connection is active, and put mail that is submitted while
562 the connection is inactive into the outgoing queue.<P>
564 Normally, sendmail is also run periodically (every 15 minutes on most
565 Linux systems) in a mode that tries to ship all the mail in the
566 outgoing queue. If you have set up something like pppd to
567 automatically dial out when your kernel is called to open a TCP/IP
568 connection, this will ensure that the mail gets out.<P>
571 <h2><a name="G12">G12. Is fetchmail Y2K-compliant?</a></h2>
573 Fetchmail is fully Y2K-compliant.<P>
575 Fetchmail could theoretically have problems when the 32-bit time_t
576 counters roll over in 2038, but I doubt it. Timestamps aren't used
577 for anything but log entry generation. Anyway, if you aren't running
578 on a 64-bit machine by then, you deserve to lose.<P>
581 <h2><a name="G13">G13. Is there a way in fetchmail to support disconnected IMAP mode?</a></H2>
583 No. Fetchmail is a mail transport agent, best understood as a protocol
584 gateway between POP3/IMAP servers and SMTP. Disconnected operation
585 requires an elaborate interactive client. It's a very different problem.<p>
588 <h2><a name="B2">B2. I get link failures when I try to build fetchmail.</a></h2>
590 If you get errors resembling these<P>
593 mxget.o(.text+0x35): undefined referenceto `__res_search'
594 mxget.o(.text+0x99): undefined reference to`__dn_skipname'
595 mxget.o(.text+0x11c): undefined reference to`__dn_expand'
596 mxget.o(.text+0x187): undefined reference to`__dn_expand'
597 make: *** [fetchmail] Error 1
600 then you must add "-lresolv" to the LOADLIBS line in your Makefile
601 once you have installed the `bind' package.<P>
604 <h2><a name="F1">F1. Why does my old .fetchmailrc file no longer work?</a></h2>
606 <h3>If your file predates 5.1.0</h3>
608 In 5.1.0, the <tt>auth</tt> keyword and option were changed to
611 <h3>If your file predates 4.5.5</h3>
613 If the <code>dns</code> option is on (the default), you may need to
614 make sure that any hostname you specify (for mail hosts or for an SMTP
615 target) is a canonical fully-qualified hostname). In order to avoid
616 DNS overhead and complications, fetchmail no longer tries to derive
617 the fetchmail client machine's canonical DNS name at startup.<P>
619 <h3>If your file predates 4.0.6:</h3>
621 Just after the `<CODE>via</CODE>' option was introduced, I realized
622 that the interactions between the `<CODE>via</CODE>',
623 `<CODE>aka</CODE>', and `<CODE>localdomains</CODE>' options were out
624 of control. Their behavior had become complex and confusing, so much so
625 that I was no longer sure I understood it myself. Users were being
626 unpleasantly surprised.<P>
628 Rather than add more options or crock the code, I re-thought it. The
629 redesign simplified the code and made the options more orthogonal, but
630 may have broken some complex multidrop configurations.
632 Any multidrop configurations that depended on the name just after the
633 `<CODE>poll</CODE>' or `<CODE>skip</CODE>' keyword being still
634 interpreted as a DNS name for address-matching purposes, even in the
635 presence of a `<CODE>via</CODE>' option, will break.<P>
637 It is theoretically possible that other unusual configurations (such
638 as those using a non-FQDN poll name to generate Kerberos IV tickets) might
639 also break; the old behavior was sufficiently murky that we can't be
640 sure. If you think this has happened to you, contact the maintainer.<P>
642 <h3>If your file predates 3.9.5:</h3>
644 The `<code>remote</code>' keyword has been changed to `<code>folder</code>'.
645 If you try to use the old keyword, the parser will utter a warning.<P>
647 <h3>If your file predates 3.9:</h3>
649 It could be because you're using a .fetchmailrc that's written in the
650 old popclient syntax without an explicit `<CODE>username</CODE>'
651 keyword leading the first user entry attached to a server entry.
653 This error can be triggered by having a user option such as `<CODE>keep</CODE>'
654 or `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>' before the first explicit username. For
655 example, if you write<p>
658 poll openmail protocol pop3
659 keep user "Hal DeVore" there is hdevore here
662 the `<CODE>keep</CODE>' option will generate an entire user entry with
663 the default username (the name of fetchmail's invoking user).<p>
665 The popclient compatibility syntax was removed in 4.0. It complicated
666 the configuration file grammar and confused users.<p>
668 <h3>If your file predates 2.8:</h3>
670 The `<CODE>interface</CODE>', `<CODE>monitor</CODE>' and
671 `<CODE>batchlimit</CODE>' options changed after 2.8.<p>
673 They used to be global options with `<CODE>set</CODE>' syntax like the
674 batchlimit and logfile options. Now they're per-server options, like
675 `<CODE>protocol</CODE>'.<p>
677 If you had something like<p>
680 set interface = "sl0/10.0.2.15"
683 in your .fetchmailrc file, simply delete that line and insert
684 `interface sl0/10.0.2.15' in the server options part of your `defaults'
687 Do similarly for any `<CODE>monitor</CODE>' or `<CODE>batchlimit</CODE>' options.<p>
690 <h2><a name="F2">F2. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept my all-numeric user name.</a></h2>
692 Either upgrade to a post-5.0.5 fetchmail or put string quotes around it. :-)<p>
694 The configuration file parser in older fetchmail versions treated any
695 all-numeric token as a number, which confused it when it was
696 expecting a name. String quoting forces the token's class.<p>
698 The lexical analyzer in 5.0.6 and beyond is smarter and assumes
699 any token following "username" or "password" is a string.
702 <h2><a name="F3">F3. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept my host or username beginning with `no'.</a></h2>
704 See <a href="#F2">F2</a> You're caught in an unfortunate crack between
705 the newer-style syntax for negated options (`no keep', `no rewrite'
706 etc.) and the older style run-on syntax (`nokeep', `norewrite'
709 Upgrade to a 5.0.6 or later fetchmail, or put string quotes around your
713 <h2><a name="F4">F4. I'm migrating from popclient. How do I need to modify my .poprc?</a></h2>
715 If you have been using popclient (the ancestor of this program)
716 at version 3.0b6 or later, start with this<p>
719 (cd; mv .poprc .fetchmailrc)
722 and do <code>fetchmail -V</code> to see if fetchmail's parser understands
723 your configuration.<p>
725 Be aware that some of popclient's unnecessary options have been
726 removed (see the NOTES file in the distribution for explanation). You
727 can't deliver to a local mail file or to standard output any more, and
728 using an MDA for delivery is discouraged. If you throw those options
729 away, fetchmail will now forward your mail into your system's normal
730 Internet-mail delivery path.<p>
732 Actually, using an MDA is now almost always the wrong thing; the MDA
733 facility has been retained only for people who can't or won't run a
734 sendmail-like SMTP listener on port 25. The default, SMTP forwarding
735 to port 25, is better for at least three major reasons. One: it feeds
736 retrieved POP and IMAP mail into your system's normal delivery path
737 along with local mail and normal Internet mail, so all your normal
738 filtering/aliasing/forwarding setup for local mail works. Two:
739 because the port 25 listener returns a positive acknowledge, fetchmail
740 can be sure you're not going to lose mail to a disk-full or some other
741 resource-exhaustion problem. Three: it means fetchmail doesn't have
742 to know where the system mailboxes are, or futz with file locking
743 (which makes two fewer places for it to potentially mess up).<p>
745 If you used to use <CODE>-mda "procmail -d</CODE>
746 <em><you></em><CODE>"</CODE> or something similar, forward to port
747 25 and do "<CODE>| procmail -d</CODE> <em><you></em><CODE>"</CODE> in
748 your ~/.forward file.<p>
750 As long as your new .fetchmailrc file does not use the removed
751 `localfolder' option or `<CODE>limit</CODE>' (which now takes a
752 maximum byte size rather than a line count), a straight move or copy
753 of your .poprc will often work. (The new run control file syntax also
754 has to be a little stricter about the order of options than the old,
755 in order to support multiple user descriptions per server; thus you
756 may have to rearrange things a bit.)<p>
758 Run control files in the minimal .poprc format (without the `username'
759 token) will trigger a warning. To eliminate this warning, add the
760 `<CODE>username</CODE>' keyword before your first user entry per server (it is
761 already required before second and subsequent user entries per server.<p>
763 In some future version the `<CODE>username</CODE>' keyword will be required.<p>
766 <h2><a name="F5">F5. I'm getting a `parse error' message I don't understand.</a></h2>
768 The most common cause of mysterious parse errors is putting a server
769 option after a user option. Check the manual page; you'll probably
770 find that by moving one or more options closer to the `poll' keyword
771 you can eliminate the problem.<p>
773 Yes, I know these ordering restrictions are hard to understand.
774 Unfortunately, they're necessary in order to allow the `defaults'
778 <h2><a name="C1">C1. Why do I need a .fetchmailrc when running as root on my own machine?</a></h2>
780 Ian T. Zimmerman <itz@rahul.net> asked:<p>
782 On the machine where I'm the only real user, I run fetchmail as root
783 from a cron job, like this:<p>
786 fetchmail -u "itz" -p POP3 -s bolero.rahul.net
789 This used to work as is (with no .fetchmailrc file in root's home
790 directory) with the last version I had (1.7 or 1.8, I don't
791 remember). But with 2.0, it RECPs all mail to the local root user,
792 unless I create a .fetchmailrc in root's home directory containing:<p>
795 skip bolero.rahul.net proto POP3
799 It won't work if the second line is just "<CODE>user itz</CODE>". This is silly.<p>
801 It seems fetchmail decides to RECP the `default local user' (i.e. the
802 uid running fetchmail) unless there are local aliases, and the
803 `default' aliases (itz->itz) don't count. They should.<p>
807 No they shouldn't. I thought about this for a while, and I don't much
808 like the conclusion I reached, but it's unavoidable. The problem is
809 that fetchmail has no way to know, in general, that a local user `itz'
812 "Ah!" you say, "Why doesn't it check the password file to see if the remote
813 name matches a local one?" Well, there are two reasons.<p>
815 One: it's not always possible. Suppose you have an SMTP host declared
816 that's not the machine fetchmail is running on? You lose.<p>
818 Two: How do you know server itz and SMTP-host itz are the same person?
819 They might not be, and fetchmail shouldn't assume they are unless
820 local-itz can explicitly produce credentials to prove it (that is, the
821 server-itz password in local-itz's .fetchmailrc file.).<p>
823 Once you start running down possible failure modes and thinking about
824 ways to tinker with the mapping rules, you'll quickly find that all the
825 alternatives to the present default are worse or unacceptably
826 more complicated or both.<p>
829 <h2><a name="C2">C2. How can I arrange for a fetchmail daemon to get killed when I log out?</a></h2>
831 The easiest way to dispatch fetchmail on logout (which will work
832 reliably only if you have just one login going at any time) is to
833 arrange for the command `fetchmail -q' to be called on logout. Under
834 bash, you can arrange this by putting `fetchmail -q' in the file
835 `~/.bash_logout'. Most csh variants execute `~/.logout' on logout.
836 For other shells, consult your shell manual page.<p>
838 Automatic startup/shutdown of fetchmail is a little harder to arrange
839 if you may have multiple login sessions going. In the contrib
840 subdirectory of the fetchmail distribution there is some shell code
841 you can add to your .bash_login and .bash_logout profiles that will
842 accomplish this. Thank James Laferriere <babydr@nwrain.net> for
845 Some people start up and shut down fetchmail using the ppp-up and
846 ppp-down scripts of pppd.<p>
849 <h2><a name="C3">C3. How do I know what interface and address to use with --interface?</a></h2>
851 This depends a lot on your local networking configuration (and right
852 now you can't use it at all except under Linux). However, here are
853 some important rules of thumb that can help. If they don't work, ask
854 your local sysop or your Internet provider.<p>
856 First, you may not need to use --interface at all. If your machine
857 only ever does SLIP or PPP to one provider, it's almost certainly by a
858 point to point modem connection to your provider's local subnet that's
859 pretty secure against snooping (unless someone can tap your phone or
860 the provider's local subnet!). Under these circumstances, specifying
861 an interface address is fairly pointless.<p>
863 What the option is really for is sites that use more than one
864 provider. Under these circumstances, typically one of your provider
865 IP addresses is your mailserver (reachable fairly securely via the
866 modem and provider's subnet) but the others might ship your packets
867 (including your password) over unknown portions of the general
868 Internet that could be vulnerable to snooping. What you'll use
869 --interface for is to make sure your password only goes over the
872 To determine the device:<p>
875 <li> If you're using a SLIP link, the correct device is probably sl0.
876 <li> If you're using a PPP link, the correct device is probably ppp0.
877 <li> If you're using a direct connection over a local network such as
878 an ethernet, use the command `netstat -r' to look at your routing table.
879 Try to match your mailserver name to a destination entry; if you don't
880 see it in the first column, use the `default' entry. The device name
881 will be in the rightmost column.
884 To determine the address and netmask:<p>
887 <li> If you're talking to slirp, the correct address is probably 10.0.2.15,
888 with no netmask specified. (It's possible to configure slirp to present
889 other addresses, but that's the default.)
891 <li> If you have a static IP address, run `ifconfig <device>', where <device>
892 is whichever one you've determined. Use the IP address given after
893 "inet addr:". That is the IP address for your end of the link, and is
894 what you need. You won't need to specify a netmask.
896 <li> If you have a dynamic IP address, your connection IP will vary randomly
897 over some given range (that is, some number of the least significant bits
898 change from connection to connection). You need to declare an address
899 with the variable bits zero and a complementary netmask that sets
903 To illustrate the rule for dynamic IP addresses, let's suppose you're
904 hooked up via SLIP and your IP provider tells you that the dynamic
905 address pool is 255 addresses ranging from 205.164.136.1 to
906 205.164.136.255. Then<p>
909 interface "sl0/205.164.136.0/255.255.255.0"
912 would work. To range over any value of the last two octets
913 (65536 addresses) you would use<p>
916 interface "sl0/205.164.0.0/255.255.0.0"
920 <h2><a name="C4">C4. How can I set up support for sendmail's anti-spam features?</a></h2>
922 This answer covers versions of sendmail from 8.8.7 (the version
923 installed in Red Hat 5.1) upwards. If you have an older version,
924 upgrade to sendmail 8.9.<P>
926 Stock sendmails can now do anti-spam exclusions based on a database of
927 filter rules. The human-readable form of the database is at
928 <tt>/etc/mail/deny</tt>. The database itself is at
929 <tt>/etc/mail/deny.db</tt>.<P>
931 The table itself uses email addresses, domain names, and network
932 numbers as keys. For example,</P>
934 spammer@aol.com REJECT
935 cyberspammer.com REJECT
938 <P>would refuse mail from spammer@aol.com, any user from
939 cyberspammer.com (or any host within the cyberspammer.com domain), and
940 any host on the 192.168.212.* network. (This feature can be used to
941 do other things as well; see the <a
942 href="http://www.sendmail.org/m4/anti-spam.html">sendmail
943 documentation</a> for details)</P>
945 To actually set up the database, run
948 makemap hash deny <deny
952 To test, send a message to your mailing address from that host and
953 then pop off the message with fetchmail, using the -v argument. You
954 can monitor the SMTP transaction, and when the FROM address is parsed,
955 if sendmail sees that it is an address in spamlist, fetchmail will
956 flush and delete it.<p>
958 Under no circumstances put your <strong>mailhost</strong> or <strong>any host
959 you accept mail from</strong> using fetchmail into your reject file. You
960 <strong>will</strong> lose mail if you do this!!!<p>
963 <h2><a name="T1">T1. How can I use fetchmail with sendmail?</a></h2>
965 For most sendmails, no special configuration is required. Eric Allman
966 tells me that if <code>FEATURE(always_add_domain)</code> is included
967 in sendmail's configuration, you can leave the <code>rewrite</code>
970 If your sendmail complains ``sendmail does not relay'', make sure
971 your sendmail,cf file says
977 so that sendmail recognizes `localhost' as a name of its host.<p>
979 If you're mailing from another machine on your local network, also
980 ensure that its IP address is listed in ip_allow or name in name_allow
981 (usually in /etc/mail/)<p>
983 If you find that your sendmail doesn't like the address
984 `FETCHMAIL-DAEMON@localhost' (which is used in the bouncemail
985 that fetchmail generates), you may have to set
986 <code>FEATURE(accept_unqualified_senders)</code>.<P>
988 Günther Leber reports that Digital Unix sendmails won't work with
989 fetchmail. The symptom is an error message "<code>553 Local configuration
990 error, hostname not recognized as local</code>". The problem is that
991 fetchmail normally feeds sendmail with the client machine's host
992 address in the MAIL FROM line. These sendmails think this means
993 they're seeing the result of a mail loop and suppress the mail. You
994 may be able to work around this by running in <code>--invisible</code> mode.<P>
996 If you want to support multidrop mode, and you can get access to your
997 mailserver's sendmail.cf file, it's a good idea to add this rule:<P>
1000 H?l?Delivered-To: $u
1003 and declare `<CODE>envelope "Delivered-To:"</CODE>'. This will cause the
1004 mailserver's sendmail to reliably write the appropriate envelope
1005 address into each message before fetchmail sees it, and tell fetchmail
1006 which header it is. With this change, multidrop mode should work
1007 reliably even when the Received header omits the envelope address
1008 (which will typically be the case when the message has multiple
1012 <h2><a name="T2">T2. How can I use fetchmail with qmail?</a></h2>
1014 Turn on the <CODE>forcecr</CODE> option; qmail's listener mode doesn't like
1015 header or message lines terminated with bare linefeeds.<p>
1017 (This information is thanks to Robert de Bath
1018 <robert@mayday.cix.co.uk>.)<p>
1020 If a mailhost is using the qmail package (see <a
1021 href="http://pobox.com/~djb/qmail.html">http://pobox.com/~djb/qmail.html</a>)
1022 then, providing the local hosts are also using qmail, it is possible
1023 to set up one fetchmail link to be reliably collect the mail for an
1026 One of the basic features of qmail is the `Delivered-To:' message
1027 header. Whenever qmail delivers a message to a local mailbox it puts
1028 the username and hostname of the envelope recipient on this line. The
1029 major reason for this is to prevent mail loops. <p>
1031 To set up qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site the ISP-mailhost
1032 will have normally put that site in its `virtualhosts' control file so
1033 it will add a prefix to all mail addresses for this site. This results
1034 in mail sent to 'username@userhost.userdom.dom.com' having a
1035 'Delivered-To:' line of the form:<p>
1038 Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.userdom.dom.com
1041 A single host maildrop will be slightly simpler:
1044 Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.dom.com
1047 The ISP can make the 'mbox-userstr-' prefix anything they choose
1048 but a string matching the user host name is likely.<p>
1050 To use this line you must:<p>
1053 <li>Ensure the option `envelope Delivered-To:' is in the fetchmail
1056 <li>Ensure you have a localdomains containing 'userdom.dom.com' or
1057 `userhost.dom.com' respectively.
1060 So far this reliably delivers messages to the correct machine of the
1061 local network, to deliver to the correct user the 'mbox-userstr-'
1062 prefix must be stripped off of the user name. This can be done by
1063 setting up an alias within the qmail MTA on each local machine.
1064 Simply create a dot-qmail file called '.qmail-mbox-userstr-default'
1065 in the alias directory (normally /var/qmail/alias) with the contents:<p>
1068 | ../bin/qmail-inject -a -f"$SENDER" "${LOCAL#mbox-userstr-}@$HOST"
1071 Note this <em>does</em> require a modern /bin/sh.<p>
1073 Peter Wilson adds: <P>
1075 ``My ISP uses "alias-unzzippedcom-" as the prefix, which means that I
1076 need to name my file ".qmail-unzzippedcom-default". This is due to
1077 qmail's assumption that a message sent to user-xyz is handled by the
1078 file ~user/.qmail-xyz (or ~user/.qmail-default).''<p>
1080 Luca Olivetti adds:<P>
1082 If you aren't using qmail locally, or you don't want to set up the
1083 alias mechanism described above, you can use the option `<code>qvirtual
1084 "mbox-userstr-"</code>' in your fetchmail config file to strip the prefix
1085 from the local user name.<p>
1088 <h2><a name="T3">T3. How can I use fetchmail with exim?</a></h2><p>
1090 If you have <CODE>rewrite</CODE> on: <P>
1092 There is an RFC1123 requirement that MAIL FROM and RCPT TO addresses
1093 you pass to it have to be canonical (e.g. with a fully qualified
1094 hostname part). Therefore fetchmail tries to pass fully qualified
1095 RCPT TO addresses. But exim does not by default accept `localhost' as
1096 a fully qualified domain. This can be fixed.<P>
1098 In exim.conf, add `localhost' to your local_domains declaration if it's not
1099 already present. For example, the author's site at thyrsus.com would
1100 have a line reading:<P>
1103 local_domains = thyrsus.com:localhost
1106 If you have <CODE>rewrite</CODE> off:<P>
1108 MAIL FROM is a potential problem if the MTAs upstream from your fetchmail
1109 don't necessarily pass canonicalized From and Return-Path addresses,
1110 and fetchmail's <CODE>rewrite</CODE> option is off. The specific case
1111 where this has come up involves bounce messages generated by sendmail
1112 on your mailer host, which have the (un-canonicalized) origin address
1115 The right way to fix this is to enable the <CODE>rewrite</CODE> option and
1116 have fetchmail canonicalize From and Return-Path addresses with the
1117 mailserver hostname before exim sees them. This option is enabled by
1118 default, so it won't be off unless you turned it off.<p>
1120 If you must run with <CODE>rewrite</CODE> off, there is a switch in exim's
1121 configuration files that allows it to accept domainless MAIL FROM
1122 addresses; you will have to flip it by putting the line <p>
1125 sender_unqualified_hosts = localhost
1128 in the main section of the exim configuration file. Note that this
1129 will result in such messages having an incorrect domain name attached
1130 to their return address (your SMTP listener's hostname rather than
1131 that of the remote mail server). <p>
1134 <h2><a name="T4">T4. How can I use fetchmail with smail?</a></h2><p>
1136 Smail 3.2 is very nearly plug-compatible with sendmail, and may work
1137 fine out of the box.<P>
1139 We have one report that when processing multiple messages from a
1140 single fetchmail session, smail sometimes delivers them in an
1141 order other than received-date order. This can be annoying because it
1142 scrambles conversational threads. This is not fetchmail's problem,
1143 it is an smail `feature' and has been reported to the maintainers
1146 Very recent smail versions require an <code>-smtp_hello_verify</code>
1147 option in the smail config file. This overrides smail's check to see
1148 that the HELO address is actually that of the client machine, which
1149 is never going to be the case when fetchmail is in the picture.
1150 According to RFC1123 an SMTP listener <em>must</em> allow this
1151 mismatch, so smail's new behavior (introduced sometime between
1152 3.2.0.90 and 3.2.0.95) is a bug.<P>
1155 <h2><a name="T5">T5. How can I use fetchmail with SCO's MMDF?</a></h2><p>
1157 MMDF itself is difficult to configure, but it turns out that
1158 connecting fetchmail to MMDF's SMTP channel isn't that hard.
1160 href="http://www.aplawrence.com/Unixart/uucptofetch.html">
1161 MMDF recipe</a> that describes replacing a UUCP link with
1162 fetchmail feeding MMDF.<P>
1165 <h2><a name="T6">T6. How can I use fetchmail with Lotus Notes?</a></h2><p>
1167 The Lotus Notes SMTP gateway tries to deduce when it should convert \n
1168 to \r\n, but its rules are not the intuitive and correct-for-RFC822
1169 ones. Use `forcecr'.<P>
1172 <h2><a name="S1">S1. How can I use fetchmail with qpopper?</a></h2>
1174 Qualcomm's qpopper is probably the best-of-breed among POP3 servers, and
1175 is very widely deployed. Nevertheless, it has some problems which
1176 fetchmail exposes. We recommend using <a href="#G7">IMAP</a> instead if at
1177 all possible. If you must talk to qpopper, here are some problems to
1180 <h3>Problems with retrieving large messages from qpopper 2.53</h3>
1182 Tony Tang <a href="mailto:tony@atn.com.hk"><tony@atn.com.hk></a>
1183 reports that there is a bad intercation between fetchmail and qpopper
1184 2.5.3 under Red Hat Linux versions 5.0 to 5.2, kernels 2.0.34 to
1185 2.0.35. When fetching very large messages (over 700K) from 2.5.3,
1186 fetchmail will hang with a socket error.<p>
1188 This is probably not a fetchmail bug, but rather a symptom of some
1189 problem in the networking stack that qpopper's transmission pattern is
1190 tickling, as fetchpop (another Linux POP client) also displays the hang
1191 but Netscape running under Win95 does not. The problem can also be
1193 href="http://www.eudora.com/freeware/qpop.html">upgrading to qpopper
1196 <h3>Bad interaction with fetchmail 4.4.2 to 4,4.7</h3>
1198 Versions of fetchmail from 4.4.2 through 4.4.7 had a bad interaction
1199 with Eudora qpopper versions 2.3 and later. See <a href="#X5">X5</a>
1200 for details. The solution is to upgrade your fetchmail.<p>
1203 <h2><a name="S2">S2. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft Exchange?</a></h2>
1205 Fetchmail now supports the proprietary NTLM mode used with M$ Exchange
1206 servers. To enable this, configure fetchmail with the --enable-NTLM
1207 option and recompile it.<P>
1209 M$ Exchange violates the POP3 RFCs. Its LIST command does not reveal
1210 the real sizes of mail in the pop mailbox, but the sizes of the
1211 compressed versions in the exchange mail database (thanks to Arjan De
1212 Vet and Guido Van Rooij for alerting us to this problem).<P>
1214 Fetchmail works with M$ Exchange, despite this brain damage. Two
1215 features are compromised. One is that the --limit option will not
1216 work right (it will check against compressed and not actual sizes).
1217 The other is that a too-small SIZE argument may be passed to your
1218 ESMTP listener, assuming you're using one (this should not be a
1219 problem unless the actual size of the message is above the listener's
1220 configured length limit).<P>
1222 Somewhat belatedly, I've learned that there's supposed to be a
1223 registry bit that can fix this breakage:<P>
1226 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MsExchangeIs\Parameters
1227 System\Pop3 Compatibility
1230 This is a bitmask that controls the variations from the standard protocol.
1231 The bits defined are:<P>
1235 <DD>Report exact message sizes for the LIST command
1237 <DD>Allow arbitrary linear whitespace between commands and arguments
1239 <DD>Enable the LAST command
1241 <DD>Allow an empty PASS command (needed for users with blank
1242 passwords, but illegal in the protocol)
1244 <DD>Relax the length restrictions for arguments to commands (protocol
1245 requires 40, but some user names may be longer than that).
1247 <DD>Allow spaces in the argument to the USER command.
1250 There's another one that may be useful to know about:<P>
1253 KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MsExchangeIs\Parameters
1254 System\Pop3 Performance
1259 <DD>Render messages to a temporary stream instead of sending directly
1260 from the database (should always be on)
1262 Flag unrenderable messages (instead of just failing commands)
1263 (should only be on if you are seeing the problems reported
1266 <DD>Return from the QUIT command before all messages have been deleted.
1269 The Microsoft pod-person who revealed this information to me admitted
1270 that he couldn't find it anywhere in their public knowledge base.<P>
1272 You can mess with these bits. Or, better yet, you can lose that
1273 brain-dead Microsoft crap and install a real operating system on your
1277 <h2><a name="S3">S3. How can I use fetchmail with CompuServe RPA?</a></h2>
1279 First, make sure your fetchmail has the RPA support compiled in.
1280 Stock fetchmail binaries (such as you might get from an RPM) don't.
1281 You can check this by looking at the output of <code>fetchmail -V</code>;
1282 if you see the string "+RPA" after the version ID you're good to go,
1283 otherwise you'll have to build your own from sources (see the INSTALL
1284 file in the source distribution for directions).<P>
1286 Give your CompuServe pass-phrase in lower case as your password. Add
1287 `@compuserve.com' to your user ID so that it looks like `user
1288 <UserID>@compuserve.com', where <UserID> can be either
1289 your numerical userID or your E-mail nickname. An RPA-enabled
1290 fetchmail will automatically check for csi.com in the POP server's
1291 greeting line. If that's found, and your user ID ends with
1292 `@compuserve.com', it will query the server to see if it
1293 is RPA-capable, and if so do an RPA transaction rather than a
1294 plain-text password handshake.<P>
1296 <strong>Warning:</strong> the debug (-v -v) output of fetchmail will show
1297 your pass-phrase in Unicode!<P>
1299 These two .fetchmailrc entries show the difference between an RPA and
1300 non-RPA configuration:
1303 # This version will use RPA
1304 poll csi.com via "pop.site1.csi.com" with proto POP3 and options no dns
1305 user "CSERVE_USER@compuserve.com" there with password "CSERVE_PASSWORD"
1306 is LOCAL_USER here options fetchall stripcr
1308 # This version will not use RPA
1309 poll non-rpa.csi.com via "pop.site1.csi.com" with proto POP3 and options no dns
1310 user "CSERVE_USER" there with password "CSERVE_POP3_PASSWORD"
1311 is LOCAL_USER here options fetchall stripcr
1315 <h2><a name="S4">S4. How can I use fetchmail with Demon Internet's SDPS?</a></h2>
1317 <h3>Single-drop mode</h3>
1319 You can get fetchmail to download the email for just one user from
1320 Demon Internet's POP3 server by giving it a username consisting of your
1321 Demon user name followed by your account name, with an at-sign between
1324 For example, to download email for the user <philh@vision25.demon.co.uk>,
1325 you could use the following .fetchmailrc file:<P>
1328 set postmaster "philh"
1329 poll pop3.demon.co.uk with protocol POP3:
1330 user "philh@vision25" is philh
1333 <h3>Multi-drop mode</h3>
1335 Demon Internet's SDPS service is an implementation of POP3. All messages
1336 have a Received: header added when they enter the maildrop, like this:
1339 Received: from punt-1.mail.demon.net by mailstore for fred@xyz.demon.co.uk
1340 id 899963657:10:27896:0; Thu, 09 Jul 98 05:54:17 GMT
1343 To enable multi-drop mode you need to tell fetchmail that 'mailstore' is
1344 the name of the host which accepted the mail, and let it know the
1345 hostname part(s) of your E-mail address. The following example assumes
1346 that your hostname is xyz.demon.co.uk, and that you have also bought
1347 "mail forwarding" for the domain my-company.co.uk (in which case your
1348 MTA must also be configured to accept mail sent to user@my-company.co.uk)
1351 poll pop3.demon.co.uk proto pop3 aka mailstore no dns:
1352 localdomains xyz.demon.co.uk my-company.co.uk
1353 user xyz is * fetchall
1356 The `fetchall' command ensures that all mail is downloaded. If you
1357 want to leave mail on the server use `uidl' and `keep'; Demon does not
1358 implement the obsolete `top' command, because SDPS combines messages
1359 residing on two separate punt clusters into a single POP3 maildrop.
1360 If you do use UIDL, be aware that the "user@host" form for fetching
1361 mail from a particular Demon host will confuse fetchmail's UIDL code;
1364 Note that Demon may delete mail on the server which is more than 30
1365 days old; see their <a
1366 href="http://www.demon.net/services/mail/pop3.html">POP3 page</a> for
1369 <h3>The SDPS extension</h3>
1371 There's a different way to do multidrop. It's not necessary on Demon
1372 Internet, since fetchmail can parse Received addresses, but the person
1373 who implemented this didn't know that. It may be useful if Demon
1374 Internet ever changes mail transports.<P>
1376 SDPS includes a non-standard extension for retrieving the envelope of a
1377 message (*ENV), which fetchmail optionally supports if compiled with the
1378 --enable-SDPS option. If you have it, the first line of the fetchmail -V
1379 response will include the string "+SDPS".<P>
1381 Once you have SDPS compiled in, fetchmail in POP3 mode will
1382 automatically detect when it's talking to a Demon Internet host in
1383 multidrop mode, and use the *ENV extension to get an envelope To address.<P>
1385 The autodetection works by looking at the hostname in the POP3
1386 greeting line; if you're accessing Demon Internet through a proxy it
1387 may fail. To force SDPS mode, pick "sdps" as your protocol.<P>
1390 <h2><a name="S5">S5. How can I use fetchmail with usa.net's servers?</a></h2>
1392 Enable `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>'. A user reports that the 2.2 version
1393 of USA.NET's POP server reports that you must use the
1394 `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>' option to make sure that all of the mail is
1395 retrieved, otherwise some may be left on the server. This is almost
1396 certainly a server bug.<P>
1398 The usa.net servers (at least in their 2.2 version, June 1998) don't
1399 handle the TOP command properly, either. Regardless of the argument
1400 you give it, they retrieve only about 10 lines of the message.
1401 Fetchmail normally uses TOP for message retrieval in order to avoid
1402 marking messages seen, but `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>' forces it to use
1405 (Note: Other failure modes have been reported on usa.net's servers.
1406 They seem to be chronically flaky. We recommend finding another
1410 <h2><a name="S6">S6. How can I use fetchmail with HP OpenMail?</a></h2>
1412 No special configuration is required, but OpenMail versions prior to
1413 6.0 have an annoying bug similar to the big one in <a
1414 href="#S2">Microsoft Exchange</a>. The message sizes it gives in the
1415 LIST are rounded to the nearest 1024 bytes. It also has a nasty habit
1416 of discarding headers it doesn't recognize, such as X- and Resent-
1419 As with M$ Exchange, the only real fix for these problems is to get a
1420 POP (or preferably IMAP) server that isn't brain-dead. OpenMail's
1421 project manager claims these bugs have been fixed in 6.0.<P>
1424 <h2><a name="S8">S8. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail?</a></h2>
1426 You can't, yet. But Hugo Rabson has written a script called `hotmole'
1427 that can retrieve Hotmail mail via the web using Lynx. The script
1429 href="http://www.jin-sei-kai.demon.co.uk/hugo/linux.html">
1430 Hugo Rabson's Linux page</a>.<P>
1433 <h2><a name="S9">S9. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?</a></h2>
1435 You can't. MSN uses something that looks like POP3, except the
1436 authentication part is nonstandard. And of course they don't
1437 document it, so nobody but their Windows clients can speak it.<p>
1439 This is a customer lock-in tactic; we recommend boycotting MSN as the
1440 only appropriate response.<p>
1442 As of 5.0.8, we have support for the client side of NTLM
1443 authentication. It's possible this may enable fetchmail to talk to
1444 MSN; if so, somebody should report it so this FAQ can be corrected.<p>
1447 <h2><a name="S10">S10. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?</a></h2>
1449 The SpryNet POP3 servers mark a message queried with TOP as seen.
1450 This means that if your connection drops in mid-message, it may end
1451 up invisibly stuck on your mail spool. Use the <code>fetchall</code>
1452 flag to ensure that it's recovered on the next cycle.<p>
1455 <h2><a name="S11">S11. How can I use fetchmail with FTGate?</a></h2>
1457 The FTGate V2 server (and possibly older versions as well) has a weird
1458 bug. It answers OK twice to a TOP request! Use the
1459 <code>fetchall</code> option to force use of RETR and work around this
1463 <h2><a name="S12">S12. How can I use fetchmail with MailMax?</a></h2>
1465 You can't. At least not if you want to be able to see attachments.
1466 MailMax has a bug; it reports the message length with attachments
1467 but doesn't download them on TOP or RETR. <p>
1470 <h2><a name="S10">S10. How can I use fetchmail with Novell GroupWise?</a></h2>
1472 The Novell GroupWise IMAP server would be better named GroupFoolish;
1473 it is (according to the designer of IMAP) unusably broken. Among
1474 other things, it doesn't include a required content length in its
1475 BODY[TEXT] response.<p>
1477 Fetchmail works around this problem, but we strongly recommend voting
1478 with your dollars for a server that isn't brain-dead. If you stick
1479 with code as shoddy as GroupWise seems to be, you will probably pay
1480 for it with other problems.<p>
1483 <h2><a name="K1">K1. How can I use fetchmail with SOCKS?</a></h2>
1485 Daniel Sobral <<a href="mailto:dcs@gns.com.br">dcs@gns.com.br</a>
1486 gave us the following recipe:<P>
1489 <LI> Install socks5. You don't need to have a socks server, you just
1490 want the "runsocks" program.
1491 <LI> Set the environment variable SOCKS_SERVER to the server you'll be
1492 using. Alternatively, you may set SOCKS4_SERVER and/or
1493 SOCKS5_SERVER. E.g.:
1495 export SOCKS5_SERVER=socks.my.domain.com
1497 <LI> Set SOCKS5_USER and SOCKS5_PASSWD if needed.
1498 <LI> Run fetchmail through runsocks. Just like this:
1500 runsocks fetchmail [parameters to fetchmail]
1504 It wasn't that hard, was it? :-)<P>
1506 Giuseppe Guerini added a --with-socks option that supports linking
1507 with socks library. If you specify the value of this option as
1508 ``yes'', the configure script will try to find the Rconnect library
1509 and set the makefile up to link it. You can also specify a directory
1510 containing the Rconnect library.<p>
1513 <h2><a name="S7">S7. How can I use fetchmail with geocities POP3 servers?</a></h2>
1515 Nathan Cutler reports that the the mail.geocities.com POP3 servers
1516 fail to include the first Received line of the message in the send to
1517 fetchmail. This can solve problems if your MUA interprets Received
1518 continuations as body lines and doesn't parse any of the following
1521 Workaround is to use "mda" keyword or "-mda" switch:
1523 mda "sed -e '1s/^\t/Received: /' | formail | /usr/bin/procmail -d <user>"
1525 Replace \t with exactly one tabulation character.
1527 You should also consider using "fetchall" option because Geocities' servers
1528 sometimes think that the first 45 messages have already been read.<P>
1530 Fix: Get an email provider that doesn't suck. The pop-up ads on
1531 Geocities are lame, you should boycott them anyway.<P>
1534 <h2><a name="K2">K2. How can I use fetchmail with IPv6 and IPsec?</a></h2>
1536 To use fetchmail with IPv6, you need a system that supports IPv6, the "Basic
1537 Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6" (RFC 2133), and the inet6-apps kit.
1538 This currently means that you need to have a BSD/OS or NetBSD system with
1539 the NRL IPv6+IPsec software distribution or a Linux system with the latest
1540 experimental kernel and net-tools. It should not be hard to build fetchmail on
1541 other IPv6 implementations if you can port the inet6-apps kit.<P>
1543 To use fetchmail with networking security (read: IPsec), you need a system that
1544 supports IPsec, the API described in the "Network Security API for Sockets"
1545 (draft-metz-net-security-api-01.txt), and the inet6-apps kit. This currently
1546 means that you need to have a BSD/OS or NetBSD system with the NRL IPv6+IPsec
1547 software distribution. A Linux IPsec implementation supporting this API will
1548 probably appear in the coming months.<P>
1550 The NRL IPv6+IPsec software distribution can be obtained from: <a
1551 href="http://web.mit.edu/network/isakmp">http://web.mit.edu/network/isakmp</a>
1554 The inet6-apps kit can be obtained from <a
1555 href="ftp://ftp.ipv6.inner.net/pub/ipv6">ftp://ftp.ipv6.inner.net/pub/ipv6</a>
1556 (via IPv6) or <a href="ftp://ftp.inner.net/pub/ipv6">
1557 ftp://ftp.inner.net/pub/ipv6</a> (via IPv4).<P>
1559 More information on using IPv6 with Linux can be obtained from:
1562 <a href="http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html">
1563 http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html</a>
1565 <a href="http://www.ipv6.inner.net/ipv6">http://www.ipv6.inner.net/ipv6</a>
1568 <a href="http://www.inner.net/ipv6">http://www.inner.net/ipv6</a> (via IPv4)
1572 <h2><a name="K3">K3. How can I get fetchmail to work with ssh?</a></h2>
1574 We have three recipes for this. The first is easy to set up,
1575 but only supports one user at a time.<P>
1577 First, a lightly edited version of a recipe from Masafumi NAKANE:<p>
1579 1. You must have ssh (the ssh client) on the local host and sshd (ssh
1580 server) on the remote mail server. And you have to configure ssh so
1581 you can login to the sshd server host without a password. (Refer to ssh
1582 man page for several authentication methods.)<p>
1584 2. Add something like following to your .fetchmailrc file: <p>
1587 poll mailhost port 1234 via localhost with proto pop3:
1588 preconnect "ssh -f -L 1234:mailhost:110 mailhost sleep 20
1589 </dev/null >/dev/null; sleep 5";
1592 The sleep is needed on slower machines to prevent fetchmail from
1593 trying to open the socket before ssh actually makes it ready. Faster
1594 machines may not need it.<p>
1596 (Note that 1234 can be an arbitrary port number. Privileged ports can
1597 be specified only by root.) The effect of this ssh command is to
1598 forward connections made to localhost port 1234 (in above example) to
1601 This configuration will enable secure mail transfer. All the
1602 conversation between fetchmail and remote pop server will be
1605 If sshd is not running on the remote mail server, you can specify
1606 intermediate host running it. If you do this, however, communication
1607 between the machine running sshd and the POP server will not be encrypted.
1608 And the preconnect line would be like this:<p>
1611 preconnect "ssh -f -L 1234:mailhost:110 sshdhost sleep 20 </dev/null >/dev/null"
1614 You can work this trick with IMAP too, but the port number 110 in the
1615 above would need to become 143.<p>
1617 Second, a recipe from Charlie Brady <cbrady@ind.tansu.com.au>:<p>
1619 Charlie says: "The [previous] recipe certainly works, but
1620 the solution I post here is better in a few respects":
1623 <LI>this method will not fail if two or more users attempt to use fetchmail
1625 <LI>you are able to use the full facilities of tcpd to control access
1626 <LI>this method does not depend on the preconnect feature of fetchmail, so
1627 can be used for tunneling of other services as well.
1634 Make sure that the "socket" program is installed on the server
1635 machine. Presently it lives at <a
1636 href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/system/network/misc/socket-1.1.tar.gz">
1637 ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/system/network/misc/socket-1.1.tar.gz</a>,
1638 but watch out for a change in version number.<P>
1640 Set up an unprivileged account on your system with a .ssh directory
1641 containing an SSH identity file "identity" with no pass phrase,
1642 "identity.pub" and "known_hosts" containing the host key of your
1643 mailhost. Let's call this account "noddy".
1645 On mailhost, set up no-password access for noddy@yourhost. Add to your
1646 SSH authorized_keys file:
1649 command="socket localhost 110",no-port-forwarding 1024 ......
1652 where "<code>1024</code> ......" is the content of noddy's identity.pub file.
1654 Create a script /usr/local/bin/ssh.fm and make it executable:
1658 exec ssh -q -C -l your.login.id -e none mailhost socket localhost 110
1661 Add an entry in inetd.conf for whatever port you choose to use - say:
1664 1234 stream tcp nowait noddy /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/bin/ssh.fm
1667 Send a HUP signal to your inetd.
1670 Now just use localhost:1234 to access your POP server.<P>
1672 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>
1675 <h2><a name="K4">K4. What do I have to do to use the IMAP-GSS protocol?</a></h2>
1677 Fetchmail can use RFC1731 GSSAPI authorization to safely identify you
1678 to your IMAP server, as long as you can share Kerberos V credentials
1679 with your mail host and you have a GSSAPI-capable IMAP server.
1680 UW-IMAP (available via FTP at <a
1681 href="ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/mail/">ftp.cac.washington.edu</a>)
1682 is the only one I'm aware of and the one I recommend anyway for other
1683 reasons. You'll need version 4.1-FINAL or greater though, and it has
1684 to have GSS support compiled in.<p>
1686 Neither UW-IMAP nor fetchmail compile in support for GSS by default, since
1687 it requires libraries from the Kerberos V distribution (available via FTP at
1688 <a href="ftp://athena-dist.mit.edu/pub/ATHENA/kerberos">athena-dist.mit.edu</a>
1689 but mind the export restrictions). If you have these, compiling in GSS support
1690 is simple: add a <pre>--with-gssapi=[/path/to/krb5/root]</pre> option to
1691 configure. For instance, I have all of my Kerberos V libraries installed under
1692 /usr/krb5 so I run <pre>configure --with-gssapi=/usr/krb5</pre><p>
1694 Setting up Kerberos V authentication is beyond the scope of this FAQ
1695 (you may find Jim Rome's paper <a
1696 href="http://www.ornl.gov/~jar/HowToKerb.html"> How to Kerberize your
1697 site</a> helpful), but you'll at least need to add a credential for
1698 imap/[mailhost] to the keytab of the mail server (IMAP doesn't just
1699 use the host key). Then you'll need to have your credentials ready on
1700 your machine (cf. kinit).<p>
1702 After that things are very simple. Set your protocol to imap-gss in your
1703 .fetchmailrc, and omit the password, since imap-gss doesn't need one. You
1704 can specify a username if you want, but this is only useful if your mailbox
1705 belongs to a username different from your Kerberos principal. <p>
1707 Now you don't have to worry about your password appearing in cleartext in
1708 your .fetchmailrc, or across the network.<p>
1711 <h2><a name="K5">K5. How can I use fetchmail with SSL?</a></h2>
1713 You'll need to have the <a href="http://www.openssl.org/">OpenSSL</a>
1714 libraries installed. Configure with --with-ssl. If you have the
1715 OpenSSL libraries installed in the default location (/usr/local/ssl)
1716 this will suffice. If you have them installed in a non-default
1717 location, you'll need to specify it as an argument to --with-ssl after
1720 Fetchmail binaries built this way support <code>ssl</code>,
1721 <code>sslkey</code>, and <code>sslcert</code> options that control
1722 SSL encryption. You will need to have an SSL-enabled mailserver
1723 to use these options. See the manual page for detals.<p>
1726 <h2><a name="R1">R1. Fetchmail isn't working, and -v shows `SMTP connect failed' messages.</a></h2>
1728 Fetchmail itself is probably working, but your SMTP port 25 listener
1729 is down or inaccessible.<p>
1731 The first thing to check is if you can telnet to port 25 on your smtp
1732 host (which is normally `localhost' unless you've specified an smtp
1733 option in your .fetchmailrc or on the command line) and get a greeting
1734 line from the listener. If the SMTP host is inaccessible or the listener
1735 is down, fix that first.<p>
1737 If the listener seems to be up when you test with telnet, the most
1738 benign and typical problem is that the listener had a momentary seizure
1739 due to resource exhaustion while fetchmail was polling it -- process
1740 table full or some other problem that stopped the listener process
1741 from forking. If your SMTP host is not `localhost' or something else
1742 in /etc/hosts, the fetchmail glitch could also have been caused by
1743 transient nameserver failure. <p>
1745 Try running fetchmail -v again; if it succeeds, you had one of these
1746 kinds of transient glitch. You can ignore these hiccups, because a
1747 future fetchmail run will get the mail through. <p>
1749 If the listener tests up, but you have chronic failures trying to
1750 connect to it anyway, your problem is more serious. One way to work
1751 around chronic SMTP connect problems is to use --mda. But this only
1752 attacks the symptom; you may have a DNS or TCP routing problem. You
1753 should really try to figure out what's going on underneath before it
1754 bites you some other way. <p>
1756 We have one report (from toby@eskimo.com) that you can sometimes solve
1757 such problems by doing an <CODE>smtp</CODE> declaration with an IP
1758 address that your routing table maps to something other than the
1759 loopback device (he used ppp0).<p>
1761 We also have a report that this error can be caused by having an
1762 /etc/hosts file that associates your client host name with more than
1765 It's also possible that your DNS configuration isn't
1766 looking at <code>/etc/hosts</code> at all. If you're using libc5,
1767 look at <code>/etc/resolv.conf</code>; it should say something like
1773 so your <code>/etc/hosts</code> file is checked first. If you're
1774 running GNU libc6, check your <code>/etc/nsswitch.conf</code> file. Make
1775 sure it says something like
1781 again, in order to make sure <code>/etc/hosts</code> is seen first.<P>
1783 If you have a hostname set for your machine, and this hostname does
1784 not appear in /etc/hosts, you will be able to telnet to port 25 and
1785 even send a mail with rcpt to: user@host-not-in-/etc/hosts, but
1786 fetchmail can't seem to get in touch with sendmail, no matter what you
1787 set smtpaddress to.<p>
1789 We had another report from a Linux user of fetchmail 2.1 who solved his SMTP
1790 connection problem by removing the reference to -lresolv from his link
1791 line and relinking. Apparently in some older Linux distributions the
1792 libc bind library version works better.<p>
1794 As of 2.2, the configure script has been hacked so the bind library is
1795 linked only if it is actually needed. So under Linux it won't be, and
1796 this particular cause should go away.<p>
1799 <h2><a name="R2">R2. When I try to configure an MDA, fetchmail doesn't work.</a></h2>
1801 (I hear this one from people who have run into the blank-line problem in <a href="#X1">X1</a>.)<p>
1803 Try sending yourself test mail and retrieving it using the
1804 command-line options `<CODE>-k -m cat</CODE>'. This will dump exactly what
1805 fetchmail retrieves to standard output (plus the Received line
1806 fetchmail itself adds to the headers). <p>
1808 If the dump doesn't match what shows up in your mailbox when you
1809 configure an MDA, your MDA is mangling the message. If it doesn't
1810 match what you sent, then fetchmail or something on the server is
1814 <h2><a name="R3">R3. Fetchmail dumps core when given an invalid rc file.</a></h2>
1816 This is usually reported from AIX or Ultrix, but has even been known
1817 to happen on Linuxes without a recent version of <code>flex</code>
1818 installed. The problem appears to be a result of building with an
1819 archaic version of lex.<P>
1821 Workaround: fix the syntax of your .fetchmailrc file.<P>
1823 Fix: build and install the latest version of <a
1824 href="ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/~ftp/pub/gnu">flex</a> from the Free
1825 Software Foundation. An FSF <a
1826 href="http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/order/ftp.html">mirror site</a>
1827 will help you get it faster.<P>
1830 <h2><a name="R4">R4. Fetchmail dumps core in -V mode, but operates normally otherwise.</a></h2>
1832 We've had this reported to us under Linux using libc-5.4.17 and gcc-2.7.2.
1833 It does not occur with libc-5.3.12 or earlier versions.<p>
1835 Workaround: link with GNU malloc rather than the stock C library malloc.<p>
1837 We're told there is some problem with the malloc() code in that
1838 version which makes it fragile in the presence of multiple free()
1839 calls on the same pointer (the malloc arena gets corrupted).
1840 Unfortunately it appears from doing gdb traces that whatever free()
1841 calls producing the problem are being made by the C library itself, not the
1842 fetchmail code (they're all from within fclose, and not an fclose called
1843 directly by fetchmail, either).<p>
1846 <h2><a name="R5">R5. Running fetchmail in daemon mode doesn't work.</a><br></h2>
1848 We have one report from a SunOS 4.1.4 user that trying to run
1849 fetchmail in detached daemon mode doesn't work, but that using the
1850 same options with -N (nodetach) is OK.<P>
1852 If this happens, you have a specific portability problem with the code
1853 in daemon.c that detaches and backgrounds the daemon fetchmail. Tell
1854 me about it so I can try to fix it. As a workaround, you can start
1855 fetchmail with -N and an ampersand to background it. A Sun user
1860 (fetchmail --nodetach <other params> &)
1863 The extra pair of parens is significant --- it makes sure that the process
1864 detaches from the initial shell (one more shell is started and dies
1865 immediately, detaching fetchmail and making it child of PID 1). This is
1866 important when you start fetchmail interactively and than quit
1867 interactive shell. The line above makes sure fetchmail lives after
1870 This should not happen under Linux or any truly POSIX-conformant Unix.<P>
1873 <h2><a name="R6">R6. Fetchmail hangs when used with pppd.</a></h2>
1875 Your problem may be with pppd's `demand' option. We have a report that
1876 fetchmail doesn't play well with it, but works with pppd if `demand'
1877 is turned off. We have no idea why this is.<p>
1880 <h2><a name="R7">R7. Fetchmail randomly dies with socket errors.</a></h2>
1882 Check the MTU value in your PPP interface reported by
1883 <code>/sbin/ifconfig</code>. If it's over 600, change it in your PPP
1884 options file. (<code>/etc/ppp/options</code> on my box). Here are
1885 option values that work:<P>
1893 <a name="R8">R8. Fetchmail running as root stopped working after an OS upgrade</a></h2>
1895 In RH 6.0, the HOME value in the boot-time root environment changed
1896 from /root to / as the result of a change in init. Move your
1897 .fetchmailrc or use a -f option to explicitly point at the file.
1898 (Oddly, a similar problem has been reported from Debian systems.)<P>
1901 <h2><a name="#R9">R9. Fetchmail is timing out after fetching certain
1902 messages but before deleting them</a></h2>
1904 There's a TCP/IP stalling problem under Redhat 6.0 (and possibly other
1905 recent Linuxes) that can cause this symptom. Brian Boutel writes:<p>
1908 TCP timestamps are turned on on my Linux boxes (I assume it's now the
1909 default). This uses 12 extra bytes per segment.
1910 When the tcp connection starts, the other end agrees a MSS of 1460,
1911 and then fragments 1460 byte chunks into 1448 and 12, because
1912 is is not allowing for the timestamp.<p>
1914 Then, for reasons I can't explain, it waits a long time (typically 2
1915 minutes) after the ack is sent before sending the next (fragmented)
1916 packet. Turning off tcp timestamps avoids the fragmentation and
1917 restores normal behaviour. To do this, [execute]<p>
1919 echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps<p>
1921 I'm still unclear about the details of why this is happening. At least
1922 [now] I am now getting good performance and no queue blocking.
1926 <h2><a name="D1">D1. I think I've set up fetchmail correctly, but I'm not getting any mail.</a></h2>
1928 Maybe you have a .forward or alias set up that you've forgotten about. You
1929 should probably remove it.<p>
1931 Or maybe you're trying to run fetchmail in multidrop mode as root
1932 without a .fetchmailrc file. This doesn't do what you think it
1933 should; see question <a href="#C1">C1</a>.<p>
1935 Or you may not be connecting to the SMTP listener. Run fetchmail -v
1936 and see <a href="#R1">R1</a>.<p>
1939 <h2><a name="D2">D2. All my mail seems to disappear after a dropped connection.</a></h2>
1941 One POP3 daemon used in the Berkeley Unix world that reports itself as
1942 POP3 version 1.004 actually throws the queue away. 1.005 fixed that.
1943 If you're running this one, upgrade immediately. (It also truncates
1944 long lines at column 1024)<P>
1946 Many POP servers, if an interruption occurs, will restore the whole
1947 mail queue after about 10 minutes. Others will restore it right
1948 away. If you have an interruption and don't see it right away, cross
1949 your fingers and wait ten minutes before retrying.<P>
1951 Some servers (such as Microsoft's NTMail) are mis-designed to restore
1952 the entire queue, including messages you have deleted. If you have
1953 one of these and it flakes out on you a lot, try setting a small
1954 <code>--fetchlimit</code> value. This will result in more IP connects
1955 to the server, but will mean it actually executes changes to the queue
1958 Qualcomm's qpopper, used at many BSD Unix sites, is better behaved.
1959 If its connection is dropped, it will first execute all DELE commands as
1960 though you had issued a QUIT (this is a technical violation of
1961 the POP3 RFCs, but a good idea in a world of flaky phone lines). Then it
1962 will re-queue any message that was being downloaded at hangup time.
1963 Still, qpopper may require a noticeable amount of time to do deletions
1964 and clean up its queue. (Fetchmail waits a bit before retrying in
1965 order to avoid a `lock busy' error.)<P>
1968 <h2><a name="D3">D3. Mail that was being fetched when I interrupted my fetchmail seems to have been vanished.</a></h2>
1970 Fetchmail only sends a delete mail request to the server when either
1971 (a) it gets a positive delivery acknowledgment from the SMTP
1972 listener, or (b) it gets an error 571 (the spam-filter error) from the
1973 listener. No interrupt can cause it to lose mail.<p>
1975 However, IMAP2bis has a design problem in that its normal fetch
1976 command marks a message `seen' as soon as the fetch command to get it
1977 is sent down. If for some reason the message isn't actually delivered
1978 (you take a line hit during the download, or your port 25 listener
1979 can't find enough free disk space, or you interrupt the delivery in
1980 mid-message) that `seen' message can lurk invisibly in your server
1983 Workaround: add the `<CODE>fetchall</CODE>' keyword to your fetch options.<p>
1985 Solution: switch to an <a href="http://www.imap.org">IMAP4</a> server.<p>
1988 <h2><a name="M1">M1. I've declared local names, but all my multidrop
1989 mail is going to root anyway.</a></h2>
1991 Somehow your fetchmail is never recognizing the hostname part of
1992 recipient names it parses out of To/Cc/envelope-header lines as
1993 matching the name of the mailserver machine. To check this, run
1994 fetchmail in foreground with -v -v on. You will probably see a lot of
1995 messages with the format ``line rejected, %s is not an alias of the
1996 mailserver'' or ``no address matches; forwarding to %s.'' <p>
1998 These errors usually indicate some kind of DNS configuration problem
1999 either on the server or your client machine. <p>
2001 The easiest workaround is to add a `<CODE>via</CODE>' option (if
2002 necessary) and add enough aka declarations to cover all of your
2003 mailserver's aliases, then say `<CODE>no dns</CODE>'. This will take
2004 DNS out of the picture (though it means mail may be uncollected if
2005 it's sent to an alias of the mailserver that you don't have
2008 It would be better to fix your DNS, however. DNS problems can hurt
2009 you in lots of ways, for example by making your machines
2010 intermittently or permanently unreachable to the rest of the net.<P>
2012 Occasionally these errors indicate the sort of header-parsing problem
2013 described in <a href="#M7">M7</a>.<P>
2016 <h2><a name="M2">M2. I can't seem to get fetchmail to route to a local domain properly.</a></h2>
2018 A lot of people want to use fetchmail as a poor man's internetwork
2019 mail gateway, picking up mail accumulated for a whole domain in a single
2020 server mailbox and then routing based on what's in the To/Cc/Bcc lines.<p>
2022 In general, this is not really a good idea. It would be smarter to
2023 just let the mail sit in the mailserver's queue and use fetchmail's
2024 ETRN mode to trigger SMTP sends periodically (of course, this means
2025 you have to poll more frequently than the mailserver's expiration period).
2026 If you can't arrange this, try setting up a UUCP feed.<P>
2028 If neither of these alternatives is available, multidrop mode may do
2029 (though you <em>are</em> going to get hurt by some mailing list
2030 software; see the caveats under THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP
2031 MAILBOXES on the man page). If you want to try it, the way to do it
2032 is with the `<CODE>localdomains</CODE>' option.<p>
2034 In general, if you use localdomains you need to make sure of two other
2037 <strong>1. You've actually set up your .fetchmailrc entry to invoke multidrop mode.</strong><p>
2039 Many people set a `<CODE>localdomains</CODE>' list and then forget
2040 that fetchmail wants to see more than one name (or the wildcard `*')
2041 in a `<CODE>here</CODE>' list before it will do multidrop routing.<p>
2043 <strong>2. You may have to set `no envelope'.</strong><p>
2045 Normally, multidrop mode tries to deduce an envelope address from a message
2046 before parsing the To/Cc/Bcc lines (this enables it to avoid losing to mailing
2047 list software that doesn't put a recipient address in the To lines).<p>
2049 Some ways of accumulating a whole domain's messages in a single server
2050 mailbox mean it all ends up with a single envelope address that is
2051 useless for rerouting purposes. You may have to set `<CODE>no
2052 envelope</CODE>' to prevent fetchmail from being bamboozled by this.<p>
2054 Check also answer <a href="#T1">T1</a> on a reliable way to do multidrop
2055 delivery if your ISP (or your mail redirection provider) is using qmail.<p>
2058 <h2><a name="M3">M3. I tried to run a mailing list using multidrop, and I have a mail loop!</a></h2>
2060 This isn't fetchmail's fault. Check your mailing list. If the list
2061 expansion includes yourself or anybody else at your mailserver (that is, not on
2062 the client side) you've created a mail loop. Just chop the host part off any
2063 local addresses in the list.<p>
2065 If you use sendmail, you can check the list expansion with
2066 <CODE>sendmail -bv</CODE>.<p>
2069 <h2><a name="M4">M4. My multidrop fetchmail seems to be having DNS problems.</a></h2>
2071 We have one report from a Linux user (not the same one as in <a
2072 href="#R1">R1</a>!) who solved this problem by removing the reference
2073 to -lresolv from his link line and relinking. Apparently in some
2074 older Linux distributions the libc5 bind library version works
2077 As of 2.2, the configure script has been hacked so the bind library is linked
2078 only if it is actually needed. So under Linux it won't be, and this problem
2082 <h2><a name="M5">M5. I'm seeing long DNS delays before each message is processed.</a></h2>
2084 Use the `<CODE>aka</CODE>' option to pre-declare as many of your
2085 mailserver's DNS names as you can. When an address's host part
2086 matches an aka name, no DNS lookup needs to be done to check it.<p>
2088 If you're sure you've pre-declared all of your mailserver's DNS names,
2089 you can use the `<CODE>no dns</CODE>' option to prevent other hostname
2090 parts from being looked up at all.<p>
2092 Sometimes delays are unavoidable. Some SMTP listeners try to call DNS
2093 on the From-address hostname as a way of checking that the address is valid.<p>
2096 <h2><a name="M6">M6. How do I get multidrop mode to work with majordomo?</a></h2>
2098 In order for sendmail to execute the command strings in the majordomo
2099 alias file, it is necessary for sendmail to think that the mail it
2100 receives via SMTP really is destined for a local user name. A normal
2101 virtual-domain setup results in delivery to the default mailbox,
2102 rather than expansion through majordomo.<P>
2104 Michael <michael@bizsystems.com> gave us a recipe for dealing
2105 with this case that pairs a run control file like this:<P>
2108 poll your.pop3.server proto pop3:
2110 localdomains virtual.localdomain1.com virtual.localdomain2.com ...
2111 user yourISPusername is root * here,
2112 password yourISPpassword fetchall
2115 with a hack on your local sendmail.cf like this:<P>
2118 #############################################
2119 # virtual info, local hack for ruleset 98 #
2120 #############################################
2122 # domains to treat as direct mapped local domain
2124 CVvirtual.localdomain1.com virtual.localdomain2.com ...
2125 ---------------------------
2127 -------------------------
2128 # handle virtual users
2130 R$+ <@ $=V . > $: $1 < @ $j . >
2131 R< @ > $+ < @ $=V . > $: $1 < @ $j . >
2132 R< @ > $+ $: $1
2133 R< error : $- $+ > $* $#error $@ $1 $: $2
2134 R< $+ > $+ < @ $+ > $: $>97 $1
2137 This ruleset just strips virtual domain names off the addresses of incoming
2138 mail. Your sendmail must be 8.8 or newer for this to work. Michael
2142 I use this scheme with 2 virtual domains and the default ISP
2143 user+domain and service about 30 mail accounts + majordomo on my
2144 inside pop3 server with fetchmail and sendmail 8.83
2148 <h2><a name="M7">M7. Multidrop mode isn't parsing envelope addresses from
2149 my Received headers as it should.</a></h2>
2151 It may happen that you're getting what appear to be well-formed
2152 sendmail Received headers, but fetchmail can't seem to extract an
2153 envelope address from them. There can be a couple of reasons for
2156 <h3>Spurious Received lines need to be skipped:</h3>
2158 First, fetchmail might be looking at the wrong Received header.
2159 Normally it looks only on the first one it sees, on the theory that
2160 that one was last added and is going to be the one containing your
2161 mailserver's theory of who the message was addressed to.<P>
2163 Some (unusual) mailserver configurations will generate extra Received
2164 lines which you need to skip. To arrange this, use the optional
2165 skip prefix argument of the `envelope' option; you may need to say
2166 something like `<code>envelope 1 Received</code>' or `<code>envelope 2
2169 <h3>The `by' clause doesn't contain a mailserver alias:</h3>
2171 When fetchmail parses a Received line that looks like
2174 Received: from send103.yahoomail.com (send103.yahoomail.com [205.180.60.92])
2175 by iserv.ttns.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA10088
2176 for <ksturgeon@fbceg.org>; Wed, 9 Sep 1998 17:01:59 -0700
2179 it checks to see if `iserv.ttns.net' is a DNS alias of your mailserver
2180 before accepting `ksturgeon@fbceg.org' as an envelope address. This
2181 check might fail if your DNS were misconfigured, or if you were using `no dns'
2182 and had failed to declare iserv.ttns.net as an alias of your server.<P>
2185 <h2><a name="X1">X1. Spurious blank lines are appearing in the headers of fetched mail.</a></h2>
2187 What's probably happening is that the POP/IMAP daemon on your
2188 mailserver is inserting a non-RFC822 header (like X-POP3-Rcpt:) and
2189 something in your delivery path (most likely an old version of the
2190 <em>deliver</em> program, which sendmail often calls to do local delivery) is
2191 failing to recognize it as a header.<p>
2193 This is not fetchmail's problem. The first thing to try is installing
2194 a current version of <em>deliver</em>. If this doesn't work, try to
2195 figure out which other program in your mail path is inserting the
2196 blank line and replace that. If you can't do either of these things,
2197 pick a different MDA (such as procmail) and declare it with the
2198 `<CODE>mda</CODE>' option.<p>
2201 <h2><a name="X2">X2. My mail client can't see a Subject line.</a></h2>
2203 First, see <a href="#X1">X1</a>. This is quite probably the same
2204 problem (X-POP3-Rcpt header or something similar being inserted by
2205 the server and choked on by an old version of <em>deliver</em>).<p>
2207 The O'Reilly sendmail book does warn that IDA sendmail doesn't process
2208 X- headers correctly. If this is your problem, all I can suggest is
2209 replacing IDA sendmail, because it's broken and not RFC822 conformant.<p>
2212 <h2><a name="X3">X3. Messages containing "From" at start of line are being split.</a></h2>
2214 If you know the messages aren't split in your server mailbox, then this
2215 is a problem with your POP/IMAP server, your client-side SMTP listener or
2216 your local delivery agent. Fetchmail cannot split messages.<p>
2218 Some POP server daemons ignore Content-Length headers and split messages on
2219 From lines. We have one report that the 2.1 version of the BSD popper
2220 program (as distributed on Solaris 2.5 and elsewhere) is broken this way.<p>
2222 You can test this. Declare an mda of `cat' and send yourself one
2223 piece of mail containing "From" at start of a line. If you see a
2224 split message, your POP/IMAP server is at fault. Upgrade to a more
2227 Sendmail and other SMTP listeners don't split RFC822 messages either.
2228 What's probably happening is either sendmail's local delivery agent or
2229 your mail reader are not quite RFC822-conformant and are breaking
2230 messages on what it thinks are Unix-style From headers. You can
2231 figure out which by looking at your client-side mailbox with vi or
2232 more. If the message is already split in your mailbox, your local
2233 delivery agent is the problem. If it's not, your mailreader is the
2236 If you can't replace the offending program, take a look at your
2237 sendmail.cf file. There will likely be a line something like<p>
2240 Mlocal, P=/usr/bin/procmail, F=lsDFMShP, S=10, R=20/40, A=procmail -Y -d $u
2243 describing your local delivery agent. Try inserting the `E' option in the
2244 flags part (the F= string). This will make sendmail turn each dangerous
2245 start-of-line From into a >From, preventing programs further downstream
2249 <h2><a name="generic_mangling"><a name="X4">X4. My mail is being mangled in a new and different way</a></a></h2>
2251 The first thing you need to do is pin down what program is doing the
2252 mangling. We don't like getting bug reports about fetchmail that are
2253 actually due to some other program's malfeasance, so please go through
2254 this diagnostic sequence before sending us a complaint.<P>
2256 There are five possible culprits to consider, listed here in the order
2257 they pass your mail:<P>
2260 <li> Programs upstream of your server mailbox.
2261 <li> The POP or IMAP server on your mailserver host.
2262 <li> The fetchmail program itself.
2263 <li> Your local sendmail.
2264 <li> Your LDA (local delivery agent), as called by sendmail or
2265 specified by <code>mda</CODE>.
2268 Often it happens that fetchmail itself is OK, but using it exposes
2269 pre-existing bugs in your downstream software, or your downstream
2270 software has a bad interaction with POP/IMAP. You need to pin down
2271 exactly where the message is being garbled in order to deduce what is
2272 actually going on.<P>
2274 The first thing to do is send yourself a test message, and retrieve it
2275 with a .fetchmailrc entry containing the following (or by running with
2276 the equivalent command-line options):<P>
2279 mda "cat >MBOX" keep fetchall
2282 This will capture what fetchmail gets from the server, except for (a)
2283 the extra Received header line fetchmail prepends, (b) header address
2284 changes due to <code>rewrite</code>, and (c) any end-of-line changes
2285 due to the <code>forcecr</code> and <code>stripcr</code> options.
2286 MBOX will in fact contain what programs downstream of fetchmail
2289 The most common causes of mangling are bugs and misconfigurations in
2290 those downstream programs. If MBOX looks unmangled, you will know
2291 that is what is going on and that it is not fetchmail's problem. Take
2292 a look at the other FAQ items in this section for possible clues about
2293 how to fix your problem.<P>
2295 If MBOX looks mangled, the next thing to do is compare it with your
2296 actual server mailbox (if possible). That's why you specified
2297 <code>keep</code>, so the server copy would not be deleted. If your
2298 server mailbox looks mangled, programs upstream of your server mailbox
2299 are at fault. Unfortunately there is probably little you can do about
2300 this aside from complaining to your site postmaster, and nothing at
2301 all fetchmail can do about it!<P>
2303 More likely you'll find that the server copy looks OK. In that case
2304 either the POP/IMAP server or fetchmail is doing the mangling. To
2305 determine which, you'll need to telnet to the server port and simulate
2306 a fetchmail session yourself. This is not actually hard (both POP3
2307 and IMAP are simple, text-only, line-oriented protocols) but requires
2308 some attention to detail. You should be able to use a fetchmail -v
2309 log as a model for a session, but remember that the "*" in your LOGIN
2310 or PASS command dump has to be replaced with your actual password.<P>
2312 The objective of manually simulating fetchmail is so you can see
2313 exactly what fetchmail sees. If you see a mangled message, then your
2314 server is at fault, and you probably need to complain to your
2315 mailserver administrators. However, we like to know what the broken
2316 servers are so we can warn people away from them. So please send
2317 us a transcript of the session including the mangling <em>and the
2318 server's initial greeting line</em>. Please tell us anything else
2319 you think might be useful about the server, like the server host's
2320 operating system.<P>
2322 If your manual fetchmail simulation shows an unmangled message,
2323 congratulations. You've found an actual fetchmail bug, which is a
2324 pretty rare thing these days. Complain to us and we'll fix it.
2325 Please include the session transcript of your manual fetchmail
2326 simulation along with the other things described in the FAQ entry on
2327 <a href="#G3">reporting bugs</a>.
2330 <h2><a name="X5">X5. Using POP3, retrievals seems to be fetching too much!</a></h2>
2332 This may happen in versions of fetchmail after 4.4.1 and before 4.4.8.
2333 Versions after 4.4.1 use POP3's TOP command rather than RETR, in order
2334 to avoid marking the message seen (leaving it unseen is helpful for
2335 later recovery if you lose your connection in the middle of a
2338 Versions of fetchmail from 4.4.2 through 4.4.7 had a bad interaction
2339 with Eudora qpopper versions 2.3 and later. The TOP bounds check was
2340 fooled by an overflow condition in the TOP argument. Decrementing the
2341 TOP argument in 4.4.7 fixed this.<P>
2343 Fix: Upgrade to a later version of fetchmail.<P>
2345 Workaround: set the <code>fetchall</code> option. Under POP3 in these
2346 fetchmail version only, this had the side effect of forcing RETR
2350 <h2><a name="O1">O1. The --logfile option doesn't work if the logfile doesn't exist.</a></h2>
2352 This is a feature, not a bug. It's in line with normal practice for
2353 system daemons and allows you to suppress logging by removing the log,
2354 without hacking potentially fragile startup scripts. To get around
2355 it, just touch(1) the logfile before you run fetchmail (this will have
2356 no effect on the contents of the logfile if it already exists).<P>
2359 <h2><a name="O2">O2. Every time I get a POP or IMAP message the header
2360 is dumped to all my terminal sessions.</a></h2>
2362 Fetchmail uses the local sendmail to perform final delivery, which
2363 Netscape and other clients doesn't do; the announcement of new messages
2364 is done by a daemon that sendmail pokes. There should be a ``biff''
2365 command to control this. Type
2371 to turn it off. If this doesn't work, try the command
2377 which is essentially what <code>biff -n</code> will do. If this
2378 doesn't work, comment out any reference to ``comsat'' in your
2379 /etc/inetd.conf file and restart inetd.<P>
2381 In Slackware Linux distributions, the last line in /etc/profile is
2393 to solve the problem system-wide.<P>
2396 <h2><a name="O3">O3. Does fetchmail reread its rc file every poll cycle?</a></h2>
2398 No. Fetchmail only reads the rc file once, when it starts up. To
2399 force an rc file reread, do <code>fetchmail -q; fetchmail</code>.<P>
2402 <h2><a name="O4">O4. Why do deleted messages show up again when I take
2403 a line hit while downloading?</a></h2>
2405 Because you're using a POP3 other than Qualcomm qpopper, or an IMAP
2406 with a long expunge interval.<P>
2408 According to the POP3 RFCs, deletes aren't actually performed until
2409 you issue the end-of-session QUIT command. Fetchmail cannot fix this,
2410 because doing it right takes cooperation from the server. There are
2411 two possible remedies:<P>
2413 One is to switch to qpopper (the free POP3 server from Qualcomm,
2414 the Eudora people). The qpopper software violates the POP3 RFCs by
2415 doing an expunge (removing deleted messages) on a line hangup, as well
2416 as on processing a QUIT command.<P>
2418 The other (which we recommend) is to switch to <a
2419 href="http://www.imap.org">IMAP</a>. IMAP has an explicit expunge
2420 command and fetchmail normally uses it to delete messages immediately
2421 after they are downloaded.<P>
2423 If you get very unlucky, you might take a line hit in the window
2424 between the delete and the expunge. If you've set a longer expunge
2425 interval, the window gets wider. This problem should correct itself
2426 the next time you complete a successful query.<P>
2429 <h2><a name="O5">O5. Why is fetched mail being logged with my name, not the real From address?</a></h2>
2431 Because logging is done based on the address indicated by the sending
2432 SMTP's MAIL FROM, and some listeners are picky about that address.<p>
2434 Some SMTP listeners get upset if you try to hand them a MAIL FROM
2435 address naming a different host than the originating site for your
2436 connection. This is a feature, not a bug -- it's supposed to help
2437 prevent people from forging mail with a bogus origin site. (RFC 1123
2438 says you shouldn't do this exclusion...)<p>
2440 Since the originating site of a fetchmail delivery connection is
2441 localhost, this effectively means these picky listeners will barf on
2442 any MAIL FROM address fetchmail hands them with an @ in it!<p>
2444 Versions 2.1 and up try the header From address first and fall back to
2445 the calling-user ID. So if your SMTP listener isn't picky, the log
2449 <h2><a name="O6">O6. I'm seeing long sendmail delays or hangs near the start of each poll cycle.</a></h2>
2451 Sendmail does a hostname lookup when it first starts up, and also each
2452 time it gets a HELO in listener mode.<p>
2454 Your resolver configuration may be causing one of these lookups to
2455 fail and time out. Check <code>/etc/resolv.conf</code> and
2456 <code>/etc/hosts</code> file. Make sure your hostname and
2457 fully-qualified domain name are both in <code>/etc/hosts</code>, and
2458 that hosts is looked at before DNS is queried. You probably also want
2459 your remote mail server(s) to be in the hosts file.<p>
2461 You can suppress the startup-time lookup if need to by reconfiguring
2462 with <code>FEATURE(nodns)</code>.<p>
2464 Configuring your bind library to cache DNS lookups locally may help,
2465 and is a good idea for speeding up other services as well. Switching to
2466 a faster MTA like qmail or exim might help. <p>
2469 <h2><a name="O7">O7. Why doesn't fetchmail deliver mail in date-sorted order?</a></h2>
2471 Because that's not the order the server hands it to fetchmail in.<P>
2473 Fetchmail getting mail from a POP server delivers mail in the order
2474 that your server delivers mail. Fetchmail can't do anything about
2475 this; it's a limitation of the underlying POP protocol.<P>
2477 In theory it might be possible for fetchmail in IMAP mode to sort
2478 messages by date, but this would be in violation of two basics of
2479 fetchmail's design philosophy: (a) to be as simple and transparent a
2480 pipe as possible, and (b) to <em>hide</em>, rather than emphasize, the
2481 differences between the remote-fetch protocols it uses.<P>
2483 Re-ordering messages is a user-agent function, anyway.<P>
2486 <h2><a name="O8">O8. I'm using pppd. Why isn't my monitor option working?</a></h2>
2488 There is a combination of circumstances that can confuse fetchmail.
2489 If you have set up demand dialing with pppd, and pppd has an idle
2490 timeout, and you have lcp-echo-interval set, then the
2491 lcp-echo-interval time must be longer than the pppd idle timeout.
2492 Otherwise it is going keep increasing the packet counters that fetchmail
2493 relies upon, triggering fetchmail into polling after its own delay
2494 interval and thus preventing the pppd link from ever reaching its
2495 inactivity timeout.<p>
2498 <table width="100%" cellpadding=0><tr>
2499 <td width="30%">Back to <a href="index.html">Fetchmail Home Page</a>
2500 <td width="30%" align=center>To <a href="/~esr/sitemap.html">Site Map</a>
2501 <td width="30%" align=right>$Date: 1999/11/30 19:26:15 $
2504 <P><ADDRESS>Eric S. Raymond <A HREF="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com"><esr@snark.thyrsus.com></A></ADDRESS>