2 .\" ** The above line should force tbl to be used as a preprocessor **
4 .\" Man page for fetchmail
6 .\" For license terms, see the file COPYING in this directory.
9 fetchmail \- fetch mail from a POP, IMAP, ETRN, or ODMR-capable server
12 \fBfetchmail\fR [\fIoption...\fR] [\fImailserver...\fR]
18 is a mail-retrieval and forwarding utility; it fetches mail from
19 remote mailservers and forwards it to your local (client) machine's
20 delivery system. You can then handle the retrieved mail using normal
21 mail user agents such as \fImutt\fR(1), \fIelm\fR(1) or \fIMail\fR(1).
22 The \fIfetchmail\fR utility can be run in a daemon mode to repeatedly
23 poll one or more systems at a specified interval.
27 program can gather mail from servers supporting any of the common
28 mail-retrieval protocols: POP2, POP3, IMAP2bis, IMAP4, and IMAP4rev1.
29 It can also use the ESMTP ETRN extension and ODMR. (The RFCs describing all
30 these protocols are listed at the end of this manual page.)
34 is primarily intended to be used over on-demand TCP/IP links (such as
35 SLIP or PPP connections), it may also be useful as a message transfer
36 agent for sites which refuse for security reasons to permit
37 (sender-initiated) SMTP transactions with sendmail.
41 is used with a POP or an IMAP server, it has two fundamental modes of
42 operation for each user account from which it retrieves mail:
43 \fIsingledrop\fR- and \fImultidrop\fR-mode. In singledrop-mode,
45 assumes that all messages in the user's account are intended for a single
46 recipient. An individual mail message will not be inspected for recipient
47 information, rather, the identity of the recipient will either default to
48 the local user currently executing \fIfetchmail\fR,
49 or else will need to be explicitly specified in the configuration file.
50 Singledrop-mode is used when the fetchmailrc configuration contains at
51 most a single local user specification for a given server account.
55 is not able to assume that there is only a single recipient, but rather
56 that the mail server account actually contains mail intended for any
57 number of different recipients. Therefore,
59 must attempt to deduce the proper "envelope recipient" from the mail
60 headers of each message. In this mode of operation
62 almost resembles an MTA, however it is important to note that neither
63 the POP nor IMAP protocols were intended for use in this fashion, and
64 hence envelope information is not directly available. Instead,
66 must resort to a process of informed guess-work in an attempt to
67 discover the true envelope recipient of a message. Even if this
68 information is present in the headers, the process can
69 be error-prone and is dependent upon the specific mail server used
70 for mail retrieval. Multidrop-mode is used when more than one local
71 user is specified for a particular server account in the configuration
72 file. Note that the forgoing discussion of singledrop- and
73 multidrop-modes does not apply to the ESMTP ETRN or ODMR retrieval
74 methods, since they are based upon the SMTP protocol which
75 specifically provides the envelope recipient to \fIfetchmail\fR.
77 As each message is retrieved \fIfetchmail\fR normally delivers it via SMTP to
78 port 25 on the machine it is running on (localhost), just as though it
79 were being passed in over a normal TCP/IP link. \fIfetchmail\fR provides
80 the SMTP server with an envelope recipient derived in the manner described
81 previously. The mail will then be
82 delivered locally via your system's MDA (Mail Delivery Agent, usually
83 \fIsendmail\fR(8) but your system may use a different one such
84 as \fIsmail\fR, \fImmdf\fR, \fIexim\fR, \fIpostfix\fR, or \fIqmail\fR). All the
85 delivery-control mechanisms (such as \fI.forward\fR files) normally
86 available through your system MDA and local delivery agents will
87 therefore work automatically.
89 If no port 25 listener is available, but your fetchmail configuration
90 was told about a reliable local MDA, it will use that MDA for local
95 is available, it will assist you in setting up and editing a
96 fetchmailrc configuration. It runs under the X window system and
97 requires that the language Python and the Tk toolkit be present on your
98 system. If you are first setting up fetchmail for single-user mode, it
99 is recommended that you use Novice mode. Expert mode provides complete
100 control of fetchmail configuration, including the multidrop features.
101 In either case, the `Autoprobe' button will tell you the most capable
102 protocol a given mailserver supports, and warn you of potential problems
105 .SH GENERAL OPERATION
108 is controlled by command-line options and a run control file,
109 .IR ~/.fetchmailrc\fR ,
110 the syntax of which we describe in a later section (this file is what
111 the \fIfetchmailconf\fR program edits). Command-line options override
115 Each server name that you specify following the options on the
116 command line will be queried. If you don't specify any servers
117 on the command line, each `poll' entry in your
119 file will be queried.
121 To facilitate the use of
123 in scripts and pipelines, it returns an appropriate exit code upon
124 termination -- see EXIT CODES below.
126 The following options modify the behavior of \fIfetchmail\fR. It is
127 seldom necessary to specify any of these once you have a
128 working \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file set up.
130 Almost all options have a corresponding keyword which can be used to
135 Some special options are not covered here, but are documented instead
136 in sections on AUTHENTICATION and DAEMON MODE which follow.
140 Displays the version information for your copy of
142 No mail fetch is performed.
143 Instead, for each server specified, all the option information
144 that would be computed if
146 were connecting to that server is displayed. Any non-printables in
147 passwords or other string names are shown as backslashed C-like
148 escape sequences. This option is useful for verifying that your
149 options are set the way you want them.
152 Return a status code to indicate whether there is mail waiting,
153 without actually fetching or deleting mail (see EXIT CODES below).
154 This option turns off daemon mode (in which it would be useless). It
155 doesn't play well with queries to multiple sites, and doesn't work
156 with ETRN or ODMR. It will return a false positive if you leave read but
157 undeleted mail in your server mailbox and your fetch protocol can't
158 tell kept messages from new ones. This means it will work with IMAP,
159 not work with POP2, and may occasionally flake out under POP3.
162 Silent mode. Suppresses all progress/status messages that are
163 normally echoed to standard output during a fetch (but does not
164 suppress actual error messages). The --verbose option overrides this.
167 Verbose mode. All control messages passed between
169 and the mailserver are echoed to stdout. Overrides --silent.
170 Doubling this option (-v -v) causes extra diagnostic information
176 Retrieve both old (seen) and new messages from the mailserver. The
177 default is to fetch only messages the server has not marked seen.
178 Under POP3, this option also forces the use of RETR rather than TOP.
179 Note that POP2 retrieval behaves as though --all is always on (see
180 RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES below) and this option does not work with ETRN
185 Keep retrieved messages on the remote mailserver. Normally, messages
186 are deleted from the folder on the mailserver after they have been retrieved.
189 option causes retrieved messages to remain in your folder on the
190 mailserver. This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
194 Delete retrieved messages from the remote mailserver. This
195 option forces retrieved mail to be deleted. It may be useful if
196 you have specified a default of \fBkeep\fR in your
197 \&\fI.fetchmailrc\fR. This option is forced on with ETRN and ODMR.
200 POP3/IMAP only. Delete old (previously retrieved) messages from the
201 mailserver before retrieving new messages. This option does not work
202 with ETRN or ODMR. Warning: if your local MTA hangs and fetchmail is
203 aborted, the next time you run fetchmail, it will delete mail that was
204 never delivered to you. What you probably want is the default
205 setting: if you don't specify `-k', then fetchmail will automatically
206 delete messages after successful delivery.
207 .SS Protocol and Query Options
209 .B \-p <proto> | \-\-protocol <proto>
210 (Keyword: proto[col])
211 Specify the protocol to use when communicating with the remote
212 mailserver. If no protocol is specified, the default is AUTO.
214 may be one of the following:
217 Tries IMAP, POP3, and POP2 (skipping any of these for which support
218 has not been compiled in).
220 Post Office Protocol 2
222 Post Office Protocol 3
224 Use POP3 with old-fashioned MD5-challenge authentication.
226 Use POP3 with RPOP authentication.
228 Use POP3 with Kerberos V4 authentication on port 1109.
230 Use POP3 with Demon Internet's SDPS extensions.
232 IMAP2bis, IMAP4, or IMAP4rev1 (\fIfetchmail\fR autodetects their capabilities).
234 Use the ESMTP ETRN option.
236 Use the the On-Demand Mail Relay ESMTP profile.
239 All these alternatives work in basically the same way (communicating
240 with standard server daemons to fetch mail already delivered to a
241 mailbox on the server) except ETRN and ODMR. The ETRN mode
242 allows you to ask a compliant ESMTP server (such as BSD sendmail at
243 release 8.8.0 or higher) to immediately open a sender-SMTP connection
244 to your client machine and begin forwarding any items addressed to
245 your client machine in the server's queue of undelivered mail. The
246 ODMR mode requires an ODMR-capable server and works similarly to
247 ETRN, except that it does not require the client machine to have
252 Force UIDL use (effective only with POP3). Force client-side tracking
253 of `newness' of messages (UIDL stands for ``unique ID listing'' and is
254 described in RFC1939). Use with `keep' to use a mailbox as a baby
255 news drop for a group of users. The fact that seen messages are skipped
256 is logged, unless error logging is done through syslog while running in
257 daemon mode. Note that fetchmail may automatically enable this option
258 depending on upstream server capabilities. Note also that this option
259 may be removed and forced enabled in a future fetchmail version.
262 .B \-P <portnumber> | \-\-port <portnumber>
264 The port option permits you to specify a TCP/IP port to connect on.
265 This option will seldom be necessary as all the supported protocols have
266 well-established default port numbers.
268 .B \-\-principal <principal>
270 The principal option permits you to specify a service principal for
271 mutual authentication. This is applicable to POP3 or IMAP with Kerberos
274 .B \-t <seconds> | -\-timeout <seconds>
276 The timeout option allows you to set a server-nonresponse
277 timeout in seconds. If a mailserver does not send a greeting message
278 or respond to commands for the given number of seconds,
279 \fIfetchmail\fR will hang up on it. Without such a timeout
280 \fIfetchmail\fR might hang up indefinitely trying to fetch mail from a
281 down host. This would be particularly annoying for a \fIfetchmail\fR
282 running in background. There is a default timeout which fetchmail -V
283 will report. If a given connection receives too many timeouts in
284 succession, fetchmail will consider it wedged and stop retrying,
285 the calling user will be notified by email if this happens.
287 .B \-\-plugin <command>
288 (Keyword: plugin) The plugin option allows you to use an external
289 program to establish the TCP connection. This is useful if you want
290 to use socks, SSL, ssh, or need some special firewalling setup. The
291 program will be looked up in $PATH and can optionally be passed the
292 hostname and port as arguments using "%h" and "%p" respectively (note
293 that the interpolation logic is rather primitive, and these token must
294 be bounded by whitespace or beginning of string or end of string).
295 Fetchmail will write to the plugin's stdin and read from the plugin's
298 .B \-\-plugout <command>
300 Identical to the plugin option above, but this one is used for the SMTP
301 connections (which will probably not need it, so it has been separated
304 .B \-r <name> | \-\-folder <name>
306 Causes a specified non-default mail folder on the mailserver (or
307 comma-separated list of folders) to be retrieved. The syntax of the
308 folder name is server-dependent. This option is not available under
312 (Keyword: tracepolls)
313 Tell fetchmail to poll trace information in the form `polling %s
314 account %s' to the Received line it generates, where the %s parts are
315 replaced by the user's remote name and the poll label (the Received
316 header also normally includes the server's true name). This can be
317 used to facilitate mail filtering based on the account it is being
322 Causes the connection to the mail server to be encrypted via SSL. Connect
323 to the server using the specified base protocol over a connection secured
324 by SSL. SSL support must be present at the server. If no port is
325 specified, the connection is attempted to the well known port of the SSL
326 version of the base protocol. This is generally a different port than the
327 port used by the base protocol. For IMAP, this is port 143 for the clear
328 protocol and port 993 for the SSL secured protocol.
330 .B \-\-sslcert <name>
332 Specifies the file name of the client side public SSL certificate. Some
333 SSL encrypted servers may require client side keys and certificates for
334 authentication. In most cases, this is optional. This specifies
335 the location of the public key certificate to be presented to the server
336 at the time the SSL session is established. It is not required (but may
337 be provided) if the server does not require it. Some servers may
338 require it, some servers may request it but not require it, and some
339 servers may not request it at all. It may be the same file
340 as the private key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not
345 Specifies the file name of the client side private SSL key. Some SSL
346 encrypted servers may require client side keys and certificates for
347 authentication. In most cases, this is optional. This specifies
348 the location of the private key used to sign transactions with the server
349 at the time the SSL session is established. It is not required (but may
350 be provided) if the server does not require it. Some servers may
351 require it, some servers may request it but not require it, and some
352 servers may not request it at all. It may be the same file
353 as the public key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not
354 recommended. If a password is required to unlock the key, it will be
355 prompted for at the time just prior to establishing the session to the
356 server. This can cause some complications in daemon mode.
358 .B \-\-sslproto <name>
360 Forces an SSL protocol. Possible values are \&`\fBssl2\fR', `\fBssl3\fR' and
361 `\fBtls1\fR'. Try this if the default handshake does not work for your server.
365 Causes fetchmail to strictly check the server certificate against a set of
366 local trusted certificates (see the \fBsslcertpath\fR option). If the server
367 certificate is not signed by one of the trusted ones (directly or indirectly),
368 the SSL connection will fail. This checking should prevent man-in-the-middle
369 attacks against the SSL connection. Note that CRLs are seemingly not currently
370 supported by OpenSSL in certificate verification! Your system clock should
371 be reasonably accurate when using this option!
373 .B \-\-sslcertpath <directory>
374 (Keyword: sslcertpath)
375 Sets the directory fetchmail uses to look up local certificates. The default
376 is your OpenSSL default one. The directory must be hashed as OpenSSL expects
377 it - every time you add or modify a certificate in the directory, you need
378 to use the \fBc_rehash\fR tool (which comes with OpenSSL in the tools/
381 .B \-\-sslfingerprint <fingerprint>
382 (Keyword: sslfingerprint)
383 Specify the fingerprint of the server key (an MD5 hash of the key) in
384 hexadecimal notation with colons separating groups of two digits. The letter
385 hex digits must be in upper case. This is the default format OpenSSL uses,
386 and the one fetchmail uses to report the fingerprint when an SSL connection
387 is established. When this is specified, fetchmail will compare the server key
388 fingerprint with the given one, and the connection will fail if they do not
389 match. This can be used to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.
390 .SS Delivery Control Options
392 .B \-S <hosts> | \-\-smtphost <hosts>
393 (Keyword: smtp[host])
394 Specify a hunt list of hosts to forward mail to (one or more
395 hostnames, comma-separated). Hosts are tried in list order; the first
396 one that is up becomes the forwarding target for the current run.
397 Normally, `localhost' is added to the end of the list as an invisible
398 default. However, when using Kerberos authentication, the FQDN of the
399 machine running fetchmail is added to the end of the list as an
400 invisible default. Each hostname may have a port number following the
401 host name. The port number is separated from the host name by a
402 slash; the default port is 25 (or ``smtp'' under IPv6). If you
403 specify an absolute path name (beginning with a /), it will be
404 interpreted as the name of a UNIX socket accepting LMTP connections
405 (such as is supported by the Cyrus IMAP daemon) Example:
408 --smtphost server1,server2/2525,server3,/var/imap/socket/lmtp
411 This option can be used with ODMR, and will make fetchmail a relay
412 between the ODMR server and SMTP or LMTP receiver.
414 .B \-\-fetchdomains <hosts>
415 (Keyword: fetchdomains)
416 In ETRN or ODMR mode, this option specifies the list of domains the
417 server should ship mail for once the connection is turned around. The
418 default is the FQDN of the machine running
421 .B \-D <domain> | \-\-smtpaddress <domain>
422 (Keyword: smtpaddress) Specify the domain to be appended to addresses
423 in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP. The name of the SMTP server (as
424 specified by --smtphost, or defaulted to "localhost") is used when
425 this is not specified.
427 .B \-\-smtpname <user@domain>
429 Specify the domain and user to be put in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP.
430 The default user is the current local user.
432 .B \-Z <nnn> | \-\-antispam <nnn[, nnn]...>
434 Specifies the list of numeric SMTP errors that are to be interpreted
435 as a spam-block response from the listener. A value of -1 disables
436 this option. For the command-line option, the list values should
439 .B \-m <command> | \-\-mda <command>
440 (Keyword: mda) You can force mail to be passed to an MDA directly
441 (rather than forwarded to port 25) with the --mda or -m option. To
442 avoid losing mail, use this option only with MDAs like maildrop, procmail or
443 sendmail that return a nonzero status on disk-full and other
444 resource-exhaustion errors; the nonzero status tells fetchmail that
445 delivery failed and prevents the message from being deleted off the
446 server. If \fIfetchmail\fR is running as root, it sets its user id to
447 that of the target user while delivering mail through an MDA. Some
448 possible MDAs are "/usr/sbin/sendmail -i -f %F %T", "/usr/bin/deliver"
449 and "/usr/bin/procmail -d %T" (but the latter is usually redundant as
450 it's what SMTP listeners normally forward to). Local delivery
451 addresses will be inserted into the MDA command wherever you place a
452 %T; the mail message's From address will be inserted where you place
453 an %F. \fBDO NOT ENCLOSE THE %F OR %T STRING IN SINGLE QUOTES!\fR For
454 both %T and %F, fetchmail encloses the addresses in single quotes ('),
455 after removing any single quotes they may contain, before the MDA
456 command is passed to the shell. Do \fINOT\fR use an MDA invocation
457 like "sendmail -i -t" that dispatches on the contents of To/Cc/Bcc, it
458 will create mail loops and bring the just wrath of many postmasters
459 down upon your head. Also, do \fInot\fR try to combine multidrop
460 mode with an MDA such as procmail that can only accept one address;
465 Cause delivery via LMTP (Local Mail Transfer Protocol). A service
466 port \fImust\fR be explicitly specified (with a slash suffix) on each
467 host in the smtphost hunt list if this option is selected; the
468 default port 25 will (in accordance with RFC 2033) not be accepted.
470 .B \-\-bsmtp <filename>
472 Append fetched mail to a BSMTP file. This simply contains the SMTP
473 commands that would normally be generated by fetchmail when passing
474 mail to an SMTP listener daemon. An argument of `-' causes the mail
475 to be written to standard output. Note that fetchmail's
476 reconstruction of MAIL FROM and RCPT TO lines is not guaranteed
477 correct; the caveats discussed under THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP
478 MAILBOXES below apply.
479 .SS Resource Limit Control Options
481 .B \-l <maxbytes> | \-\-limit <maxbytes>
482 (Keyword: limit) Takes a maximum octet size argument. Messages larger
483 than this size will not be fetched and will be left on the server (in
484 foreground sessions, the progress messages will note that they are
485 "oversized"). If the fetch protocol permits (in particular, under
486 IMAP or POP3 without the fetchall option) the message will not be
487 marked seen. An explicit --limit of 0 overrides any limits set in your
488 run control file. This option is intended for those needing to
489 strictly control fetch time due to expensive and variable phone rates.
490 Combined with --flush, it can be used to delete oversized messages
491 waiting on a server UNLESS in daemon mode. In daemon mode, oversize
492 notifications are mailed to the calling user (see the --warnings
493 option) and the messages remain on the server.
494 This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
496 .B \-w <interval> | \-\-warnings <interval>
498 Takes an interval in seconds. When you call
500 with a `limit' option in daemon mode, this controls the interval at
501 which warnings about oversized messages are mailed to the calling user
502 (or the user specified by the `postmaster' option). One such
503 notification is always mailed at the end of the the first poll that
504 the oversized message is detected. Thereafter, renotification is
505 suppressed until after the warning interval elapses (it will take
506 place at the end of the first following poll).
508 .B \-b <count> | \-\-batchlimit <count>
509 (Keyword: batchlimit)
510 Specify the maximum number of messages that will be shipped to an SMTP
511 listener before the connection is deliberately torn down and rebuilt
512 (defaults to 0, meaning no limit). An explicit --batchlimit of 0
513 overrides any limits set in your run control file. While
514 \fBsendmail\fR(8) normally initiates delivery of a message immediately
515 after receiving the message terminator, some SMTP listeners are not so
516 prompt. MTAs like \fIsmail\fR(8) may wait till the
517 delivery socket is shut down to deliver. This may produce annoying
518 delays when \fIfetchmail\fR is processing very large batches. Setting
519 the batch limit to some nonzero size will prevent these delays. This
520 option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
522 .B \-B <number> | \-\-fetchlimit <number>
523 (Keyword: fetchlimit)
524 Limit the number of messages accepted from a given server in a single
525 poll. By default there is no limit. An explicit --fetchlimit of 0
526 overrides any limits set in your run control file.
527 This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
529 .B \-\-fetchsizelimit <number>
530 (Keyword: fetchsizelimit)
531 Limit the number of sizes of messages accepted from a given server in
532 a single transaction. This option is useful in reducing the delay in
533 downloading the first mail when there are too many mails in the
534 mailbox. By default, the limit is 100. If set to 0, sizes of all
535 messages are downloaded at the start.
536 This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR. For POP3, the only valid
539 .B \-\-fastuidl <number>
541 Do a binary instead of linear search for the first unseen UID. Binary
542 search avoids downloading the UIDs of all mails. This saves time
543 (especially in daemon mode) where downloading the same set of UIDs in
544 each poll is a waste of bandwidth. The number `n' indicates how rarely
545 a linear search should be done. In daemon mode, linear search is used
546 once followed by binary searches in `n-1' polls if `n' is greater than
547 1; binary search is always used if `n' is 1; linear search is always
548 used if `n' is 0. In non-daemon mode, binary search is used if `n' is
549 1; otherwise linear search is used.
550 This option works with POP3 only.
552 .B \-e <count> | \-\-expunge <count>
554 Arrange for deletions to be made final after a given number of
555 messages. Under POP2 or POP3, fetchmail cannot make deletions final
556 without sending QUIT and ending the session -- with this option on,
557 fetchmail will break a long mail retrieval session into multiple
558 sub-sessions, sending QUIT after each sub-session. This is a good
559 defense against line drops on POP3 servers that do not do the
560 equivalent of a QUIT on hangup. Under IMAP,
562 normally issues an EXPUNGE command after each deletion in order to
563 force the deletion to be done immediately. This is safest when your
564 connection to the server is flaky and expensive, as it avoids
565 resending duplicate mail after a line hit. However, on large
566 mailboxes the overhead of re-indexing after every message can slam the
567 server pretty hard, so if your connection is reliable it is good to do
568 expunges less frequently. Also note that some servers enforce a delay
569 of a few seconds after each quit, so fetchmail may not be able to get
570 back in immediately after an expunge -- you may see "lock busy" errors
571 if this happens. If you specify this option to an integer N,
574 to only issue expunges on every Nth delete. An argument of zero
575 suppresses expunges entirely (so no expunges at all will be done until
576 the end of run). This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
577 .SS Authentication Options
579 .B \-u <name> | \-\-username <name>
580 (Keyword: user[name])
581 Specifies the user identification to be used when logging in to the mailserver.
582 The appropriate user identification is both server and user-dependent.
583 The default is your login name on the client machine that is running
585 See USER AUTHENTICATION below for a complete description.
587 .B \-I <specification> | \-\-interface <specification>
589 Require that a specific interface device be up and have a specific local
590 or remote IP address (or range) before polling. Frequently
592 is used over a transient point-to-point TCP/IP link established directly
593 to a mailserver via SLIP or PPP. That is a relatively secure channel.
594 But when other TCP/IP routes to the mailserver exist (e.g. when the link
595 is connected to an alternate ISP), your username and password may be
596 vulnerable to snooping (especially when daemon mode automatically polls
597 for mail, shipping a clear password over the net at predictable
598 intervals). The --interface option may be used to prevent this. When
599 the specified link is not up or is not connected to a matching IP
600 address, polling will be skipped. The format is:
603 interface/iii.iii.iii.iii/mmm.mmm.mmm.mmm
606 The field before the first slash is the interface name (i.e. sl0, ppp0
607 etc.). The field before the second slash is the acceptable IP address.
608 The field after the second slash is a mask which specifies a range of
609 IP addresses to accept. If no mask is present 255.255.255.255 is
610 assumed (i.e. an exact match). This option is currently only supported
611 under Linux and FreeBSD. Please see the
613 section for below for FreeBSD specific information.
615 .B \-M <interface> | --monitor <interface>
617 Daemon mode can cause transient links which are automatically taken down
618 after a period of inactivity (e.g. PPP links) to remain up
619 indefinitely. This option identifies a system TCP/IP interface to be
620 monitored for activity. After each poll interval, if the link is up but
621 no other activity has occurred on the link, then the poll will be
622 skipped. However, when fetchmail is woken up by a signal, the
623 monitor check is skipped and the poll goes through unconditionally.
624 This option is currently only supported under Linux and FreeBSD.
629 options to work for non root users under FreeBSD, the fetchmail binary
630 must be installed SGID kmem. This would be a security hole, but
631 fetchmail runs with the effective GID set to that of the kmem group
633 when interface data is being collected.
636 (Keyword: auth[enticate])
637 This option permits you to specify an authentication type (see USER
638 AUTHENTICATION below for details). The possible values are \fBany\fR,
639 \&`\fBpassword\fR', `\fBkerberos_v5\fR' and `\fBkerberos\fR' (or, for
640 excruciating exactness, `\fBkerberos_v4\fR'), \fRgssapi\fR,
641 \fIcram-md5\fR, \fIotp\fR, \fIntlm\fR, and \fBssh\fR. When \fBany\fR (the
642 default) is specified, fetchmail tries first methods that don't
643 require a password (GSSAPI, KERBEROS_IV); then it looks for methods
644 that mask your password (CRAM-MD5, X-OTP, NTLM); and only if the server
645 doesn't support any of those will it ship your password en clair.
646 Other values may be used to force various authentication methods
647 (\fBssh\fR suppresses authentication). Any value other than
648 \fIpassword\fR, \fIcram-md5\fR, \fIntlm\fR or \fIotp\fR suppresses fetchmail's
649 normal inquiry for a password. Specify \fIssh\fR when you are using
650 an end-to-end secure connection such as an ssh tunnel; specify
651 \fRgssapi\fR or \fBkerberos_v4\fR if you are using a protocol variant
652 that employs GSSAPI or K4. Choosing KPOP protocol automatically
653 selects Kerberos authentication. This option does not work with ETRN.
654 .SS Miscellaneous Options
656 .B \-f <pathname> | \-\-fetchmailrc <pathname>
657 Specify a non-default name for the
659 run control file. The pathname argument must be either "-" (a single
660 dash, meaning to read the configuration from standard input) or a
661 filename. Unless the --version option is also on, a named file
662 argument must have permissions no more open than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) or
665 .B \-i <pathname> | \-\-idfile <pathname>
667 Specify an alternate name for the .fetchids file used to save POP3
670 .B \-n | \-\-norewrite
671 (Keyword: no rewrite)
674 edits RFC-822 address headers (To, From, Cc, Bcc, and Reply-To) in
675 fetched mail so that any mail IDs local to the server are expanded to
676 full addresses (@ and the mailserver hostname are appended). This enables
677 replies on the client to get addressed correctly (otherwise your
678 mailer might think they should be addressed to local users on the
679 client machine!). This option disables the rewrite. (This option is
680 provided to pacify people who are paranoid about having an MTA edit
681 mail headers and want to know they can prevent it, but it is generally
682 not a good idea to actually turn off rewrite.)
683 When using ETRN or ODMR, the rewrite option is ineffective.
685 .B \-E <line> | \-\-envelope <line>
686 (Keyword: envelope; Multidrop only)
687 This option changes the header
689 assumes will carry a copy of the mail's envelope address. Normally
690 this is `X-Envelope-To' but as this header is not standard, practice
691 varies. See the discussion of multidrop address handling below. As a
692 special case, `envelope "Received"' enables parsing of sendmail-style
693 Received lines. This is the default, and it should not be necessary
694 unless you have globally disabled Received parsing with `no envelope'
695 in the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file.
697 .B \-Q <prefix> | \-\-qvirtual <prefix>
698 (Keyword: qvirtual; Multidrop only)
699 The string prefix assigned to this option will be removed from the user
700 name found in the header specified with the \fIenvelope\fR option
701 (\fIbefore\fR doing multidrop name mapping or localdomain checking,
702 if either is applicable). This option is useful if you are using
704 to collect the mail for an entire domain and your ISP (or your mail
705 redirection provider) is using qmail.
706 One of the basic features of qmail is the
710 message header. Whenever qmail delivers a message to a local mailbox
711 it puts the username and hostname of the envelope recipient on this
712 line. The major reason for this is to prevent mail loops. To set up
713 qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site the ISP-mailhost will have
714 normally put that site in its `Virtualhosts' control file so it will
715 add a prefix to all mail addresses for this site. This results in mail
716 .\" The \&@\& tries to stop HTML converters from making a mailto URL here.
717 sent to 'username\&@\&userhost.userdom.dom.com' having a
718 \&`Delivered-To:' line of the form:
720 Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username\&@\&userhost.userdom.dom.com
722 The ISP can make the 'mbox-userstr-' prefix anything they choose
723 but a string matching the user host name is likely.
724 By using the option `envelope Delivered-To:' you can make fetchmail reliably
725 identify the original envelope recipient, but you have to strip the
726 `mbox-userstr-' prefix to deliver to the correct user.
727 This is what this option is for.
732 file, interpret any command-line options specified, and dump a
733 configuration report to standard output. The configuration report is
734 a data structure assignment in the language Python. This option
735 is meant to be used with an interactive
741 .SH USER AUTHENTICATION AND ENCRYPTION
742 All modes except ETRN require authentication of the client to the server.
743 Normal user authentication in
745 is very much like the authentication mechanism of
747 The correct user-id and password depend upon the underlying security
748 system at the mailserver.
750 If the mailserver is a Unix machine on which you have an ordinary user
751 account, your regular login name and password are used with
753 If you use the same login name on both the server and the client machines,
754 you needn't worry about specifying a user-id with the
756 option \-\- the default behavior is to use your login name on the
757 client machine as the user-id on the server machine. If you use a
758 different login name on the server machine, specify that login name
761 option. e.g. if your login name is 'jsmith' on a machine named 'mailgrunt',
766 fetchmail -u jsmith mailgrunt
768 The default behavior of
770 is to prompt you for your mailserver password before the connection is
771 established. This is the safest way to use
773 and ensures that your password will not be compromised. You may also specify
774 your password in your
776 file. This is convenient when using
778 in daemon mode or with scripts.
780 If you do not specify a password, and
782 cannot extract one from your
784 file, it will look for a
786 file in your home directory before requesting one interactively; if an
787 entry matching the mailserver is found in that file, the password will
788 be used. Fetchmail first looks for a match on poll name; if it finds none,
789 it checks for a match on via name. See the
791 man page for details of the syntax of the
793 file. (This feature may allow you to avoid duplicating password
794 information in more than one file.)
796 On mailservers that do not provide ordinary user accounts, your user-id and
797 password are usually assigned by the server administrator when you apply for
798 a mailbox on the server. Contact your server administrator if you don't know
799 the correct user-id and password for your mailbox account.
801 Early versions of POP3 (RFC1081, RFC1225) supported a crude form of
802 independent authentication using the
804 file on the mailserver side. Under this RPOP variant, a fixed
805 per-user ID equivalent to a password was sent in clear over a link to
806 a reserved port, with the command RPOP rather than PASS to alert the
807 server that it should do special checking. RPOP is supported
810 (you can specify `protocol RPOP' to have the program send `RPOP'
811 rather than `PASS') but its use is strongly discouraged. This
812 facility was vulnerable to spoofing and was withdrawn in RFC1460.
814 RFC1460 introduced APOP authentication. In this variant of POP3,
815 you register an APOP password on your server host (the program
816 to do this with on the server is probably called \fIpopauth\fR(8)). You
817 put the same password in your
821 logs in, it sends a cryptographically secure hash of your password and
822 the server greeting time to the server, which can verify it by
823 checking its authorization database.
825 If your \fIfetchmail\fR was built with Kerberos support and you specify
826 Kerberos authentication (either with --auth or the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
827 option \fBauthenticate kerberos_v4\fR) it will try to get a Kerberos
828 ticket from the mailserver at the start of each query. Note: if
829 either the pollname or via name is `hesiod', fetchmail will try to use
830 Hesiod to look up the mailserver.
832 If you use POP3 or IMAP with GSSAPI authentication, \fIfetchmail\fR will
833 expect the server to have RFC1731- or RFC1734-conformant GSSAPI
834 capability, and will use it. Currently this has only been tested over
835 Kerberos V, so you're expected to already have a ticket-granting
836 ticket. You may pass a username different from your principal name
837 using the standard \fB--user\fR command or by the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
840 If your IMAP daemon returns the PREAUTH response in its greeting line,
841 fetchmail will notice this and skip the normal authentication step.
842 This can be useful, e.g. if you start imapd explicitly using ssh.
843 In this case you can declare the authentication value `ssh' on that
844 site entry to stop \fI.fetchmail\fR from asking you for a password
847 If you are using POP3, and the server issues a one-time-password
848 challenge conforming to RFC1938, \fIfetchmail\fR will use your
849 password as a pass phrase to generate the required response. This
850 avoids sending secrets over the net unencrypted.
852 Compuserve's RPA authentication (similar to APOP) is supported. If you
853 compile in the support, \fIfetchmail\fR will try to perform an RPA pass-phrase
854 authentication instead of sending over the password en clair if it
855 detects "@compuserve.com" in the hostname.
857 If you are using IMAP, Microsoft's NTLM authentication (used by Microsoft
858 Exchange) is supported. If you compile in the support, \fIfetchmail\fR
859 will try to perform an NTLM authentication (instead of sending over the
860 password en clair) whenever the server returns AUTH=NTLM in its
861 capability response. Specify a user option value that looks like
862 `user@domain': the part to the left of the @ will be passed as the
863 username and the part to the right as the NTLM domain.
865 You can access SSL encrypted services by specifying the --ssl option.
866 You can also do this using the "ssl" server option in the .fetchmailrc
867 file. With SSL encryption enabled, queries are initiated over a connection
868 after negotiating an SSL session. Some services, such as POP3 and IMAP,
869 have different well known ports defined for the SSL encrypted services.
870 The encrypted ports will be selected automatically when SSL is enabled and
871 no explicit port is specified.
873 When connecting to an SSL encrypted server, the server presents a certificate
874 to the client for validation. The certificate is checked to verify that
875 the common name in the certificate matches the name of the server being
876 contacted and that the effective and expiration dates in the certificate
877 indicate that it is currently valid. If any of these checks fail, a warning
878 message is printed, but the connection continues. The server certificate
879 does not need to be signed by any specific Certifying Authority and may
880 be a "self-signed" certificate.
882 Some SSL encrypted servers may request a client side certificate. A client
883 side public SSL certificate and private SSL key may be specified. If
884 requested by the server, the client certificate is sent to the server for
885 validation. Some servers may require a valid client certificate and may
886 refuse connections if a certificate is not provided or if the certificate
887 is not valid. Some servers may require client side certificates be signed
888 by a recognized Certifying Authority. The format for the key files and
889 the certificate files is that required by the underlying SSL libraries
890 (OpenSSL in the general case).
892 A word of care about the use of SSL: While above mentioned
893 setup with self-signed server certificates retrieved over the wires
894 can protect you from a passive eavesdropper it doesn't help against an
895 active attacker. It's clearly an improvement over sending the
896 passwords in clear but you should be aware that a man-in-the-middle
897 attack is trivially possible (in particular with tools such as dsniff,
898 http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/dsniff/). Use of an ssh tunnel (see
899 below for some examples) is preferable if you care seriously about the
900 security of your mailbox.
903 also supports authentication to the ESMTP server on the client side
904 according to RFC 2554. You can specify a name/password pair to be
905 used with the keywords `esmtpname' and `esmtppassword'; the former
906 defaults to the username of the calling user.
910 .B \-\-daemon <interval>
915 in daemon mode. You must specify a numeric argument which is a
916 polling interval in seconds.
920 puts itself in background and runs forever, querying each specified
921 host and then sleeping for the given polling interval.
927 will, therefore, poll all the hosts described in your
929 file (except those explicitly excluded with the `skip' verb) once
930 every fifteen minutes.
932 It is possible to set a polling interval
935 file by saying `set daemon <interval>', where <interval> is an
936 integer number of seconds. If you do this, fetchmail will always
937 start in daemon mode unless you override it with the command-line
938 option --daemon 0 or -d0.
940 Only one daemon process is permitted per user; in daemon mode,
942 makes a per-user lockfile to guarantee this.
944 Normally, calling fetchmail with a daemon in the background sends a
945 wake-up signal to the daemon, forcing it to poll mailservers
946 immediately. (The wake-up signal is SIGHUP if fetchmail is running as
947 root, SIGUSR1 otherwise.) The wake-up action also clears any `wedged'
948 flags indicating that connections have wedged due to failed
949 authentication or multiple timeouts.
953 will kill a running daemon process instead of waking it up (if there
956 notifies you). If the --quit option is the only command-line option,
957 that's all there is to it.
959 The quit option may also be mixed with other command-line options; its
960 effect is to kill any running daemon before doing what the other
961 options specify in combination with the fetchmailrc file.
966 .B \-\-logfile <filename>
967 option (keyword: set logfile) allows you to redirect status messages
968 emitted while detached into a specified logfile (follow the
969 option with the logfile name). The logfile is opened for append, so
970 previous messages aren't deleted. This is primarily useful for
971 debugging configurations.
975 option (keyword: set syslog) allows you to redirect status and error
976 messages emitted to the
978 system daemon if available.
979 Messages are logged with an id of \fBfetchmail\fR, the facility \fBLOG_MAIL\fR,
980 and priorities \fBLOG_ERR\fR, \fBLOG_ALERT\fR or \fBLOG_INFO\fR.
981 This option is intended for logging status and error messages which
982 indicate the status of the daemon and the results while fetching mail
984 Error messages for command line options and parsing the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
985 file are still written to stderr, or to the specified log file.
988 option turns off use of
990 assuming it's turned on in the
995 .B \-\-logfile <file>
1000 or --nodetach option suppresses backgrounding and detachment of the
1001 daemon process from its control terminal. This is useful
1002 for debugging or when fetchmail runs as the child of a supervisor
1007 Note that this also causes the logfile option to be
1008 ignored (though perhaps it shouldn't).
1010 Note that while running in daemon mode polling a POP2 or IMAP2bis server,
1011 transient errors (such as DNS failures or sendmail delivery refusals)
1012 may force the fetchall option on for the duration of the next polling
1013 cycle. This is a robustness feature. It means that if a message is
1014 fetched (and thus marked seen by the mailserver) but not delivered
1015 locally due to some transient error, it will be re-fetched during the
1016 next poll cycle. (The IMAP logic doesn't delete messages until
1017 they're delivered, so this problem does not arise.)
1019 If you touch or change the
1021 file while fetchmail is running in daemon mode, this will be detected
1022 at the beginning of the next poll cycle. When a changed
1024 is detected, fetchmail rereads it and restarts from scratch (using
1025 exec(2); no state information is retained in the new instance). Note also
1026 that if you break the
1028 file's syntax, the new instance will softly and silently vanish away
1031 .SH ADMINISTRATIVE OPTIONS
1034 .B \-\-postmaster <name>
1035 option (keyword: set postmaster) specifies the last-resort username to
1036 which multidrop mail is to be forwarded if no matching local recipient
1037 can be found. Normally this is just the user who invoked
1039 If the invoking user is root, then the default of this option is
1040 the user `postmaster'. Setting postmaster to the empty string causes
1041 such mail to be discarded.
1045 option suppresses the normal action of bouncing errors back to the
1046 sender in an RFC1894-conformant error message. If nobounce is on, the
1047 message will go to the postmaster instead.
1051 option (keyword: set invisible) tries to make fetchmail invisible.
1052 Normally, fetchmail behaves like any other MTA would -- it generates a
1053 Received header into each message describing its place in the chain of
1054 transmission, and tells the MTA it forwards to that the mail came from
1055 the machine fetchmail itself is running on. If the invisible option
1056 is on, the Received header is suppressed and fetchmail tries to spoof
1057 the MTA it forwards to into thinking it came directly from the
1062 option (keyword: set showdots) forces fetchmail to show progress dots
1063 even if the current tty is not stdout (for example logfiles).
1064 Starting with fetchmail version 5.3.0,
1065 progress dots are only shown on stdout by default.
1069 option, you can ask fetchmail to add information to the Received
1070 header on the form "polling {label} account {user}", where {label} is
1071 the account label (from the specified rcfile, normally ~/.fetchmailrc)
1072 and {user} is the username which is used to log on to the mail
1073 server. This header can be used to make filtering email where no
1074 useful header information is available and you want mail from
1075 different accounts sorted into different mailboxes (this could, for
1076 example, occur if you have an account on the same server running a
1077 mailing list, and are subscribed to the list using that account). The
1078 default is not adding any such header. In
1080 this is called `tracepolls'.
1082 .SH RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES
1083 The protocols \fIfetchmail\fR uses to talk to mailservers are next to
1084 bulletproof. In normal operation forwarding to port 25, no message is
1085 ever deleted (or even marked for deletion) on the host until the SMTP
1086 listener on the client side has acknowledged to \fIfetchmail\fR that
1087 the message has been either accepted for delivery or rejected due to a
1090 When forwarding to an MDA, however, there is more possibility
1091 of error. Some MDAs are `safe' and reliably return a nonzero status
1092 on any delivery error, even one due to temporary resource limits.
1095 program is like this; so are most programs designed as mail transport
1100 These programs give back a reliable positive acknowledgement and
1101 can be used with the mda option with no risk of mail loss. Unsafe
1102 MDAs, though, may return 0 even on delivery failure. If this
1103 happens, you will lose mail.
1105 The normal mode of \fIfetchmail\fR is to try to download only `new'
1106 messages, leaving untouched (and undeleted) messages you have already
1107 read directly on the server (or fetched with a previous \fIfetchmail
1108 --keep\fR). But you may find that messages you've already read on the
1109 server are being fetched (and deleted) even when you don't specify
1110 --all. There are several reasons this can happen.
1112 One could be that you're using POP2. The POP2 protocol includes no
1113 representation of `new' or `old' state in messages, so \fIfetchmail\fR
1114 must treat all messages as new all the time. But POP2 is obsolete, so
1117 A potential POP3 problem might be servers that insert messages
1118 in the middle of mailboxes (some VMS implementations of mail are
1119 rumored to do this). The \fIfetchmail\fR code assumes that new
1120 messages are appended to the end of the mailbox; when this is not true
1121 it may treat some old messages as new and vice versa. Using UIDL might
1122 fix this, otherwise, consider switching to IMAP.
1124 Yet another POP3 problem is that if they can't make tempfiles in the
1125 user's home directory, some POP3 servers will hand back an
1126 undocumented response that causes fetchmail to spuriously report "No
1129 The IMAP code uses the presence or absence of the server flag \eSeen
1130 to decide whether or not a message is new. This isn't the right thing
1131 to do, fetchmail should check the UIDVALIDITY and use UID, but it
1132 doesn't do that yet. Under Unix, it counts on your IMAP server to notice
1133 the BSD-style Status flags set by mail user agents and set the \eSeen
1134 flag from them when appropriate. All Unix IMAP servers we know of do
1135 this, though it's not specified by the IMAP RFCs. If you ever trip over
1136 a server that doesn't, the symptom will be that messages you have
1137 already read on your host will look new to the server. In this
1138 (unlikely) case, only messages you fetched with \fIfetchmail --keep\fR
1139 will be both undeleted and marked old.
1141 In ETRN and ODMR modes, \fIfetchmail\fR does not actually retrieve messages;
1142 instead, it asks the server's SMTP listener to start a queue flush
1143 to the client via SMTP. Therefore it sends only undelivered messages.
1146 Many SMTP listeners allow administrators to set up `spam filters' that
1147 block unsolicited email from specified domains. A MAIL FROM or DATA line that
1148 triggers this feature will elicit an SMTP response which
1149 (unfortunately) varies according to the listener.
1153 return an error code of 571.
1155 According to RFC2821, the correct thing to return in this situation is
1156 550 "Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable" (the draft adds
1157 "[E.g., mailbox not found, no access, or command rejected for policy
1160 Older versions of the
1162 MTA return 501 "Syntax error in parameters or arguments".
1166 MTA runs 554 as an antispam response.
1169 may reject code with a 500 response (followed by an enhanced status
1170 code that contains more information).
1174 treats as antispam responses and discards
1175 the message can be set with the `antispam' option. This is one of the
1177 three circumstance under which fetchmail ever discards mail (the others
1178 are the 552 and 553 errors described below, and the suppression of
1179 multidropped messages with a message-ID already seen).
1183 is fetching from an IMAP server, the antispam response will be detected and
1184 the message rejected immediately after the headers have been fetched,
1185 without reading the message body. Thus, you won't pay for downloading
1186 spam message bodies.
1188 By default, the list of antispam responses is empty.
1190 If the \fIspambounce\fR option is on, mail that is spam-blocked
1191 triggers an RFC1892 bounce message informing the originator that we do
1192 not accept mail from it.
1194 .SH SMTP/ESMTP ERROR HANDLING
1195 Besides the spam-blocking described above, fetchmail takes special
1196 actions on the following SMTP/ESMTP error responses
1198 452 (insufficient system storage)
1199 Leave the message in the server mailbox for later retrieval.
1201 552 (message exceeds fixed maximum message size)
1202 Delete the message from the server. Send bounce-mail to the
1205 553 (invalid sending domain)
1206 Delete the message from the server. Don't even try to send
1207 bounce-mail to the originator.
1209 Other errors trigger bounce mail back to the originator.
1211 .SH THE RUN CONTROL FILE
1212 The preferred way to set up fetchmail is to write a
1213 \&\fI.fetchmailrc\fR file in your home directory (you may do this
1214 directly, with a text editor, or indirectly via \fIfetchmailconf\fR).
1215 When there is a conflict between the command-line arguments and the
1216 arguments in this file, the command-line arguments take precedence.
1218 To protect the security of your passwords,
1219 your \fI~/.fetchmailrc\fR may not normally have more than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) permissions;
1221 will complain and exit otherwise (this check is suppressed when
1224 You may read the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file as a list of commands to
1227 is called with no arguments.
1228 .SS Run Control Syntax
1230 Comments begin with a '#' and extend through the end of the line.
1231 Otherwise the file consists of a series of server entries or global
1232 option statements in a free-format, token-oriented syntax.
1234 There are four kinds of tokens: grammar keywords, numbers
1235 (i.e. decimal digit sequences), unquoted strings, and quoted strings.
1236 A quoted string is bounded by double quotes and may contain
1237 whitespace (and quoted digits are treated as a string). An unquoted
1238 string is any whitespace-delimited token that is neither numeric, string
1239 quoted nor contains the special characters `,', `;', `:', or `='.
1241 Any amount of whitespace separates tokens in server entries, but is
1242 otherwise ignored. You may use standard C-style escapes (\en, \et,
1243 \eb, octal, and hex) to embed non-printable characters or string
1244 delimiters in strings.
1246 Each server entry consists of one of the keywords `poll' or `skip',
1247 followed by a server name, followed by server options, followed by any
1248 number of user descriptions. Note: the most common cause of syntax
1249 errors is mixing up user and server options.
1251 For backward compatibility, the word `server' is a synonym for `poll'.
1253 You can use the noise keywords `and', `with',
1254 \&`has', `wants', and `options' anywhere in an entry to make
1255 it resemble English. They're ignored, but but can make entries much
1256 easier to read at a glance. The punctuation characters ':', ';' and
1257 \&',' are also ignored.
1260 The `poll' verb tells fetchmail to query this host when it is run with
1261 no arguments. The `skip' verb tells
1263 not to poll this host unless it is explicitly named on the command
1264 line. (The `skip' verb allows you to experiment with test entries
1265 safely, or easily disable entries for hosts that are temporarily down.)
1267 .SS Keyword/Option Summary
1268 Here are the legal options. Keyword suffixes enclosed in
1269 square brackets are optional. Those corresponding to command-line
1270 options are followed by `-' and the appropriate option letter.
1271 If option is only relevant to a single mode of operation, it is noted
1272 as `s' or `m' for singledrop- or multidrop-mode, respectively.
1274 Here are the legal global options:
1278 Keyword Opt Mode Function
1281 Set a background poll interval in seconds
1283 set postmaster \& \& T{
1284 Give the name of the last-resort mail recipient
1286 set no bouncemail \& \& T{
1287 Direct error mail to postmaster rather than sender
1289 set no spambounce \& \& T{
1292 set logfile \& \& T{
1293 Name of a file to dump error and status messages to
1296 Name of the file to store UID lists in
1299 Do error logging through syslog(3).
1301 set no syslog \& \& T{
1302 Turn off error logging through syslog(3).
1304 set properties \& \& T{
1305 String value is ignored by fetchmail (may be used by extension scripts)
1309 Here are the legal server options:
1313 Keyword Opt Mode Function
1316 Specify DNS name of mailserver, overriding poll name
1319 Specify protocol (case insensitive):
1320 POP2, POP3, IMAP, APOP, KPOP
1322 local[domains] \& m T{
1323 Specify domain(s) to be regarded as local
1326 Specify TCP/IP service port
1328 auth[enticate] \& \& T{
1329 Set authentication type (default `any')
1332 Server inactivity timeout in seconds (default 300)
1335 Specify envelope-address header name
1338 Disable looking for envelope address
1341 Qmail virtual domain prefix to remove from user name
1344 Specify alternate DNS names of mailserver
1347 specify IP interface(s) that must be up for server poll to take place
1350 Specify IP address to monitor for activity
1353 Specify command through which to make server connections.
1356 Specify command through which to make listener connections.
1359 Enable DNS lookup for multidrop (default)
1362 Disable DNS lookup for multidrop
1365 Do comparison by IP address for multidrop
1367 no checkalias \& m T{
1368 Do comparison by name for multidrop (default)
1371 Force POP3 to use client-side UIDLs
1374 Turn off POP3 use of client-side UIDLs (default)
1377 Only check this site every N poll cycles; N is a numeric argument.
1380 Add poll tracing information to the Received header
1383 Set Kerberos principal (only useful with imap and kerberos)
1386 Set name for RFC2554 authentication to the ESMTP server.
1388 esmtppassword \& \& T{
1389 Set password for RFC2554 authentication to the ESMTP server.
1393 Here are the legal user options:
1397 Keyword Opt Mode Function
1400 Set remote user name
1401 (local user name if name followed by `here')
1404 Connect local and remote user names
1407 Connect local and remote user names
1410 Specify remote account password
1413 Connect to server over the specified base protocol using SSL encryption
1416 Specify file for client side public SSL certificate
1419 Specify file for client side private SSL key
1422 Force ssl protocol for connection
1425 Specify remote folder to query
1428 Specify smtp host(s) to forward to
1430 fetchdomains \& m T{
1431 Specify domains for which mail should be fetched
1433 smtpaddress -D \& T{
1434 Specify the domain to be put in RCPT TO lines
1437 Specify the user and domain to be put in RCPT TO lines
1440 Specify what SMTP returns are interpreted as spam-policy blocks
1443 Specify MDA for local delivery
1446 Specify BSMTP batch file to append to
1449 Command to be executed before each connection
1451 postconnect \& \& T{
1452 Command to be executed after each connection
1455 Don't delete seen messages from server
1458 Flush all seen messages before querying
1461 Fetch all messages whether seen or not
1464 Rewrite destination addresses for reply (default)
1467 Strip carriage returns from ends of lines
1470 Force carriage returns at ends of lines
1473 Force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP listener
1476 Strip Status and X-Mozilla-Status lines out of incoming mail
1478 dropdelivered \& \& T{
1479 Strip Delivered-To lines out of incoming mail
1482 Convert quoted-printable to 8-bit in MIME messages
1485 Idle waiting for new messages after each poll (IMAP only)
1488 Delete seen messages from server (default)
1491 Don't flush all seen messages before querying (default)
1493 no fetchall \& \& T{
1494 Retrieve only new messages (default)
1497 Don't rewrite headers
1500 Don't strip carriage returns (default)
1503 Don't force carriage returns at EOL (default)
1505 no pass8bits \& \& T{
1506 Don't force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP listener (default)
1508 no dropstatus \& \& T{
1509 Don't drop Status headers (default)
1511 no dropdelivered \& \& T{
1512 Don't drop Delivered-To headers (default)
1514 no mimedecode \& \& T{
1515 Don't convert quoted-printable to 8-bit in MIME messages (default)
1518 Don't idle waiting for new messages after each poll (IMAP only)
1521 Set message size limit
1524 Set message size warning interval
1527 Max # messages to forward in single connect
1530 Max # messages to fetch in single connect
1532 fetchsizelimit \& \& T{
1533 Max # message sizes to fetch in single transaction
1536 Use binary search for first unseen message (POP3 only)
1539 Perform an expunge on every #th message (IMAP and POP3 only)
1542 String value is ignored by fetchmail (may be used by extension scripts)
1546 Remember that all user options must \fIfollow\fR all server options.
1548 In the .fetchmailrc file, the `envelope' string argument may be
1549 preceded by a whitespace-separated number. This number, if specified,
1550 is the number of such headers to skip (that is, an argument of 1
1551 selects the second header of the given type). This is sometime useful
1552 for ignoring bogus Received headers created by an ISP's local delivery
1554 .SS Keywords Not Corresponding To Option Switches
1556 The `folder' and `smtphost' options (unlike their command-line
1557 equivalents) can take a space- or comma-separated list of names
1560 All options correspond to the obvious command-line arguments, except
1561 the following: `via', `interval', `aka', `is', `to', `dns'/`no dns',
1562 `checkalias'/`no checkalias', `password', `preconnect', `postconnect',
1563 `localdomains', `stripcr'/`no stripcr', `forcecr'/`no forcecr',
1564 `pass8bits'/`no pass8bits' `dropstatus/no dropstatus',
1565 `dropdelivered/no dropdelivered', `mimedecode/no mimedecode', `idle/no
1566 idle', and `no envelope'.
1568 The `via' option is for if you want to have more
1569 than one configuration pointing at the same site. If it is present,
1570 the string argument will be taken as the actual DNS name of the
1571 mailserver host to query.
1572 This will override the argument of poll, which can then simply be a
1573 distinct label for the configuration (e.g. what you would give on the
1574 command line to explicitly query this host).
1576 The `interval' option (which takes a numeric argument) allows you to poll a
1577 server less frequently than the basic poll interval. If you say
1578 \&`interval N' the server this option is attached to will only be
1579 queried every N poll intervals.
1581 The `is' or `to' keywords associate the following local (client)
1582 name(s) (or server-name to client-name mappings separated by =) with
1583 the mailserver user name in the entry. If an is/to list has `*' as
1584 its last name, unrecognized names are simply passed through.
1586 A single local name can be used to support redirecting your mail when
1587 your username on the client machine is different from your name on the
1588 mailserver. When there is only a single local name, mail is forwarded
1589 to that local username regardless of the message's Received, To, Cc,
1590 and Bcc headers. In this case
1592 never does DNS lookups.
1594 When there is more than one local name (or name mapping) the
1595 \fIfetchmail\fR code does look at the Received, To, Cc, and Bcc
1596 headers of retrieved mail (this is `multidrop mode'). It looks for
1597 addresses with hostname parts that match your poll name or your `via',
1598 `aka' or `localdomains' options, and usually also for hostname parts
1599 which DNS tells it are aliases of the mailserver. See the discussion
1600 of `dns', `checkalias', `localdomains', and `aka' for details on how
1601 matching addresses are handled.
1603 If \fIfetchmail\fR cannot match any mailserver usernames or
1604 localdomain addresses, the mail will be bounced.
1605 Normally it will be bounced to the sender, but if `nobounce' is on
1606 it will go to the postmaster (which in turn defaults to being the
1609 The `dns' option (normally on) controls the way addresses from
1610 multidrop mailboxes are checked. On, it enables logic to check each
1611 host address that doesn't match an `aka' or `localdomains' declaration
1612 by looking it up with DNS. When a mailserver username is recognized
1613 attached to a matching hostname part, its local mapping is added to
1614 the list of local recipients.
1616 The `checkalias' option (normally off) extends the lookups performed
1617 by the `dns' keyword in multidrop mode, providing a way to cope with
1618 remote MTAs that identify themselves using their canonical name, while
1619 they're polled using an alias.
1620 When such a server is polled, checks to extract the envelope address
1623 reverts to delivery using the To/Cc/Bcc headers (See below
1624 `Header vs. Envelope addresses').
1625 Specifying this option instructs
1627 to retrieve all the IP addresses associated with both the poll name
1628 and the name used by the remote MTA and to do a comparison of the IP
1629 addresses. This comes in handy in situations where the remote server
1630 undergoes frequent canonical name changes, that would otherwise
1631 require modifications to the rcfile. `checkalias' has no effect if
1632 `no dns' is specified in the rcfile.
1634 The `aka' option is for use with multidrop mailboxes. It allows you
1635 to pre-declare a list of DNS aliases for a server. This is an
1636 optimization hack that allows you to trade space for speed. When
1638 while processing a multidrop mailbox, grovels through message headers
1639 looking for names of the mailserver, pre-declaring common ones can
1640 save it from having to do DNS lookups. Note: the names you give
1641 as arguments to `aka' are matched as suffixes -- if you specify
1642 (say) `aka netaxs.com', this will match not just a hostname
1643 netaxs.com, but any hostname that ends with `.netaxs.com'; such as
1644 (say) pop3.netaxs.com and mail.netaxs.com.
1646 The `localdomains' option allows you to declare a list of domains
1647 which fetchmail should consider local. When fetchmail is parsing
1648 address lines in multidrop modes, and a trailing segment of a host
1649 name matches a declared local domain, that address is passed through
1650 to the listener or MDA unaltered (local-name mappings are \fInot\fR
1653 If you are using `localdomains', you may also need to specify \&`no
1654 envelope', which disables \fIfetchmail\fR's normal attempt to deduce
1655 an envelope address from the Received line or X-Envelope-To header or
1656 whatever header has been previously set by `envelope'. If you set `no
1657 envelope' in the defaults entry it is possible to undo that in
1658 individual entries by using `envelope <string>'. As a special case,
1659 \&`envelope "Received"' restores the default parsing of
1662 The \fBpassword\fR option requires a string argument, which is the password
1663 to be used with the entry's server.
1665 The `preconnect' keyword allows you to specify a shell command to be
1666 executed just before each time
1668 establishes a mailserver connection. This may be useful if you are
1669 attempting to set up secure POP connections with the aid of
1671 If the command returns a nonzero status, the poll of that mailserver
1674 Similarly, the `postconnect' keyword similarly allows you to specify a
1675 shell command to be executed just after each time a mailserver
1676 connection is taken down.
1678 The `forcecr' option controls whether lines terminated by LF only are
1679 given CRLF termination before forwarding. Strictly speaking RFC821
1680 requires this, but few MTAs enforce the requirement it so this option
1681 is normally off (only one such MTA, qmail, is in significant use at
1684 The `stripcr' option controls whether carriage returns are stripped
1685 out of retrieved mail before it is forwarded. It is normally not
1686 necessary to set this, because it defaults to `on' (CR stripping
1687 enabled) when there is an MDA declared but `off' (CR stripping
1688 disabled) when forwarding is via SMTP. If `stripcr' and `forcecr' are
1689 both on, `stripcr' will override.
1691 The `pass8bits' option exists to cope with Microsoft mail programs that
1692 stupidly slap a "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit" on everything. With
1693 this option off (the default) and such a header present,
1695 declares BODY=7BIT to an ESMTP-capable listener; this causes problems for
1696 messages actually using 8-bit ISO or KOI-8 character sets, which will
1697 be garbled by having the high bits of all characters stripped. If
1698 \&`pass8bits' is on,
1700 is forced to declare BODY=8BITMIME to any ESMTP-capable listener. If
1701 the listener is 8-bit-clean (as all the major ones now are) the right
1702 thing will probably result.
1704 The `dropstatus' option controls whether nonempty Status and
1705 X-Mozilla-Status lines are retained in fetched mail (the default) or
1706 discarded. Retaining them allows your MUA to see what messages (if
1707 any) were marked seen on the server. On the other hand, it can
1708 confuse some new-mail notifiers, which assume that anything with a
1709 Status line in it has been seen. (Note: the empty Status lines
1710 inserted by some buggy POP servers are unconditionally discarded.)
1712 The `dropdelivered' option controls whether Delivered-To headers will
1713 be kept in fetched mail (the default) or discarded. These headers are
1714 added by Qmail and Postfix mailservers in order to avoid mail loops but
1715 may get in your way if you try to "mirror" a mailserver within the same
1716 domain. Use with caution.
1718 The `mimedecode' option controls whether MIME messages using the
1719 quoted-printable encoding are automatically converted into pure 8-bit
1720 data. If you are delivering mail to an ESMTP-capable, 8-bit-clean
1721 listener (that includes all of the major MTAs like sendmail), then
1722 this will automatically convert quoted-printable message headers and
1723 data into 8-bit data, making it easier to understand when reading
1724 mail. If your e-mail programs know how to deal with MIME messages,
1725 then this option is not needed. The mimedecode option is off by
1726 default, because doing RFC2047 conversion on headers throws away
1727 character-set information and can lead to bad results if the encoding
1728 of the headers differs from the body encoding.
1730 The `idle' option is intended to be used with IMAP servers supporting
1731 the RFC2177 IDLE command extension, but does not strictly require it.
1732 If it is enabled, and fetchmail detects that IDLE is supported, an
1733 IDLE will be issued at the end of each poll. This will tell the IMAP
1734 server to hold the connection open and notify the client when new mail
1735 is available. If IDLE is not supported, fetchmail will simulate it by
1736 periodically issuing NOOP. If you need to poll a link frequently, IDLE
1737 can save bandwidth by eliminating TCP/IP connects and LOGIN/LOGOUT
1738 sequences. On the other hand, an IDLE connection will eat almost all
1739 of your fetchmail's time, because it will never drop the connection
1740 and allow other pools to occur unless the server times out the IDLE.
1741 It also doesn't work with multiple folders; only the first folder will
1745 The `properties' option is an extension mechanism. It takes a string
1746 argument, which is ignored by fetchmail itself. The string argument may be
1747 used to store configuration information for scripts which require it.
1748 In particular, the output of `--configdump' option will make properties
1749 associated with a user entry readily available to a Python script.
1751 .SS Miscellaneous Run Control Options
1752 The words `here' and `there' have useful English-like
1753 significance. Normally `user eric is esr' would mean that
1754 mail for the remote user `eric' is to be delivered to `esr',
1755 but you can make this clearer by saying `user eric there is esr here',
1756 or reverse it by saying `user esr here is eric there'
1758 Legal protocol identifiers for use with the `protocol' keyword are:
1771 Legal authentication types are `any', `password', `kerberos', 'kerberos_v5'
1772 and `gssapi', `cram-md5', `otp', `ntlm', `ssh`.
1773 The `password' type specifies authentication by normal transmission of a
1774 password (the password may be plain text or subject to
1775 protocol-specific encryption as in APOP); `kerberos' tells
1776 \fIfetchmail\fR to try to get a Kerberos ticket at the start of each
1777 query instead, and send an arbitrary string as the password; and
1778 `gssapi' tells fetchmail to use GSSAPI authentication. See the description
1779 of the `auth' keyword for more.
1781 Specifying `kpop' sets POP3 protocol over port 1109 with Kerberos V4
1782 authentication. These defaults may be overridden by later options.
1784 There are currently four global option statements; `set logfile'
1785 followed by a string sets the same global specified by --logfile. A
1786 command-line --logfile option will override this. Also, `set daemon'
1787 sets the poll interval as --daemon does. This can be overridden by a
1788 command-line --daemon option; in particular --daemon 0 can be used to
1789 force foreground operation. The `set postmaster' statement sets the
1790 address to which multidrop mail defaults if there are no local
1791 matches. Finally, `set syslog' sends log messages to syslogd(8).
1793 .SH INTERACTION WITH RFC 822
1794 When trying to determine the originating address of a message,
1795 fetchmail looks through headers in the following order:
1799 Resent-Sender: (ignored if it doesn't contain an @ or !)
1800 Sender: (ignored if it doesn't contain an @ or !)
1807 The originating address is used for logging, and to set the MAIL FROM
1808 address when forwarding to SMTP. This order is intended to cope
1809 gracefully with receiving mailing list messages in multidrop mode. The
1810 intent is that if a local address doesn't exist, the bounce message
1811 won't be returned blindly to the author or to the list itself, but
1812 rather to the list manager (which is less annoying).
1814 In multidrop mode, destination headers are processed as follows:
1815 First, fetchmail looks for the Received: header (or whichever one is
1816 specified by the `envelope' option) to determine the local
1817 recipient address. If the mail is addressed to more than one recipient,
1818 the Received line won't contain any information regarding recipient addresses.
1820 Then fetchmail looks for the Resent-To:, Resent-Cc:, and Resent-Bcc:
1821 lines. If they exist, they should contain the final recipients and
1822 have precedence over their To:/Cc:/Bcc: counterparts. If the Resent-*
1823 lines don't exist, the To:, Cc:, Bcc: and Apparently-To: lines are
1824 looked for. (The presence of a Resent-To: is taken to imply that the
1825 person referred by the To: address has already received the original
1828 .SH CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES
1829 Note that although there are password declarations in a good many
1830 of the examples below, this is mainly for illustrative purposes.
1831 We recommend stashing account/password pairs in your $HOME/.netrc
1832 file, where they can be used not just by fetchmail but by ftp(1) and
1838 poll SERVERNAME protocol PROTOCOL username NAME password PASSWORD
1844 poll pop.provider.net protocol pop3 username "jsmith" password "secret1"
1847 Or, using some abbreviations:
1850 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" password "secret1"
1853 Multiple servers may be listed:
1856 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" pass "secret1"
1857 poll other.provider.net proto pop2 user "John.Smith" pass "My^Hat"
1860 Here's a version of those two with more whitespace and some noise words:
1863 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3
1864 user "jsmith", with password secret1, is "jsmith" here;
1865 poll other.provider.net proto pop2:
1866 user "John.Smith", with password "My^Hat", is "John.Smith" here;
1869 This version is much easier to read and doesn't cost significantly
1870 more (parsing is done only once, at startup time).
1873 If you need to include whitespace in a parameter string, enclose the
1874 string in double quotes. Thus:
1877 poll mail.provider.net with proto pop3:
1878 user "jsmith" there has password "u can't krak this"
1879 is jws here and wants mda "/bin/mail"
1882 You may have an initial server description headed by the keyword
1883 `defaults' instead of `poll' followed by a name. Such a record
1884 is interpreted as defaults for all queries to use. It may be overwritten
1885 by individual server descriptions. So, you could write:
1890 poll pop.provider.net
1892 poll mail.provider.net
1893 user "jjsmith" there has password "secret2"
1896 It's possible to specify more than one user per server (this is only
1897 likely to be useful when running fetchmail in daemon mode as root).
1898 The `user' keyword leads off a user description, and every user specification
1899 in a multi-user entry must include it. Here's an example:
1902 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 port 3111
1903 user "jsmith" with pass "secret1" is "smith" here
1904 user jones with pass "secret2" is "jjones" here keep
1907 This associates the local username `smith' with the pop.provider.net
1908 username `jsmith' and the local username `jjones' with the
1909 pop.provider.net username `jones'. Mail for `jones' is kept on the
1910 server after download.
1912 Here's what a simple retrieval configuration for a multi-drop mailbox
1916 poll pop.provider.net:
1917 user maildrop with pass secret1 to golux 'hurkle'='happy' snark here
1920 This says that the mailbox of account `maildrop' on the server is a
1921 multi-drop box, and that messages in it should be parsed for the
1922 server user names `golux', `hurkle', and `snark'. It further
1923 specifies that `golux' and `snark' have the same name on the
1924 client as on the server, but mail for server user `hurkle' should be
1925 delivered to client user `happy'.
1927 Here's an example of another kind of multidrop connection:
1930 poll pop.provider.net localdomains loonytoons.org toons.org:
1931 user maildrop with pass secret1 to * here
1934 This also says that the mailbox of account `maildrop' on the server is
1935 a multi-drop box. It tells fetchmail that any address in the
1936 loonytoons.org or toons.org domains (including sub-domain addresses like
1937 `joe@daffy.loonytoons.org') should be passed through to the local SMTP
1938 listener without modification. Be careful of mail loops if you do this!
1940 Here's an example configuration using ssh and the plugin option. The
1941 queries are made directly on the stdin and stdout of imapd via ssh.
1942 Note that in this setup, IMAP authentication can be skipped.
1945 poll mailhost.net with proto imap:
1946 plugin "ssh %h /usr/sbin/imapd" auth ssh;
1947 user esr is esr here
1950 .SH THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP MAILBOXES
1951 Use the multiple-local-recipients feature with caution -- it can bite.
1952 All multidrop features are ineffective in ETRN and ODMR modes.
1954 Also, note that in multidrop mode duplicate mails are suppressed. A
1955 piece of mail is considered duplicate if it has the same message-ID as
1956 the message immediately preceding and more than one addressee. Such
1957 runs of messages may be generated when copies of a message addressed
1958 to multiple users are delivered to a multidrop box.
1960 .SS Header vs. Envelope addresses
1961 The fundamental problem is that by having your mailserver toss several
1962 peoples' mail in a single maildrop box, you may have thrown away
1963 potentially vital information about who each piece of mail was
1964 actually addressed to (the `envelope address', as opposed to the
1965 header addresses in the RFC822 To/Cc/Bcc headers). This `envelope
1966 address' is the address you need in order to reroute mail properly.
1970 can deduce the envelope address. If the mailserver MTA is
1972 and the item of mail had just one recipient, the MTA will have written
1973 a `by/for' clause that gives the envelope addressee into its Received
1974 header. But this doesn't work reliably for other MTAs, nor if there is
1975 more than one recipient. By default, \fIfetchmail\fR looks for
1976 envelope addresses in these lines; you can restore this default with
1977 -E "Received" or \&`envelope Received'.
1979 Alternatively, some SMTP listeners and/or mail servers insert a header
1980 in each message containing a copy of the envelope addresses. This
1981 header (when it exists) is often `X-Envelope-To'. Fetchmail's
1982 assumption about this can be changed with the -E or `envelope' option.
1983 Note that writing an envelope header of this kind exposes the names of
1984 recipients (including blind-copy recipients) to all receivers of the
1985 messages; it is therefore regarded by some administrators as a
1986 security/privacy problem.
1988 A slight variation of the `X-Envelope-To' header is the `Delivered-To' put
1989 by qmail to avoid mail loops. It will probably prefix the user name with a
1990 string that normally matches the user's domain. To remove this prefix you
1991 can use the -Q or `qvirtual' option.
1993 Sometimes, unfortunately, neither of these methods works. When they
1994 all fail, fetchmail must fall back on the contents of To/Cc/Bcc
1995 headers to try to determine recipient addressees -- and these are not
1996 reliable. In particular, mailing-list software often ships mail with
1997 only the list broadcast address in the To header.
2001 cannot deduce a recipient address that is local, and the intended
2002 recipient address was anyone other than fetchmail's invoking user,
2003 mail will get lost. This is what makes the multidrop feature risky.
2005 A related problem is that when you blind-copy a mail message, the Bcc
2006 information is carried \fIonly\fR as envelope address (it's not put
2007 in the headers fetchmail can see unless there is an X-Envelope
2008 header). Thus, blind-copying to someone who gets mail over a
2009 fetchmail link will fail unless the the mailserver host routinely
2010 writes X-Envelope or an equivalent header into messages in your maildrop.
2012 .SS Good Ways To Use Multidrop Mailboxes
2013 Multiple local names can be used to administer a mailing list from the
2014 client side of a \fIfetchmail\fR collection. Suppose your name is
2015 \&`esr', and you want to both pick up your own mail and maintain a mailing
2016 list called (say) "fetchmail-friends", and you want to keep the alias
2017 list on your client machine.
2019 On your server, you can alias \&`fetchmail-friends' to `esr'; then, in
2020 your \fI.fetchmailrc\fR, declare \&`to esr fetchmail-friends here'.
2021 Then, when mail including `fetchmail-friends' as a local address
2022 gets fetched, the list name will be appended to the list of
2023 recipients your SMTP listener sees. Therefore it will undergo alias
2024 expansion locally. Be sure to include `esr' in the local alias
2025 expansion of fetchmail-friends, or you'll never see mail sent only to
2026 the list. Also be sure that your listener has the "me-too" option set
2027 (sendmail's -oXm command-line option or OXm declaration) so your name
2028 isn't removed from alias expansions in messages you send.
2030 This trick is not without its problems, however. You'll begin to see
2031 this when a message comes in that is addressed only to a mailing list
2032 you do \fInot\fR have declared as a local name. Each such message
2033 will feature an `X-Fetchmail-Warning' header which is generated
2034 because fetchmail cannot find a valid local name in the recipient
2035 addresses. Such messages default (as was described above) to being
2036 sent to the local user running
2038 but the program has no way to know that that's actually the right thing.
2040 .SS Bad Ways To Abuse Multidrop Mailboxes
2041 Multidrop mailboxes and
2043 serving multiple users in daemon mode do not mix. The problem, again, is
2044 mail from mailing lists, which typically does not have an individual
2045 recipient address on it. Unless
2047 can deduce an envelope address, such mail will only go to the account
2048 running fetchmail (probably root). Also, blind-copied users are very
2049 likely never to see their mail at all.
2051 If you're tempted to use
2053 to retrieve mail for multiple users from a single mail drop via POP or
2054 IMAP, think again (and reread the section on header and envelope
2055 addresses above). It would be smarter to just let the mail sit in the
2056 mailserver's queue and use fetchmail's ETRN or ODMR modes to trigger
2057 SMTP sends periodically (of course, this means you have to poll more
2058 frequently than the mailserver's expiry period). If you can't arrange
2059 this, try setting up a UUCP feed.
2061 If you absolutely \fImust\fR use multidrop for this purpose, make sure
2062 your mailserver writes an envelope-address header that fetchmail can
2063 see. Otherwise you \fIwill\fR lose mail and it \fIwill\fR come back
2066 .SS Speeding Up Multidrop Checking
2067 Normally, when multiple users are declared
2069 extracts recipient addresses as described above and checks each host
2070 part with DNS to see if it's an alias of the mailserver. If so, the
2071 name mappings described in the to ... here declaration are done and
2072 the mail locally delivered.
2074 This is the safest but also slowest method. To speed it up,
2075 pre-declare mailserver aliases with `aka'; these are checked before
2076 DNS lookups are done. If you're certain your aka list contains
2078 DNS aliases of the mailserver (and all MX names pointing at it)
2079 you can declare `no dns' to suppress DNS lookups entirely and
2080 \fIonly\fR match against the aka list.
2083 To facilitate the use of
2085 in shell scripts, an exit code is returned to give an indication
2086 of what occurred during a given connection.
2088 The exit codes returned by
2092 One or more messages were successfully retrieved (or, if the -c option
2093 was selected, were found waiting but not retrieved).
2095 There was no mail awaiting retrieval. (There may have been old mail still
2096 on the server but not selected for retrieval.)
2098 An error was encountered when attempting to open a socket to retrieve
2099 mail. If you don't know what a socket is, don't worry about it --
2100 just treat this as an 'unrecoverable error'. This error can also be
2101 because a protocol fetchmail wants to use is not listed in /etc/services.
2103 The user authentication step failed. This usually means that a bad
2104 user-id, password, or APOP id was specified. Or it may mean that you
2105 tried to run fetchmail under circumstances where it did not have
2106 standard input attached to a terminal and could not prompt for a
2109 Some sort of fatal protocol error was detected.
2111 There was a syntax error in the arguments to
2114 The run control file had bad permissions.
2116 There was an error condition reported by the server. Can also
2119 timed out while waiting for the server.
2121 Client-side exclusion error. This means
2123 either found another copy of itself already running, or failed in such
2124 a way that it isn't sure whether another copy is running.
2126 The user authentication step failed because the server responded "lock
2127 busy". Try again after a brief pause! This error is not implemented
2128 for all protocols, nor for all servers. If not implemented for your
2129 server, "3" will be returned instead, see above. May be returned when
2130 talking to qpopper or other servers that can respond with "lock busy"
2131 or some similar text containing the word "lock".
2135 run failed while trying to do an SMTP port open or transaction.
2137 Fatal DNS error. Fetchmail encountered an error while performing
2138 a DNS lookup at startup and could not proceed.
2140 BSMTP batch file could not be opened.
2142 Poll terminated by a fetch limit (see the --fetchlimit option).
2144 Server busy indication.
2146 Server timed out during an IMAP IDLE.
2148 Internal error. You should see a message on standard error with
2153 queries more than one host, return status is 0 if \fIany\fR query
2154 successfully retrieved mail. Otherwise the returned error status is
2155 that of the last host queried.
2160 default run control file
2163 default location of file associating hosts with last message IDs seen
2164 (used only with newer RFC1939-compliant POP3 servers supporting the
2168 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (non-root mode).
2171 your FTP run control file, which (if present) will be searched for
2172 passwords as a last resort before prompting for one interactively.
2174 /var/run/fetchmail.pid
2175 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode, Linux systems).
2178 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode, systems without /var/run).
2181 If the FETCHMAILUSER variable is set, it is used as the name of the
2182 calling user (default local name) for purposes such as mailing error
2183 notifications. Otherwise, if either the LOGNAME or USER variable is
2184 correctly set (e.g. the corresponding UID matches the session user ID)
2185 then that name is used as the default local name. Otherwise
2186 \fBgetpwuid\fR(3) must be able to retrieve a password entry for the
2187 session ID (this elaborate logic is designed to handle the case of
2188 multiple names per userid gracefully).
2190 If the environment variable FETCHMAILHOME is set to a valid and
2191 existing directory name, the .fetchmailrc and .fetchids and
2192 \&.fetchmail.pid files are put there instead of in the invoking user's
2193 home directory (and lose the leading dots on their names). The
2194 \&.netrc file is looked for in the the invoking user's home directory
2195 regardless of FETCHMAILHOME's setting.
2197 If the HOME_ETC variable is set, file $HOME_ETC/.fetchmailrc is used
2198 instead of ~/.fetchmailrc.
2203 daemon is running as root, SIGHUP wakes it up from its sleep phase and
2204 forces a poll of all non-skipped servers (this is in accordance with
2205 the usual conventions for system daemons).
2209 is running in daemon mode as non-root, use SIGUSR1 to wake it (this is
2210 so SIGHUP due to logout can retain the default action of killing it).
2214 in foreground while a background fetchmail is running will do
2215 whichever of these is appropriate to wake it up.
2217 .SH BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
2218 The mda and plugin options interact badly. In order to collect error
2219 status from the MDA, fetchmail has to change its normal signal
2220 handling so that dead plugin processes don't get reaped until the end
2221 of the poll cycle. This can cause resource starvation if too many
2222 zombies accumulate. So either don't deliver to a MDA using plugins or
2223 risk being overrun by an army of undead.
2225 The RFC822 address parser used in multidrop mode chokes on some
2226 @-addresses that are technically legal but bizarre. Strange uses of
2227 quoting and embedded comments are likely to confuse it.
2229 In a message with multiple envelope headers, only the last one
2230 processed will be visible to fetchmail. To get around this, use a
2231 mailserver-side filter that consolidates the contents of all envelope
2232 headers into a single one (procmail, mailagent, or maildrop can be
2233 programmed to do this fairly easily).
2235 Use of some of these protocols requires that the program send
2236 unencrypted passwords over the TCP/IP connection to the mailserver.
2237 This creates a risk that name/password pairs might be snaffled with a
2238 packet sniffer or more sophisticated monitoring software. Under Linux
2239 and FreeBSD, the --interface option can be used to restrict polling to
2240 availability of a specific interface device with a specific local or
2241 remote IP address, but snooping is still possible if (a) either host
2242 has a network device that can be opened in promiscuous mode, or (b)
2243 the intervening network link can be tapped. We recommend the use of
2245 tunnelling to not only shroud your passwords but encrypt the entire
2248 Use of the %F or %T escapes in an mda option could open a security
2249 hole, because they pass text manipulable by an attacker to a shell
2250 command. Potential shell characters are replaced by `_' before
2251 execution. The hole is further reduced by the fact that fetchmail
2252 temporarily discards any suid privileges it may have while running the
2253 MDA. For maximum safety, however, don't use an mda command containing
2254 %F or %T when fetchmail is run from the root account itself.
2256 Fetchmail's method of sending bouncemail and spam bounces requires that
2257 port 25 of localhost be available for sending mail via SMTP.
2261 while a background instance is running and break the syntax, the
2262 background instance will die silently. Unfortunately, it can't
2263 die noisily because we don't yet know whether syslog should be enabled.
2264 On some systems, fetchmail dies quietly even if there is no syntax
2265 error; this seems to have something to do with buggy terminal ioctl
2268 The -f - option (reading a configuration from stdin) is incompatible
2269 with the plugin option.
2271 The `principal' option only handles Kerberos IV, not V.
2273 Send comments, bug reports, gripes, and the like to the
2274 fetchmail-devel list <fetchmail-devel@lists.berlios.de>. An HTML FAQ is
2275 available at the fetchmail home page; surf to
2276 http://fetchmail.berlios.de/ or do a WWW search for pages with
2277 `fetchmail' in their titles.
2280 Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>. Too many other people to
2281 name here have contributed code and patches.
2282 This program is descended from and replaces
2284 by Carl Harris <ceharris@mal.com>; the internals have become quite different,
2285 but some of its interface design is directly traceable to that
2288 This manual page has been improved by R.\ Hannes Beinert.
2290 Fetchmail is currently maintained by Matthias Andree and Rob Funk.
2293 mutt(1), elm(1), mail(1), sendmail(8), popd(8), imapd(8), netrc(5)
2294 .SH APPLICABLE STANDARDS
2297 RFC 821, RFC2821, RFC 1869, RFC 1652, RFC 1870, RFC 1983, RFC 1985,
2301 RFC 822, RFC2822, RFC 1123, RFC 1892, RFC 1894.
2307 RFC 1081, RFC 1225, RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC1734, RFC 1939, RFC 1957,
2311 RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC 1939.
2320 RFC 1730, RFC 1731, RFC 1732, RFC 2060, RFC 2061, RFC 2195, RFC 2177,
projects / ~andy / fetchmail / blob