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, or ETRN-capable server
12 \fBfetchmail\fR [\fIoptions\fR] [\fImailserver...\fR]
18 is a mail-retrieval and forwarding utility; it fetches
19 mail from remote mailservers and forwards it to your local (client)
20 machine's delivery system. You can then handle the retrieved mail
21 using normal mail user agents such as \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 IMAPrev1.
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.
39 As each message is retrieved \fIfetchmail\fR normally delivers it via SMTP to
40 port 25 on the machine it is running on (localhost), just as though it
41 were being passed in over a normal TCP/IP link. The mail will then be
42 delivered locally via your system's MDA (Mail Delivery Agent, usually
43 \fIsendmail\fR(8) but your system may use a different one such
44 as \fIsmail\fR, \fImmdf\fR, \fIexim\fR, or \fIqmail\fR). All the
45 delivery-control mechanisms (such as \fI.forward\fR files) normally
46 available through your system MDA and local delivery agents will
49 If no port 25 listener is available, but your fetchmail compilation detected
50 or was told about a local MDA, it will use that MDA for local delivery
51 instead. At build time, fetchmail looks for executable procmail and
56 is available, it will assist you in setting up and editing a
57 fetchmailrc configuration. It runs under X and requires that the
58 language Python and the Tk toolkit be present on your system. If
59 you are first setting up fetchmail for single-user mode, it is
60 recommended that you use Novice mode. Expert mode provides
61 complete control of fetchmail configuration, including the
62 multidrop features. In either case, the `Autoprobe' button
63 will tell you the most capable protocol a given mailserver
64 supports, and warn you of potential problems with that server.
69 is controlled by command-line options and a run control file,
70 .IR ~/.fetchmailrc\fR ,
71 the syntax of which we describe in a later section (this file is what
72 the \fIfetchmailconf\fR program edits). Command-line options override
76 Each server name that you specify following the options on the
77 command line will be queried. If you don't specify any servers
78 on the command line, each `poll' entry in your
82 To facilitate the use of
84 in scripts and pipelines, it returns an appropriate exit code upon
85 termination -- see EXIT CODES below.
87 The following options modify the behavior of \fIfetchmail\fR. It is
88 seldom necessary to specify any of these once you have a
89 working \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file set up.
91 Almost all options have a corresponding keyword which can be used to
96 Some special options are not covered here, but are documented instead
97 in sections on AUTHENTICATION and DAEMON MODE which follow.
101 Displays the version information for your copy of
103 No mail fetch is performed.
104 Instead, for each server specified, all the option information
105 that would be computed if
107 were connecting to that server is displayed. Any non-printables in
108 passwords or other string names are shown as backslashed C-like
109 escape sequences. This option is useful for verifying that your
110 options are set the way you want them.
113 Return a status code to indicate whether there is mail waiting,
114 without actually fetching or deleting mail (see EXIT CODES below).
115 This option turns off daemon mode (in which it would be useless). It
116 doesn't play well with queries to multiple sites, and doesn't work
117 with ETRN or ODMR. It will return a false positive if you leave read but
118 undeleted mail in your server mailbox and your fetch protocol can't
119 tell kept messages from new ones. This means it will work with IMAP,
120 not work with POP2, and may occasionally flake out under POP3.
123 Silent mode. Suppresses all progress/status messages that are
124 normally echoed to standard error during a fetch (but does not
125 suppress actual error messages). The --verbose option overrides this.
128 Verbose mode. All control messages passed between
130 and the mailserver are echoed to stderr. Overrides --silent.
131 Doubling this option (-v -v) causes extra diagnostic information
137 Retrieve both old (seen) and new messages from the mailserver. The
138 default is to fetch only messages the server has not marked seen.
139 Under POP3, this option also forces the use of RETR rather than TOP.
140 Note that POP2 retrieval behaves as though --all is always on (see
141 RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES below) and this option does not work with ETRN
146 Keep retrieved messages on the remote mailserver. Normally, messages
147 are deleted from the folder on the mailserver after they have been retrieved.
150 option causes retrieved messages to remain in your folder on the
151 mailserver. This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
155 Delete retrieved messages from the remote mailserver. This
156 option forces retrieved mail to be deleted. It may be useful if
157 you have specified a default of \fBkeep\fR in your
158 \&\fI.fetchmailrc\fR. This option is forced on with ETRN and ODMR.
161 POP3/IMAP only. Delete old (previously retrieved) messages from the mailserver
162 before retrieving new messages. This option does not work with ETRN or
164 Warning: if your local MTA hangs and fetchmail is aborted, the next
165 time you run fetchmail, it will delete mail that was never delivered to you.
166 What you probably want is the default setting: if you don't specify `-k', then
167 fetchmail will automatically delete messages after successful delivery.
168 .SS Protocol and Query Options
170 .B \-p, \--protocol <proto>
171 (Keyword: proto[col])
172 Specify the protocol to use when communicating with the remote
173 mailserver. If no protocol is specified, the default is AUTO.
175 may be one of the following:
178 Tries IMAP, POP3, and POP2 (skipping any of these for which support
179 has not been compiled in).
181 Post Office Protocol 2
183 Post Office Protocol 3
185 Use POP3 with old-fashioned MD5-challenge authentication.
187 Use POP3 with RPOP authentication.
189 Use POP3 with Kerberos V4 authentication on port 1109.
191 Use POP3 with Demon Internet's SDPS extensions.
193 IMAP2bis, IMAP4, or IMAP4rev1 (\fIfetchmail\fR autodetects their capabilities).
195 Use the ESMTP ETRN option.
197 Use the the On-Demand Mail Relay ESMTP profile.
200 All these alternatives work in basically the same way (communicating
201 with standard server daemons to fetch mail already delivered to a
202 mailbox on the server) except ETRN and ODMR. The ETRN mode
203 allows you to ask a compliant ESMTP server (such as BSD sendmail at
204 release 8.8.0 or higher) to immediately open a sender-SMTP connection
205 to your client machine and begin forwarding any items addressed to
206 your client machine in the server's queue of undelivered mail. The
207 ODMR mode requires an ODMR-capable server and works similarly to
208 ETRN, except that it does not require the client machine to have
213 Force UIDL use (effective only with POP3). Force client-side tracking
214 of `newness' of messages (UIDL stands for ``unique ID listing'' and is
215 described in RFC1725). Use with `keep' to use a mailbox as a baby
216 news drop for a group of users.
218 .B \-P, --port <portnumber>
220 The port option permits you to specify a TCP/IP port to connect on.
221 This option will seldom be necessary as all the supported protocols have
222 well-established default port numbers.
224 .B \--principal <principal>
226 The principal option permits you to specify a service principal for
227 mutual authentication. This is applicable to POP3 or IMAP with Kerberos
230 .B \-t, --timeout <seconds>
232 The timeout option allows you to set a server-nonresponse
233 timeout in seconds. If a mailserver does not send a greeting message
234 or respond to commands for the given number of seconds,
235 \fIfetchmail\fR will hang up on it. Without such a timeout
236 \fIfetchmail\fR might hang up indefinitely trying to fetch mail from a
237 down host. This would be particularly annoying for a \fIfetchmail\fR
238 running in background. There is a default timeout which fetchmail -V
239 will report. If a given connection receives too many timeouts in
240 succession, fetchmail will consider it wedged and stop retrying,
241 the calkling user will be notified by email if this happens.
243 .B \--plugin <command>
244 (Keyword: plugin) The plugin option allows you to use an external
245 program to establish the TCP connection. This is useful if you want
246 to use socks, SSL, ssh, or need some special firewalling setup. The
247 program will be looked up in $PATH and can optionally be passed the
248 hostname and port as arguments using "%h" and "%p" respectively (note
249 that the interpolation logic is rather promitive, and these token must
250 be bounded by whitespace or beginning of string or end of string).
251 Fetchmail will write to the plugin's stdin and read from the plugin's
254 .B \--plugout <command>
256 Identical to the plugin option above, but this one is used for the SMTP
257 connections (which will probably not need it, so it has been separated
260 .B \-r <name>, --folder <name>
262 Causes a specified non-default mail folder on the mailserver (or
263 comma-separated list of folders) to be retrieved. The syntax of the
264 folder name is server-dependent. This option is not available under
269 Causes the connection to the mail server to be encrypted via SSL. Connect
270 to the server using the specified base protocol over a connection secured
271 by SSL. SSL support must be present at the server. If no port is
272 specified, the connection is attempted to the well known port of the SSL
273 version of the base protocol. This is generally a different port than the
274 port used by the base protocol. For IMAP, this is port 143 for the clear
275 protocol and port 993 for the SSL secured protocol.
279 Specifies the file name of the client side public SSL certificate. Some
280 SSL encrypted servers may require client side keys and certificates for
281 authentication. In most cases, this is optional. This specifies
282 the location of the public key certificate to be presented to the server
283 at the time the SSL session is established. It is not required (but may
284 be provided) if the server does not require it. Some servers may
285 require it, some servers may request it but not require it, and some
286 servers may not request it at all. It may be the same file
287 as the private key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not
292 Specifies the file name of the client side private SSL key. Some SSL
293 encrypted servers may require client side keys and certificates for
294 authentication. In most cases, this is optional. This specifies
295 the location of the private key used to sign transactions with the server
296 at the time the SSL session is established. It is not required (but may
297 be provided) if the server does not require it. Some servers may
298 require it, some servers may request it but not require it, and some
299 servers may not request it at all. It may be the same file
300 as the public key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not
301 recommended. If a password is required to unlock the key, it will be
302 prompted for at the time just prior to establishing the session to the
303 server. This can cause some complications in daemon mode.
305 .B \--sslproto <name>
307 Forces an ssl protocol. Possible values are \&`\fBssl2\fR', `\fBssl3\fR' and
308 `\fBtls1\fR'. Try this if the default handshake does not work for your server.
309 .SS Delivery Control Options
311 .B \-S <hosts>, --smtphost <hosts>
312 (Keyword: smtp[host])
313 Specify a hunt list of hosts to forward mail to (one or more
314 hostnames, comma-separated). In ETRN mode, set the host that the
315 mailserver is asked to ship mail to. Hosts are tried in list order;
316 the first one that is up becomes the forwarding target for the
317 current run. Normally, `localhost' is added to the end of the list as
318 an invisible default. However, when using ETRN mode or Kerberos
319 authentication, the FQDN of the machine running fetchmail is added to
320 the end of the list as an invisible default. Each hostname may have a
321 port number following the host name. The port number is separated from
322 the host name by a slash; the default port is 25 (or ``smtp'' under IPv6).
323 If you specify an absolute pathname (beginning with a /), it will be
324 interpreted as the name of a UNIX socket accepting LMTP connections
325 (such as is supported by the Cyrus IMAP daemon) Example:
327 --smtphost server1,server2/2525,server3,/var/imap/socket/lmtp
329 In ODMR mode, this option specifies the list of domains the ODMR
330 server should ship mail for once the connection is turned around.
332 .B \-D <domain>, --smtpaddress <domain>
333 (Keyword: smtpaddress)
334 Specify the domain to be put in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP. The
335 name of the SMTP server (as specified by --smtphost, or defaulted to
336 "localhost") is used when this is not specified.
338 .B --smtpname <user@domain>
340 Specify the domain and user to be put in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP.
341 The default user is the current local user.
343 .B \-Z <nnn>, --antispam <nnn[, nnn]...>
345 Specifies the list of numeric SMTP errors that are to be interpreted
346 as a spam-block response from the listener. A value of -1 disables
347 this option. For the command-line option, the list values should
350 .B \-m <command>, \--mda <command>
352 You can force mail to be passed to an MDA directly (rather than
353 forwarded to port 25) with the -mda or -m option. To avoid losing
354 mail, use this option only with MDAs like procmail or sendmail that
355 return a nonzero status on disk-full and other resource-exhaustion
356 errors; the nonzero status tells fetchmail that delivery failed and
357 prevents the message from being deleted off the server. If
358 \fIfetchmail\fR is running as root, it sets its userid to that of the
359 target user while delivering mail through an MDA. Some possible MDAs
360 are "/usr/sbin/sendmail -oem -f %F %T", "/usr/bin/deliver" and
361 "/usr/bin/procmail -d %T" (but the latter is usually redundant as it's
362 what SMTP listeners usually forward to). Local delivery addresses
363 will be inserted into the MDA command wherever you place a %T; the
364 mail message's From address will be inserted where you place an %F.
365 Do \fInot\fR use an MDA invocation like "sendmail -oem -t" that
366 dispatches on the contents of To/Cc/Bcc, it will create mail loops and
367 bring the just wrath of many postmasters down upon your head.
371 Cause delivery via LMTP (Local Mail Transfer Protocol). A service
372 port \fImust\fR be explicitly specified (with a slash suffix) on each
373 host in the smtphost hunt list if this option is selected; the
374 default port 25 will (in accordance with RFC 2033) not be accepted.
376 .B \--bsmtp <filename>
378 Append fetched mail to a BSMTP file. This simply contains the SMTP
379 commands that would normally be generated by fetchmail when passing
380 mail to an SMTP listener daemon. An argument of `-' causes the mail
381 to be written to standard output. Note that fetchmail's
382 reconstruction of MAIL FROM and RCPT TO lines is not guaranteed
383 correct; the caveats discussed under THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP
384 MAILBOXES below apply.
385 .SS Resource Limit Control Options
387 .B \-l <maxbytes>, --limit <maxbytes>
389 Takes a maximum octet size argument. Messages larger than this size
390 will not be fetched and will be left on the server (in foreground
391 sessions, the progress messages will note that they are "oversized").
392 If the fetch protocol permits (in particular, under IMAP or POP3
393 without the fetchall option) the message will not be marked seen An
394 explicit --limit of 0 overrides any limits set in your run control
395 file. This option is intended for those needing to strictly control
396 fetch time due to expensive and variable phone rates. In daemon mode,
397 oversize notifications are mailed to the calling user (see the
398 --warnings option). This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
400 .B \-w <interval>, --warnings <interval>
402 Takes an interval in seconds. When you call
404 with a `limit' option in daemon mode, this controls the interval at
405 which warnings about oversized messages are mailed to the calling user
406 (or the user specified by the `postmaster' option). One such
407 notification is always mailed at the end of the the first poll that
408 the oversized message is detected. Thereafter, renotification is
409 suppressed until after the warning interval elapses (it will take
410 place at the end of the first following poll).
412 .B -b <count>, --batchlimit <count>
413 (Keyword: batchlimit)
414 Specify the maximum number of messages that will be shipped to an SMTP
415 listener before the connection is deliberately torn down and rebuilt
416 (defaults to 0, meaning no limit). An explicit --batchlimit of 0
417 overrides any limits set in your run control file. While
418 \fBsendmail\fR(8) normally initiates delivery of a message immediately
419 after receiving the message terminator, some SMTP listeners are not so
420 prompt. MTAs like \fIqmail\fR(8) and \fIsmail\fR(8) may wait till the
421 delivery socket is shut down to deliver. This may produce annoying
422 delays when \fIfetchmail\fR is processing very large batches. Setting
423 the batch limit to some nonzero size will prevent these delays. This
424 option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
426 .B -B <number>, --fetchlimit <number>
427 (Keyword: fetchlimit)
428 Limit the number of messages accepted from a given server in a single
429 poll. By default there is no limit. An explicit --fetchlimit of 0
430 overrides any limits set in your run control file.
431 This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
433 .B -e <count>, --expunge <count>
435 Arrange for deletions to be made final after a given number of
436 messages. Under POP2 or POP3, fetchmail cannot make deletions final
437 without sending QUIT and ending the session -- with this option on,
438 fetchmail will break a long mail retrieval session into multiple
439 subsessions, sending QUIT after each sub-session. This is a good
440 defense against line drops on POP3 servers that do not do the
441 equivalent of a QUIT on hangup. Under IMAP,
443 normally issues an EXPUNGE command after each deletion in order to
444 force the deletion to be done immediately. This is safest when your
445 connection to the server is flaky and expensive, as it avoids
446 resending duplicate mail after a line hit. However, on large
447 mailboxes the overhead of re-indexing after every message can slam the
448 server pretty hard, so if your connection is reliable it is good to do
449 expunges less frequently. If you specify this option to an integer N,
452 to only issue expunges on every Nth delete. An argument of zero
453 suppresses expunges entirely (so no expunges at all will be done until
454 the end of run). This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
455 .SS Authentication Options
457 .B \-u <name>, --username <name>
458 (Keyword: user[name])
459 Specifies the user identification to be used when logging in to the mailserver.
460 The appropriate user identification is both server and user-dependent.
461 The default is your login name on the client machine that is running
463 See USER AUTHENTICATION below for a complete description.
465 .B \-I <specification>, --interface <specification>
467 Require that a specific interface device be up and have a specific local
468 or remote IP address (or range) before polling. Frequently
470 is used over a transient point-to-point TCP/IP link established directly
471 to a mailserver via SLIP or PPP. That is a relatively secure channel.
472 But when other TCP/IP routes to the mailserver exist (e.g. when the link
473 is connected to an alternate ISP), your username and password may be
474 vulnerable to snooping (especially when daemon mode automatically polls
475 for mail, shipping a clear password over the net at predictable
476 intervals). The --interface option may be used to prevent this. When
477 the specified link is not up or is not connected to a matching IP
478 address, polling will be skipped. The format is:
480 interface/iii.iii.iii.iii/mmm.mmm.mmm.mmm
482 The field before the first slash is the interface name (i.e. sl0, ppp0
483 etc.). The field before the second slash is the acceptable IP address.
484 The field after the second slash is a mask which specifies a range of
485 IP addresses to accept. If no mask is present 255.255.255.255 is
486 assumed (i.e. an exact match). This option is currently only supported
487 under Linux and FreeBSD. Please see the
489 section for below for FreeBSD specific information.
491 .B \-M <interface>, --monitor <interface>
493 Daemon mode can cause transient links which are automatically taken down
494 after a period of inactivity (e.g. PPP links) to remain up
495 indefinitely. This option identifies a system TCP/IP interface to be
496 monitored for activity. After each poll interval, if the link is up but
497 no other activity has occurred on the link, then the poll will be
498 skipped. However, when fetchmail is woken up by a signal, the
499 monitor check is skipped and the poll goes through unconditionally.
500 This option is currently only supported under Linux and FreeBSD.
505 options to work for non root users under FreeBSD, the fetchmail binary
506 must be installed SGID kmem. This would be a security hole, but
507 fetchmail runs with the effective GID set to that of the kmem group
509 when interface data is being collected.
512 (Keyword: auth[enticate])
513 This option permits you to specify an authentication type (see USER
514 AUTHENTICATION below for details). The possible values are \fBany\fR,
515 \&`\fBpassword\fR', `\fBkerberos_v5\fR' and `\fBkerberos\fR' (or, for
516 excruciating exactness, `\fBkerberos_v4\fR'), \fRgssapi\fR,
517 \fIcram-md5\fR, \fIotp\fR, \fIntlm\fR, and \fBssh\fR. When \fBany\fR (the
518 default) is specified, fetchmail tries first methods that don't
519 require a password (GSSAPI, KERBEROS_IV); then it looks for methods
520 that mask your password (CRAM-MD5, X-OTP, NTLM); and only if the server
521 doesn't support any of those will it ship your password en clair.
522 Other values may be used to force various authentication methods
523 (\fBssh\fR suppresses authentication). Any value other than
524 \fIpassword\fR, \fIcram-md5\fR, \fIntlm\fR or \fIotp\fR suppresses fetchmail's
525 normal inquiry for a password. Specify \fIssh\fR when you are using
526 an end-to-end secure connection such as an ssh tunnel; specify
527 \fRgssapi\fR or \fBkerberos_v4\fR if you are using a protocol variant
528 that employs GSSAPI or K4. Choosing KPOP protocol automatically
529 selects Kerberos authentication. This option does not work with ETRN
531 .SS Miscellaneous Options
533 .B \-f <pathname>, --fetchmailrc <pathname>
534 Specify a non-default name for the
536 run control file. The pathname argument must be either "-" (a single
537 dash, meaning to read the configuration from standard input) or a
538 filename. Unless the --version option is also on, a named file
539 argument must have permissions no more open than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) or
542 .B \-i <pathname>, --idfile <pathname>
544 Specify an alternate name for the .fetchids file used to save POP3
548 (Keyword: no rewrite)
551 edits RFC-822 address headers (To, From, Cc, Bcc, and Reply-To) in
552 fetched mail so that any mail IDs local to the server are expanded to
553 full addresses (@ and the mailserver hostname are appended). This enables
554 replies on the client to get addressed correctly (otherwise your
555 mailer might think they should be addressed to local users on the
556 client machine!). This option disables the rewrite. (This option is
557 provided to pacify people who are paranoid about having an MTA edit
558 mail headers and want to know they can prevent it, but it is generally
559 not a good idea to actually turn off rewrite.)
560 When using ETRN or ODMR, the rewrite option is ineffective.
562 .B -E <line>, --envelope <line>
564 This option changes the header
566 assumes will carry a copy of the mail's envelope address. Normally
567 this is `X-Envelope-To' but as this header is not standard, practice
568 varies. See the discussion of multidrop address handling below. As a
569 special case, `envelope "Received"' enables parsing of sendmail-style
570 Received lines. This is the default, and it should not be necessary
571 unless you have globally disabled Received parsing with `no envelope'
572 in the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file.
574 .B -Q <prefix>, --qvirtual <prefix>
576 The string prefix assigned to this option will be removed from the user
577 name found in the header specified with the \fIenvelope\fR option
578 (\fIbefore\fR doing multidrop name mapping or localdomain checking,
579 if either is applicable). This option is useful if you are using
581 to collect the mail for an entire domain and your ISP (or your mail
582 redirection provider) is using qmail.
583 One of the basic features of qmail is the
587 message header. Whenever qmail delivers a message to a local mailbox
588 it puts the username and hostname of the envelope recipient on this
589 line. The major reason for this is to prevent mail loops. To set up
590 qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site the ISP-mailhost will have
591 normally put that site in its `Virtualhosts' control file so it will
592 add a prefix to all mail addresses for this site. This results in mail
593 .\" The \&@\& tries to stop HTML converters from making a mailto URL here.
594 sent to 'username\&@\&userhost.userdom.dom.com' having a
595 \&`Delivered-To:' line of the form:
597 Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username\&@\&userhost.userdom.dom.com
599 The ISP can make the 'mbox-userstr-' prefix anything they choose
600 but a string matching the user host name is likely.
601 By using the option `envelope Delivered-To:' you can make fetchmail reliably
602 identify the original envelope recipient, but you have to strip the
603 `mbox-userstr-' prefix to deliver to the correct user.
604 This is what this option is for.
609 file, interpret any command-line options specified, and dump a
610 configuration report to standard output. The configuration report is
611 a data structure assignment in the language Python. This option
612 is meant to be used with an interactive
618 .SH USER AUTHENTICATION AND ENCRYPTION
619 All modes except ETRN and ODMR requires authentication of the client.
620 Normal user authentication in
622 is very much like the authentication mechanism of
624 The correct user-id and password depend upon the underlying security
625 system at the mailserver.
627 If the mailserver is a Unix machine on which you have an ordinary user
628 account, your regular login name and password are used with
630 If you use the same login name on both the server and the client machines,
631 you needn't worry about specifying a user-id with the
634 the default behavior is to use your login name on the client machine as the
635 user-id on the server machine. If you use a different login name
636 on the server machine, specify that login name with the
638 option. e.g. if your login name is 'jsmith' on a machine named 'mailgrunt',
643 fetchmail -u jsmith mailgrunt
645 The default behavior of
647 is to prompt you for your mailserver password before the connection is
648 established. This is the safest way to use
650 and ensures that your password will not be compromised. You may also specify
651 your password in your
653 file. This is convenient when using
655 in daemon mode or with scripts.
657 If you do not specify a password, and
659 cannot extract one from your
661 file, it will look for a
663 file in your home directory before requesting one interactively; if an
664 entry matching the mailserver is found in that file, the password will
665 be used. Fetchmail first looks for a match on poll name; if it finds none,
666 it checks for a match on via name. See the
668 man page for details of the syntax of the
670 file. (This feature may allow you to avoid duplicating password
671 information in more than one file.)
673 On mailservers that do not provide ordinary user accounts, your user-id and
674 password are usually assigned by the server administrator when you apply for
675 a mailbox on the server. Contact your server administrator if you don't know
676 the correct user-id and password for your mailbox account.
678 Early versions of POP3 (RFC1081, RFC1225) supported a crude form of
679 independent authentication using the
681 file on the mailserver side. Under this RPOP variant, a fixed
682 per-user ID equivalent to a password was sent in clear over a link to
683 a reserved port, with the command RPOP rather than PASS to alert the
684 server that it should do special checking. RPOP is supported
687 (you can specify `protocol RPOP' to have the program send `RPOP'
688 rather than `PASS') but its use is strongly discouraged. This
689 facility was vulnerable to spoofing and was withdrawn in RFC1460.
691 RFC1460 introduced APOP authentication. In this variant of POP3,
692 you register an APOP password on your server host (the program
693 to do this with on the server is probably called \fIpopauth\fR(8)). You
694 put the same password in your
698 logs in, it sends a cryptographically secure hash of your password and
699 the server greeting time to the server, which can verify it by
700 checking its authorization database.
702 If your \fIfetchmail\fR was built with Kerberos support and you specify
703 Kerberos authentication (either with --auth or the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
704 option \fBauthenticate kerberos_v4\fR) it will try to get a Kerberos
705 ticket from the mailserver at the start of each query. Note: if
706 either the pollnane or via name is `hesiod', fetchmail will try to use
707 Hesiod to look up the mailserver.
709 If you use POP3 or IMAP with GSSAPI authentication, \fIfetchmail\fR will
710 expect the server to have RFC1731- or RFC1734-conformant GSSAPI
711 capability, and will use it. Currently this has only been tested over
712 Kerberos V, so you're expected to already have a ticket-granting
713 ticket. You may pass a username different from your principal name
714 using the standard \fB--user\fR command or by the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
717 If your IMAP daemon returns the PREAUTH response in its greeting line,
718 fetchmail will notice this and skip the normal authentication step.
719 This can be useful, e.g. if you start imapd explicitly using ssh.
720 In this case you can declare the authentication value `ssh' on that
721 site entry to stop \fI.fetchmail\fR from asking you for a password
724 If you are using POP3, and the server issues a one-time-password
725 challenge conforming to RFC1938, \fIfetchmail\fR will use your
726 password as a pass phrase to generate the required response. This
727 avoids sending secrets over the net unencrypted.
729 Compuserve's RPA authentication (similar to APOP) is supported. If you
730 compile in the support, \fIfetchmail\fR will try to perform an RPA pass-phrase
731 authentication instead of sending over the password en clair if it
732 detects "@compuserve.com" in the hostname.
734 Microsoft's NTLM authentication (used by Microsoft Exchange) is
735 supported. If you compile in the support, \fIfetchmail\fR will try to
736 perform an NTLM authentication (instead of sending over the
737 password en clair) whenever the server returns AUTH=NTLM in its
738 capability response. Note: if you specify a user option value
739 that looks like `user@domain', the part to the left of the @ will
740 be passed as the username and the part to the right as the NTLM domain.
742 If you are using IPsec, the -T (--netsec) option can be used to pass
743 an IP security request to be used when outgoing IP connections are
744 initialized. You can also do this using the `netsec' server option
745 in the .fetchmailrc file. In either case, the option value is a
746 string in the format accepted by the net_security_strtorequest()
747 function of the inet6_apps library.
749 You can access SSL encrypted services by specifying the --ssl option.
750 You can also do this using the "ssl" server option in the .fetchmailrc
751 file. With SSL encryption enabled, queries are initiated over a connection
752 after negotiating an SSL session. Some services, such as POP3 and IMAP,
753 have different well known ports defined for the SSL encrypted services.
754 The encrypted ports will be selected automatically when SSL is enabled and
755 no explicit port is specified.
757 When connecting to an SSL encrypted server, the server presents a certificate
758 to the client for validation. The certificate is checked to verify that
759 the common name in the certificate matches the name of the server being
760 contacted and that the effective and expiration dates in the certificate
761 indicate that it is currently valid. If any of these checks fail, a warning
762 message is printed, but the connection continues. The server certificate
763 does not need to be signed by any specific Certifying Authority and may
764 be a "self-signed" certificate.
766 Some SSL encrypted servers may request a client side certificate. A client
767 side public SSL certificate and private SSL key may be specified. If
768 requested by the server, the client certificate is sent to the server for
769 validation. Some servers may require a valid client certificate and may
770 refuse connections if a certificate is not provided or if the certificate
771 is not valid. Some servers may require client side certificates be signed
772 by a recognized Certifying Authority. The format for the key files and
773 the certificate files is that required by the underlying SSL libraries
774 (OpenSSL in the general case).
776 Finally, a word of care about the use of SSL: While above mentioned
777 setup with self-signed server certificates retrieved over the wires
778 can protect you from a passive eavesdropper it doesn't help against an
779 active attacker. It's clearly an improvement over sending the
780 passwords in clear but you should be aware that a man-in-the-middle
781 attack is trivially possible (in particular with tools such as dsniff,
782 http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/dsniff/). Use of an ssh tunnel (see
783 below for some examples) is preferable if you care seriously about the
784 security of your mailbox.
788 .B --daemon <interval>
793 in daemon mode. You must specify a numeric argument which is a
794 polling interval in seconds.
798 puts itself in background and runs forever, querying each specified
799 host and then sleeping for the given polling interval.
805 will, therefore, poll all the hosts described in your
807 file (except those explicitly excluded with the `skip' verb) once
808 every fifteen minutes.
810 It is possible to set a polling interval
813 file by saying `set daemon <interval>', where <interval> is an
814 integer number of seconds. If you do this, fetchmail will always
815 start in daemon mode unless you override it with the command-line
816 option --daemon 0 or -d0.
818 Only one daemon process is permitted per user; in daemon mode,
820 makes a per-user lockfile to guarantee this.
822 Normally, calling fetchmail with a daemon in the background sends a
823 wakeup signal to the daemon, forcing it to poll mailservers
824 immediately. (The wakeup signal is SIGHUP if fetchmail is running as
825 root, SIGUSR1 otherwise.) The wakeup action also clears any `wedged'
826 flags indicating that connections have wedged due to failed
827 authentication or multiple timeouts.
831 will kill a running daemon process instead of waking it up (if there
834 notifies you). If the --quit option is the only command-line option,
835 that's all there is to it.
837 The quit option may also be mixed with other command-line options; its
838 effect is to kill any running daemon before doing what the other
839 options specify in combination with the rc file.
844 .B --logfile <filename>
845 option (keyword: set logfile) allows you to redirect status messages
846 emitted while detached into a specified logfile (follow the
847 option with the logfile name). The logfile is opened for append, so
848 previous messages aren't deleted. This is primarily useful for
849 debugging configurations.
853 option (keyword: set syslog) allows you to redirect status and error
854 messages emitted to the
856 system daemon if available.
857 Messages are logged with an id of \fBfetchmail\fR, the facility \fBLOG_MAIL\fR,
858 and priorities \fBLOG_ERR\fR, \fBLOG_ALERT\fR or \fBLOG_INFO\fR.
859 This option is intended for logging status and error messages which
860 indicate the status of the daemon and the results while fetching mail
862 Error messages for command line options and parsing the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
863 file are still written to stderr, or to the specified log file.
866 option turns off use of
868 assuming it's turned on in the
878 or --nodetach option suppresses backgrounding and detachment of the
879 daemon process from its control terminal. This is primarily useful
880 for debugging. Note that this also causes the logfile option to be
881 ignored (though perhaps it shouldn't).
883 Note that while running in daemon mode polling a POP2 or IMAP2bis server,
884 transient errors (such as DNS failures or sendmail delivery refusals)
885 may force the fetchall option on for the duration of the next polling
886 cycle. This is a robustness feature. It means that if a message is
887 fetched (and thus marked seen by the mailserver) but not delivered
888 locally due to some transient error, it will be re-fetched during the
889 next poll cycle. (The IMAP logic doesn't delete messages until
890 they're delivered, so this problem does not arise.)
892 If you touch or change the
894 file while fetchmail is running in daemon mode, this will be detected
895 at the beginning of the next poll cycle. When a changed
897 is detected, fetchmail rereads it and restarts from scratch (using
898 exec(2); no state information is retained in the new instance). Note also
899 that if you break the
901 file's syntax, the new instance will softly and silently vanish away
904 .SH ADMINISTRATIVE OPTIONS
907 .B --postmaster <name>
908 option (keyword: set postmaster) specifies the last-resort username to
909 which multidrop mail is to be forwarded if no matching local recipient
910 can be found. Normally this is just the user who invoked fetchmail.
911 If the invoking user is root, then the default of this option is
912 the user `postmaster'.
916 option suppresses the normal action of bouncing errors back to the
917 sender in an RFC1894-conformant error message. If nobounce is on, the
918 message will go to the postmaster instead.
922 option (keyword: set invisible) tries to make fetchmail invisible.
923 Normally, fetchmail behaves like any other MTA would -- it generates a
924 Received header into each message describing its place in the chain of
925 transmission, and tells the MTA it forwards to that the mail came from
926 the machine fetchmail itself is running on. If the invisible option
927 is on, the Received header is suppressed and fetchmail tries to spoof
928 the MTA it forwards to into thinking it came directly from the
933 option (keyword: set showdots) forces fetchmail to show progress dots
934 even if the current tty is not stdout (for example logfiles).
935 Starting with fetchmail version 5.3.0,
936 progress dots are only shown on stdout by default.
938 .SH RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES
939 The protocols \fIfetchmail\fR uses to talk to mailservers are next to
940 bulletproof. In normal operation forwarding to port 25, no message is
941 ever deleted (or even marked for deletion) on the host until the SMTP
942 listener on the client has acknowledged to \fIfetchmail\fR that the
943 message has been accepted for delivery or rejected due to a spam
944 block. When forwarding to an MDA, however, there is more possibility
945 of error (because there's no way for fetchmail to get a reliable
946 positive acknowledgement from the MDA).
948 The normal mode of \fIfetchmail\fR is to try to download only `new'
949 messages, leaving untouched (and undeleted) messages you have already
950 read directly on the server (or fetched with a previous \fIfetchmail
951 --keep\fR). But you may find that messages you've already read on the
952 server are being fetched (and deleted) even when you don't specify
953 --all. There are several reasons this can happen.
955 One could be that you're using POP2. The POP2 protocol includes no
956 representation of `new' or `old' state in messages, so \fIfetchmail\fR
957 must treat all messages as new all the time. But POP2 is obsolete, so
960 Under POP3, blame RFC1725. That version of the POP3 protocol
961 specification removed the LAST command, and some POP servers follow it
962 (you can verify this by invoking \fIfetchmail -v\fR to the mailserver
963 and watching the response to LAST early in the query). The
964 \fIfetchmail\fR code tries to compensate by using POP3's UID feature,
965 storing the identifiers of messages seen in each session until the
966 next session, in the \fI.fetchids\fR file. But this doesn't track
967 messages seen with other clients, or read directly with a mailer on
968 the host but not deleted afterward. A better solution would be to
971 Another potential POP3 problem might be servers that insert messages
972 in the middle of mailboxes (some VMS implementations of mail are
973 rumored to do this). The \fIfetchmail\fR code assumes that new
974 messages are appended to the end of the mailbox; when this is not true
975 it may treat some old messages as new and vice versa. The only
976 real fix for this problem is to switch to IMAP.
978 Yet another POP3 problem is that if they can't make tempfiles in the
979 user's home directory, some POP3 servers will hand back an
980 undocumented response that causes fetchmail to spuriously report "No
983 The IMAP code uses the presence or absence of the server flag \eSeen
984 to decide whether or not a message is new. Under Unix, it counts on
985 your IMAP server to notice the BSD-style Status flags set by mail user
986 agents and set the \eSeen flag from them when appropriate. All Unix
987 IMAP servers we know of do this, though it's not specified by the IMAP
988 RFCs. If you ever trip over a server that doesn't, the symptom will
989 be that messages you have already read on your host will look new to
990 the server. In this (unlikely) case, only messages you fetched with
991 \fIfetchmail --keep\fR will be both undeleted and marked old.
993 In ETRN and ODMR modes, \fIfetchmail\fR does not actually retrieve messages;
994 instead, it asks the server's SMTP listener to start a queue flush
995 to the client via SMTP. Therefore it sends only undelivered messages.
998 Many SMTP listeners allow administrators to set up `spam filters' that
999 block unsolicited email from specified domains. A MAIL FROM or DATA line that
1000 triggers this feature will elicit an SMTP response which
1001 (unfortunately) varies according to the listener.
1005 return an error code of 571. This return value
1006 is blessed by RFC1893 as "Delivery not authorized, message refused".
1008 According to current drafts of the replacement for RFC821, the correct
1009 thing to return in this situation is 550 "Requested action not taken:
1010 mailbox unavailable" (the draft adds "[E.g., mailbox not found, no
1011 access, or command rejected for policy reasons].").
1015 MTA returns 501 "Syntax error in parameters or arguments", but will
1020 MTA runs 554 as an antispam response.
1024 code recognizes and discards the message on any of a list of responses
1025 that defaults to [571, 550, 501, 554] but can be set with the `antispam'
1026 option. This is one of the
1028 three circumstance under which fetchmail ever discards mail (the others
1029 are the 552 and 553 errors described below, and the suppression of
1030 multidropped messages with a message-ID already seen).
1034 is fetching from an IMAP server, the antispam response will be detected and
1035 the message rejected immediately after the headers have been fetched,
1036 without reading the message body. Thus, you won't pay for downloading
1037 spam message bodies.
1039 Mail that is spam-blocked triggers an RFC1892 bounce message informing
1040 the originator that we do not accept mail from it.
1042 .SH SMTP/ESMTP ERROR HANDLING
1043 Besides the spam-blocking described above,fetchmail takes special
1044 actions on the following SMTP/ESMTP error responses
1046 452 (insufficient system storage)
1047 Leave the message in the server mailbox for later retrieval.
1049 552 (message exceeds fixed maximum message size)
1050 Delete the message from the server. Send bounce-mail to the originator.
1052 553 (invalid sending domain)
1053 Delete the message from the server. Send bounce-mail to the originator.
1055 Other errors trigger bounce mail back to the originator.
1057 .SH THE RUN CONTROL FILE
1058 The preferred way to set up fetchmail is to write a
1059 \&\fI.fetchmailrc\fR file in your home directory (you may do this
1060 directly, with a text editor, or indirectly via \fIfetchmailconf\fR).
1061 When there is a conflict between the command-line arguments and the
1062 arguments in this file, the command-line arguments take precedence.
1064 To protect the security of your passwords, when --version is not on
1065 your \fI~/.fetchmailrc\fR may not have more than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) permissions;
1067 will complain and exit otherwise.
1069 You may read the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file as a list of commands to
1072 is called with no arguments.
1073 .SS Run Control Syntax
1075 Comments begin with a '#' and extend through the end of the line.
1076 Otherwise the file consists of a series of server entries or global
1077 option statements in a free-format, token-oriented syntax.
1079 There are four kinds of tokens: grammar keywords, numbers
1080 (i.e. decimal digit sequences), unquoted strings, and quoted strings.
1081 A quoted string is bounded by double quotes and may contain
1082 whitespace (and quoted digits are treated as a string). An unquoted
1083 string is any whitespace-delimited token that is neither numeric, string
1084 quoted nor contains the special characters `,', `;', `:', or `='.
1086 Any amount of whitespace separates tokens in server entries, but is
1087 otherwise ignored. You may use standard C-style escapes (\en, \et,
1088 \eb, octal, and hex) to embed non-printable characters or string
1089 delimiters in strings.
1091 Each server entry consists of one of the keywords `poll' or `skip',
1092 followed by a server name, followed by server options, followed by any
1093 number of user descriptions. Note: the most common cause of syntax
1094 errors is mixing up user and server options.
1096 For backward compatibility, the word `server' is a synonym for `poll'.
1098 You can use the noise keywords `and', `with',
1099 \&`has', `wants', and `options' anywhere in an entry to make
1100 it resemble English. They're ignored, but but can make entries much
1101 easier to read at a glance. The punctuation characters ':', ';' and
1102 \&',' are also ignored.
1105 The `poll' verb tells fetchmail to query this host when it is run with
1106 no arguments. The `skip' verb tells
1108 not to poll this host unless it is explicitly named on the command
1109 line. (The `skip' verb allows you to experiment with test entries
1110 safely, or easily disable entries for hosts that are temporarily down.)
1112 .SS Keyword/Option Summary
1113 Here are the legal options. Keyword suffixes enclosed in
1114 square brackets are optional. Those corresponding to command-line
1115 options are followed by `-' and the appropriate option letter.
1117 Here are the legal global options:
1121 Keyword Opt Function
1124 Set a background poll interval in seconds
1126 set postmaster \& T{
1127 Give the name of the last-resort mail recipient
1129 set no bouncemail \& T{
1130 Direct error mail to postmaster rather than sender
1132 set no spambounce \& T{
1136 Name of a file to dump error and status messages to
1139 Name of the file to store UID lists in
1142 Do error logging through syslog(3).
1145 Turn off error logging through syslog(3).
1147 set properties \& T{
1148 String value is ignored by fetchmail (may be used by extension scripts)
1152 Here are the legal server options:
1156 Keyword Opt Function
1159 Specify DNS name of mailserver, overriding poll name
1162 Specify protocol (case insensitive):
1163 POP2, POP3, IMAP, APOP, KPOP
1165 local[domains] \& T{
1166 Specify domain(s) to be regarded as local
1169 Specify TCP/IP service port
1171 auth[enticate] -A T{
1172 Set authentication type (default `password')
1175 Server inactivity timeout in seconds (default 300)
1178 Specify envelope-address header name
1181 Disable looking for envelope address
1184 Qmail virtual domain prefix to remove from user name
1187 Specify alternate DNS names of mailserver
1190 specify IP interface(s) that must be up for server poll to take place
1193 Specify IP address to monitor for activity
1196 Specify command through which to make server connections.
1199 Specify command through which to make listener connections.
1202 Enable DNS lookup for multidrop (default)
1205 Disable DNS lookup for multidrop
1208 Do comparison by IP address for multidrop
1211 Do comparison by name for multidrop (default)
1214 Force POP3 to use client-side UIDLs
1217 Turn off POP3 use of client-side UIDLs (default)
1220 Only check this site every N poll cycles; N is a numeric argument.
1223 Pass in IPsec security option request.
1226 Set Kerberos principal (only useful with imap and kerberos)
1230 Here are the legal user options:
1234 Keyword Opt Function
1237 Set remote user name
1238 (local user name if name followed by `here')
1241 Connect local and remote user names
1244 Connect local and remote user names
1247 Specify remote account password
1250 Connect to server over the specified base protocol using SSL encryption
1253 Specify file for client side public SSL certificate
1256 Specify file for client side private SSL key
1259 Force ssl protocol for connection
1262 Specify remote folder to query
1265 Specify smtp host(s) to forward to
1268 Specify the domain to be put in RCPT TO lines
1271 Specify the user and domain to be put in RCPT TO lines
1274 Specify what SMTP returns are interpreted as spam-policy blocks
1277 Specify MDA for local delivery
1280 Specify BSMTP batch file to append to
1283 Command to be executed before each connection
1286 Command to be executed after each connection
1289 Don't delete seen messages from server
1292 Flush all seen messages before querying
1295 Fetch all messages whether seen or not
1298 Rewrite destination addresses for reply (default)
1301 Strip carriage returns from ends of lines
1304 Force carriage returns at ends of lines
1307 Force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP listener
1310 Strip Status and X-Mozilla-Status lines out of incoming mail
1313 Strip Delivered-To lines out of incoming mail
1316 Convert quoted-printable to 8-bit in MIME messages
1319 Idle waiting for new messages after each poll (IMAP only)
1322 Delete seen messages from server (default)
1325 Don't flush all seen messages before querying (default)
1328 Retrieve only new messages (default)
1331 Don't rewrite headers
1334 Don't strip carriage returns (default)
1337 Don't force carriage returns at EOL (default)
1340 Don't force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP listener (default)
1343 Don't drop Status headers (default)
1345 no dropdelivered \& T{
1346 Don't drop Delivered-To headers (default)
1349 Don't convert quoted-printable to 8-bit in MIME messages (default)
1352 Don't idle waiting for new messages after each poll (IMAP only)
1355 Set message size limit
1358 Set message size warning interval
1361 Max # messages to forward in single connect
1364 Max # messages to fetch in single connect
1367 Perform an expunge on every #th message (IMAP and POP3 only)
1370 String value is ignored by fetchmail (may be used by extension scripts)
1374 Remember that all user options must \fIfollow\fR all server options.
1376 In the .fetchmailrc file, the `envelope' string argument may be
1377 preceded by a whitespace-separated number. This number, if specified,
1378 is the number of such headers to skip (that is, an argument of 1
1379 selects the second header of the given type). This is sometime useful
1380 for ignoring bogus Received headers created by an ISP's local delivery
1382 .SS Keywords Not Corresponding To Option Switches
1384 The `folder' and `smtphost' options (unlike their command-line
1385 equivalents) can take a space- or comma-separated list of names
1388 All options correspond to the obvious command-line arguments, except
1389 the following: `via', `interval', `aka', `is', `to', `dns'/`no dns',
1390 `checkalias'/`no checkalias', `password', `preconnect', `postconnect',
1391 `localdomains', `stripcr'/`no stripcr', `forcecr'/`no forcecr',
1392 `pass8bits'/`no pass8bits' `dropstatus/no dropstatus',
1393 `dropdelivered/no dropdelivered', `mimedecode/no mimedecode', `idle/no
1394 idle', and `no envelope'.
1396 The `via' option is for use with ssh, or if you want to have more
1397 than one configuration pointing at the same site. If it is present,
1398 the string argument will be taken as the actual DNS name of the
1399 mailserver host to query.
1400 This will override the argument of poll, which can then simply be a
1401 distinct label for the configuration (e.g. what you would give on the
1402 command line to explicitly query this host).
1403 If the `via' name is `localhost', the poll name will also still be
1404 used as a possible match in multidrop mode; otherwise the `via' name
1405 will be used instead and the poll name will be purely a label.
1407 The `interval' option (which takes a numeric argument) allows you to poll a
1408 server less frequently than the basic poll interval. If you say
1409 \&`interval N' the server this option is attached to will only be
1410 queried every N poll intervals.
1412 The `is' or `to' keywords associate the following local (client)
1413 name(s) (or server-name to client-name mappings separated by =) with
1414 the mailserver user name in the entry. If an is/to list has `*' as
1415 its last name, unrecognized names are simply passed through.
1417 A single local name can be used to support redirecting your mail when
1418 your username on the client machine is different from your name on the
1419 mailserver. When there is only a single local name, mail is forwarded
1420 to that local username regardless of the message's Received, To, Cc,
1421 and Bcc headers. In this case
1423 never does DNS lookups.
1425 When there is more than one local name (or name mapping) the
1426 \fIfetchmail\fR code does look at the Received, To, Cc, and Bcc
1427 headers of retrieved mail (this is `multidrop mode'). It looks for
1428 addresses with hostname parts that match your poll name or your `via',
1429 `aka' or `localdomains' options, and usually also for hostname parts
1430 which DNS tells it are aliases of the mailserver. See the discussion
1431 of `dns', `checkalias', `localdomains', and `aka' for details on how
1432 matching addresses are handled.
1434 If \fIfetchmail\fR cannot match any mailserver usernames or
1435 localdomain addresses, the mail will be bounced.
1436 Normally it will be bounced to the sender, but if `nobounce' is on
1437 it will go to the postmaster (which in turn defaults to being the
1440 The `dns' option (normally on) controls the way addresses from
1441 multidrop mailboxes are checked. On, it enables logic to check each
1442 host address that doesn't match an `aka' or `localdomains' declaration
1443 by looking it up with DNS. When a mailserver username is recognized
1444 attached to a matching hostname part, its local mapping is added to
1445 the list of local recipients.
1447 The `checkalias' option (normally off) extends the lookups performed
1448 by the `dns' keyword in multidrop mode, providing a way to cope with
1449 remote MTAs that identify themselves using their canonical name, while
1450 they're polled using an alias.
1451 When such a server is polled, checks to extract the envelope address
1454 reverts to delivery using the To/Cc/Bcc headers (See below
1455 `Header vs. Envelope addresses').
1456 Specifying this option instructs
1458 to retrieve all the IP addresses associated with both the poll name
1459 and the name used by the remote MTA and to do a comparison of the IP
1460 addresses. This comes in handy in situations where the remote server
1461 undergoes frequent canonical name changes, that would otherwise
1462 require modifications to the rcfile. `checkalias' has no effect if
1463 `no dns' is specified in the rcfile.
1465 The `aka' option is for use with multidrop mailboxes. It allows you
1466 to pre-declare a list of DNS aliases for a server. This is an
1467 optimization hack that allows you to trade space for speed. When
1469 while processing a multidrop mailbox, grovels through message headers
1470 looking for names of the mailserver, pre-declaring common ones can
1471 save it from having to do DNS lookups. Note: the names you give
1472 as arguments to `aka' are matched as suffixes -- if you specify
1473 (say) `aka netaxs.com', this will match not just a hostnamed
1474 netaxs.com, but any hostname that ends with `.netaxs.com'; such as
1475 (say) pop3.netaxs.com and mail.netaxs.com.
1477 The `localdomains' option allows you to declare a list of domains
1478 which fetchmail should consider local. When fetchmail is parsing
1479 address lines in multidrop modes, and a trailing segment of a host
1480 name matches a declared local domain, that address is passed through
1481 to the listener or MDA unaltered (local-name mappings are \fInot\fR
1484 If you are using `localdomains', you may also need to specify \&`no
1485 envelope', which disables \fIfetchmail\fR's normal attempt to deduce
1486 an envelope address from the Received line or X-Envelope-To header or
1487 whatever header has been previously set by `envelope'. If you set `no
1488 envelope' in the defaults entry it is possible to undo that in
1489 individual entries by using `envelope <string>'. As a special case,
1490 \&`envelope "Received"' restores the default parsing of
1493 The \fBpassword\fR option requires a string argument, which is the password
1494 to be used with the entry's server.
1496 The `preconnect' keyword allows you to specify a shell command to be
1497 executed just before each time
1499 establishes a mailserver connection. This may be useful if you are
1500 attempting to set up secure POP connections with the aid of
1502 If the command returns a nonzero status, the poll of that mailserver
1505 Similarly, the `postconnect' keyword similarly allows you to specify a
1506 shell command to be executed just after each time a mailserver
1507 connection is taken down.
1509 The `forcecr' option controls whether lines terminated by LF only are
1510 given CRLF termination before forwarding. Strictly speaking RFC821
1511 requires this, but few MTAs enforce the requirement it so this option
1512 is normally off (only one such MTA, qmail, is in significant use at
1515 The `stripcr' option controls whether carriage returns are stripped
1516 out of retrieved mail before it is forwarded. It is normally not
1517 necessary to set this, because it defaults to `on' (CR stripping
1518 enabled) when there is an MDA declared but `off' (CR stripping
1519 disabled) when forwarding is via SMTP. If `stripcr' and `forcecr' are
1520 both on, `stripcr' will override.
1522 The `pass8bits' option exists to cope with Microsoft mail programs that
1523 stupidly slap a "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit" on everything. With
1524 this option off (the default) and such a header present,
1526 declares BODY=7BIT to an ESMTP-capable listener; this causes problems for
1527 messages actually using 8-bit ISO or KOI-8 character sets, which will
1528 be garbled by having the high bits of all characters stripped. If
1529 \&`pass8bits' is on,
1531 is forced to declare BODY=8BITMIME to any ESMTP-capable listener. If
1532 the listener is 8-bit-clean (as all the major ones now are) the right
1533 thing will probably result.
1535 The `dropstatus' option controls whether nonempty Status and
1536 X-Mozilla-Status lines are retained in fetched mail (the default) or
1537 discarded. Retaining them allows your MUA to see what messages (if
1538 any) were marked seen on the server. On the other hand, it can
1539 confuse some new-mail notifiers, which assume that anything with a
1540 Status line in it has been seen. (Note: the empty Status lines
1541 inserted by some buggy POP servers are unconditionally discarded.)
1543 The `dropdelivered' option controls wether Delivered-To headers will
1544 be kept in fetched mail (the default) or discarded. These headers are
1545 added by Qmail and Postfix mailservers in order to avoid mail loops but
1546 may get in your way if you try to "mirror" a mailserver within the same
1547 domain. Use with caution.
1549 The `mimedecode' option controls whether MIME messages using the
1550 quoted-printable encoding are automatically converted into pure 8-bit
1551 data. If you are delivering mail to an ESMTP-capable, 8-bit-clean
1552 listener (that includes all of the major MTAs like sendmail), then
1553 this will automatically convert quoted-printable message headers and
1554 data into 8-bit data, making it easier to understand when reading
1555 mail. If your e-mail programs know how to deal with MIME messages,
1556 then this option is not needed. The mimedecode option is off by
1557 default, because doing RFC2047 conversion on headers throws away
1558 character-set information and can lead to bad results if the encoding
1559 of the headers differs from the body encoding.
1561 The `idle' option is usable only with IMAP servers supporting the
1562 RFC2177 IDLE command extension. If it is enabled, and fetchmail
1563 detects that IDLE is supported, an IDLE will be issued at the end
1564 of each poll. This will tell the IMAP server to hold the connection
1565 open and notify the client when new mail is available. If you need to
1566 poll a link frequently, IDLE can save bandwidth by eliminating TCP/IP
1567 connects and LOGIN/LOGOUT sequences. On the other hand, an IDLE
1568 connection will eat almost akll of your fetchmail's time, because it
1569 will never drop the connection and allow other pools to occur unless
1570 the server times out the IDLE.
1572 The `properties' option is an extension mechanism. It takes a string
1573 argument, which is ignored by fetchmail itself. The string argument may be
1574 used to store configuration information for scripts which require it.
1575 In particular, the output of `--configdump' option will make properties
1576 associated with a user entry readily available to a Python script.
1578 .SS Miscellaneous Run Control Options
1579 The words `here' and `there' have useful English-like
1580 significance. Normally `user eric is esr' would mean that
1581 mail for the remote user `eric' is to be delivered to `esr',
1582 but you can make this clearer by saying `user eric there is esr here',
1583 or reverse it by saying `user esr here is eric there'
1585 Legal protocol identifiers for use with the `protocol' keyword are:
1596 Legal authentication types are `password', `kerberos', and `gssapi'.
1597 The `password' type specifies authentication by normal transmission of a
1598 password (the password may be plaintext or subject to
1599 protocol-specific encryption as in APOP); `kerberos' tells
1600 \fIfetchmail\fR to try to get a Kerberos ticket at the start of each
1601 query instead, and send an arbitrary string as the password; and
1602 `gssapi' tells fetchmail to use GSSAPI authentication.
1604 Specifying `kpop' sets POP3 protocol over port 1109 with Kerberos V4
1605 authentication. These defaults may be overridden by later options.
1607 There are currently four global option statements; `set logfile'
1608 followed by a string sets the same global specified by --logfile. A
1609 command-line --logfile option will override this. Also, `set daemon'
1610 sets the poll interval as --daemon does. This can be overridden by a
1611 command-line --daemon option; in particular --daemon 0 can be used to
1612 force foreground operation. The `set postmaster' statement sets the
1613 address to which multidrop mail defaults if there are no local
1614 matches. Finally, `set syslog' sends log messages to syslogd(8).
1616 .SH INTERACTION WITH RFC 822
1617 When trying to determine the originating address of a message,
1618 fetchmail looks through headers in the following order:
1628 The originating address is used for logging, and to set the MAIL FROM
1629 address when forwarding to SMTP. This order is intended to cope
1630 gracefully with receiving mailing list messages in multidrop mode. The
1631 intent is that if a local address doesn't exist, the bounce message
1632 won't be returned blindly to the author or to the list itself, but
1633 rather to the list manager (which is less annoying).
1635 In multidrop mode, destination headers are processed as follows:
1636 First, fetchmail looks for the Received: header (or whichever one is
1637 specified by the `envelope' option) to determine the local
1638 recipient address. If the mail is addressed to more than one recipient,
1639 the Received line won't contain any information regarding recipient addresses.
1641 Then fetchmail looks for the Resent-To:, Resent-Cc:, and Resent-Bcc:
1642 lines. If they exists, they should contain the final recipients and
1643 have precedence over their To:/Cc:/Bcc: counterparts. If the Resent-*
1644 lines doesn't exist, the To:, Cc:, Bcc: and Apparently-To: lines are
1645 looked for. (The presence of a Resent-To: is taken to imply that the
1646 person referred by the To: address has already received the original
1649 .SH CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES
1650 Note that although there are password declarations in a good many
1651 of the examples below, this is mainly for illustrative purposes.
1652 We recommend stashing account/password pairs in your $HOME/.netrc
1653 file, where they can be used not just by fetchmail but by ftp(1) and
1659 poll SERVERNAME protocol PROTOCOL username NAME password PASSWORD
1665 poll pop.provider.net protocol pop3 username "jsmith" password "secret1"
1668 Or, using some abbreviations:
1671 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" password "secret1"
1674 Multiple servers may be listed:
1677 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" pass "secret1"
1678 poll other.provider.net proto pop2 user "John.Smith" pass "My^Hat"
1681 Here's a version of those two with more whitespace and some noise words:
1684 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3
1685 user "jsmith", with password secret1, is "jsmith" here;
1686 poll other.provider.net proto pop2:
1687 user "John.Smith", with password "My^Hat", is "John.Smith" here;
1690 This version is much easier to read and doesn't cost significantly
1691 more (parsing is done only once, at startup time).
1694 If you need to include whitespace in a parameter string, enclose the
1695 string in double quotes. Thus:
1698 poll mail.provider.net with proto pop3:
1699 user "jsmith" there has password "u can't krak this"
1700 is jws here and wants mda "/bin/mail"
1703 You may have an initial server description headed by the keyword
1704 `defaults' instead of `poll' followed by a name. Such a record
1705 is interpreted as defaults for all queries to use. It may be overwritten
1706 by individual server descriptions. So, you could write:
1711 poll pop.provider.net
1713 poll mail.provider.net
1714 user "jjsmith" there has password "secret2"
1717 It's possible to specify more than one user per server (this is only
1718 likely to be useful when running fetchmail in daemon mode as root).
1719 The `user' keyword leads off a user description, and every user specification
1720 in a multi-user entry must include it. Here's an example:
1723 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 port 3111
1724 user "jsmith" with pass "secret1" is "smith" here
1725 user jones with pass "secret2" is "jjones" here
1728 This associates the local username `smith' with the pop.provider.net
1729 username `jsmith' and the local username `jjones' with the
1730 pop.provider.net username `jones'.
1732 Here's what a simple retrieval configuration for a multi-drop mailbox
1736 poll pop.provider.net:
1737 user maildrop with pass secret1 to golux 'hurkle'='happy' snark here
1740 This says that the mailbox of account `maildrop' on the server is a
1741 multi-drop box, and that messages in it should be parsed for the
1742 server user names `golux', `hurkle', and `snark'. It further
1743 specifies that `golux' and `snark' have the same name on the
1744 client as on the server, but mail for server user `hurkle' should be
1745 delivered to client user `happy'.
1747 Here's an example of another kind of multidrop connection:
1750 poll pop.provider.net localdomains loonytoons.org toons.org:
1751 user maildrop with pass secret1 to 'esr' * here
1754 This also says that the mailbox of account `maildrop' on the server is
1755 a multi-drop box. It tells fetchmail that any address in the
1756 loonytoons.org or toons.org domains (including subdomain addresses like
1757 `joe@daffy.loonytoons.org') should be passed through to the local SMTP
1758 listener without modification. Be careful of mail loops if you do this!
1760 Here's an example configuration using ssh. The queries go through an
1761 ssh connecting local port 1234 to port 110 on mailhost.net; the
1762 preconnect command sets up the ssh.
1765 poll mailhost.net via localhost port 1234 with proto pop3:
1766 preconnect "ssh -f -L 1234:mailhost.net:110
1767 mailhost.net sleep 20 </dev/null >/dev/null";
1768 user esr is esr here
1772 Here's an example configuration using ssh and the plugin option (this
1773 method is better, as it doesn't require the IMAP port to be open on
1774 the server). The queries are made directly on the stdin and stdout of
1775 imapd via ssh. Note that in this setup, IMAP authentication can be
1779 poll mailhost.net with proto imap:
1780 plugin "ssh %h /usr/sbin/imapd" auth ssh;
1781 user esr is esr here
1784 .SH THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP MAILBOXES
1785 Use the multiple-local-recipients feature with caution -- it can bite.
1786 All multidrop features are ineffective in ETRN and ODMR modes.
1788 Also, note that in multidrop mode duplicate mails are suppressed. A
1789 piece of mail is considered duplicate if it has the same message-ID as
1790 the message immediately preceding and more than one addressee. Such
1791 runs of messages may be generated when copies of a message addressed
1792 to multiple users are delivered to a multidrop box.
1794 .SS Header vs. Envelope addresses
1795 The fundamental problem is that by having your mailserver toss several
1796 peoples' mail in a single maildrop box, you may have thrown away
1797 potentially vital information about who each piece of mail was
1798 actually addressed to (the `envelope address', as opposed to the
1799 header addresses in the RFC822 To/Cc/Bcc headers). This `envelope
1800 address' is the address you need in order to reroute mail properly.
1804 can deduce the envelope address. If the mailserver MTA is
1806 and the item of mail had just one recipient, the MTA will have written
1807 a `by/for' clause that gives the envelope addressee into its Received
1808 header. But this doesn't work reliably for other MTAs, nor if there is
1809 more than one recipient. By default, \fIfetchmail\fR looks for
1810 envelope addresses in these lines; you can restore this default with
1811 -E "Received" or \&`envelope Received'.
1813 Alternatively, some SMTP listeners and/or mail servers insert a header
1814 in each message containing a copy of the envelope addresses. This
1815 header (when it exists) is often `X-Envelope-To'. Fetchmail's
1816 assumption about this can be changed with the -E or `envelope' option.
1817 Note that writing an envelope header of this kind exposes the names of
1818 recipients (including blind-copy recipients) to all receivers of the
1819 messages; it is therefore regarded by some administrators as a
1820 security/privacy problem.
1822 A slight variation of the `X-Envelope-To' header is the `Delivered-To' put
1823 by qmail to avoid mail loops. It will probably prefix the user name with a
1824 string that normally matches the user's domain. To remove this prefix you
1825 can use the -Q or `qvirtual' option.
1827 Sometimes, unfortunately, neither of these methods works. When they
1828 all fail, fetchmail must fall back on the contents of To/Cc/Bcc
1829 headers to try to determine recipient addressees -- and these are not
1830 reliable. In particular, mailing-list software often ships mail with
1831 only the list broadcast address in the To header.
1835 cannot deduce a recipient address that is local, and the intended
1836 recipient address was anyone other than fetchmail's invoking user,
1837 mail will get lost. This is what makes the multidrop feature risky.
1839 A related problem is that when you blind-copy a mail message, the Bcc
1840 information is carried \fIonly\fR as envelope address (it's not put
1841 in the headers fetchmail can see unless there is an X-Envelope
1842 header). Thus, blind-copying to someone who gets mail over a
1843 fetchmail link will fail unless the the mailserver host routinely
1844 writes X-Envelope or an equivalent header into messages in your maildrop.
1846 .SS Good Ways To Use Multidrop Mailboxes
1847 Multiple local names can be used to administer a mailing list from the
1848 client side of a \fIfetchmail\fR collection. Suppose your name is
1849 \&`esr', and you want to both pick up your own mail and maintain a mailing
1850 list called (say) "fetchmail-friends", and you want to keep the alias
1851 list on your client machine.
1853 On your server, you can alias \&`fetchmail-friends' to `esr'; then, in
1854 your \fI.fetchmailrc\fR, declare \&`to esr fetchmail-friends here'.
1855 Then, when mail including `fetchmail-friends' as a local address
1856 gets fetched, the list name will be appended to the list of
1857 recipients your SMTP listener sees. Therefore it will undergo alias
1858 expansion locally. Be sure to include `esr' in the local alias
1859 expansion of fetchmail-friends, or you'll never see mail sent only to
1860 the list. Also be sure that your listener has the "me-too" option set
1861 (sendmail's -oXm command-line option or OXm declaration) so your name
1862 isn't removed from alias expansions in messages you send.
1864 This trick is not without its problems, however. You'll begin to see
1865 this when a message comes in that is addressed only to a mailing list
1866 you do \fInot\fR have declared as a local name. Each such message
1867 will feature an `X-Fetchmail-Warning' header which is generated
1868 because fetchmail cannot find a valid local name in the recipient
1869 addresses. Such messages default (as was described above) to being
1870 sent to the local user running
1872 but the program has no way to know that that's actually the right thing.
1874 .SS Bad Ways To Abuse Multidrop Mailboxes
1875 Multidrop mailboxes and
1877 serving multiple users in daemon mode do not mix. The problem, again, is
1878 mail from mailing lists, which typically does not have an individual
1879 recipient address on it. Unless
1881 can deduce an envelope address, such mail will only go to the account
1882 running fetchmail (probably root). Also, blind-copied users are very
1883 likely never to see their mail at all.
1885 If you're tempted to use
1887 to retrieve mail for multiple users from a single mail drop via POP or
1888 IMAP, think again (and reread the section on header and envelope
1889 addresses above). It would be smarter to just let the mail sit in the
1890 mailserver's queue and use fetchmail's ETRN or ODMR modes to trigger
1891 SMTP sends periodically (of course, this means you have to poll more
1892 frequently than the mailserver's expiry period). If you can't arrange
1893 this, try setting up a UUCP feed.
1895 If you absolutely \fImust\fR use multidrop for this purpose, make sure
1896 your mailserver writes an envelope-address header that fetchmail can
1897 see. Otherwise you \fIwill\fR lose mail and it \fIwill\fR come back
1900 .SS Speeding Up Multidrop Checking
1901 Normally, when multiple users are declared
1903 extracts recipient addresses as described above and checks each host
1904 part with DNS to see if it's an alias of the mailserver. If so, the
1905 name mappings described in the to ... here declaration are done and
1906 the mail locally delivered.
1908 This is the safest but also slowest method. To speed it up,
1909 pre-declare mailserver aliases with `aka'; these are checked before
1910 DNS lookups are done. If you're certain your aka list contains
1912 DNS aliases of the mailserver (and all MX names pointing at it)
1913 you can declare `no dns' to suppress DNS lookups entirely and
1914 \fIonly\fR match against the aka list.
1917 To facilitate the use of
1919 in shell scripts, an exit code is returned to give an indication
1920 of what occurred during a given connection.
1922 The exit codes returned by
1926 One or more messages were successfully retrieved (or, if the -c option
1927 was selected, were found waiting but not retrieved).
1929 There was no mail awaiting retrieval. (There may have been old mail still
1930 on the server but not selected for retrieval.)
1932 An error was encountered when attempting to open a socket to retrieve
1933 mail. If you don't know what a socket is, don't worry about it --
1934 just treat this as an 'unrecoverable error'. This error can also be
1935 because a protocol fetchmail wants to use is not listed in /etc/services.
1937 The user authentication step failed. This usually means that a bad
1938 user-id, password, or APOP id was specified. Or it may mean that you
1939 tried to run fetchmail under circumstances where it did not have
1940 standard input attached to a terminal and could not prompt for a
1943 Some sort of fatal protocol error was detected.
1945 There was a syntax error in the arguments to
1948 The run control file had bad permissions.
1950 There was an error condition reported by the server. Can also
1953 timed out while waiting for the server.
1955 Client-side exclusion error. This means
1957 either found another copy of itself already running, or failed in such
1958 a way that it isn't sure whether another copy is running.
1960 The user authentication step failed because the server responded "lock
1961 busy". Try again after a brief pause! This error is not implemented
1962 for all protocols, nor for all servers. If not implemented for your
1963 server, "3" will be returned instead, see above. May be returned when
1964 talking to qpopper or other servers that can respond with "lock busy"
1965 or some similar text containing the word "lock".
1969 run failed while trying to do an SMTP port open or transaction.
1971 Fatal DNS error. Fetchmail encountered an error while performing
1972 a DNS lookup at startup and could not proceed.
1974 BSMTP batch file could not be opened.
1976 Poll terminated by a fetch limit (see the --fetchlimit option).
1978 Server busy indication.
1980 Internal error. You should see a message on standard error with
1985 queries more than one host, return status is 0 if \fIany\fR query
1986 successfully retrieved mail. Otherwise the returned error status is
1987 that of the last host queried.
1992 default run control file
1995 default location of file associating hosts with last message IDs seen
1996 (used only with newer RFC1725-compliant POP3 servers supporting the
2000 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (non-root mode).
2003 your FTP run control file, which (if present) will be searched for
2004 passwords as a last resort before prompting for one interactively.
2006 /var/run/fetchmail.pid
2007 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode, Linux systems).
2010 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode, systems without /var/run).
2013 If the FETCHMAILUSER variable is set, it is used as the name of the
2014 calling user (default local name) for purposes such as mailing error
2015 notifications. Otherwise, if either the LOGNAME or USER variable is
2016 correctly set (e.g. the corresponding UID matches the session user ID)
2017 then that name is used as the default local name. Otherwise
2018 \fBgetpwuid\fR(3) must be able to retrieve a password entry for the
2019 session ID (this elaborate logic is designed to handle the case of
2020 multiple names per userid gracefully).
2022 If the environment variable FETCHMAILHOME is set to a valid and
2023 existing directory name, the .fetchmailrc and .fetchids and
2024 \&.fetchmail.pid files are put there instead of in the invoking user's
2025 home directory (and lose the leading dots on theirt names). The
2026 \&.netrc file is looked for in the the invoking user's home directory
2027 regardless of FETCHMAILHOME's setting.
2032 daemon is running as root, SIGHUP wakes it up from its sleep phase and
2033 forces a poll of all non-skipped servers (this is in accordance with
2034 the usual conventions for system daemons).
2038 is running in daemon mode as non-root, use SIGUSR1 to wake it (this is
2039 so SIGHUP due to logout can retain the default action of killing it).
2043 in foreground while a background fetchmail is running will do
2044 whichever of these is appropriate to wake it up.
2046 .SH BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
2047 The RFC822 address parser used in multidrop mode chokes on some
2048 @-addresses that are technically legal but bizarre. Strange uses of
2049 quoting and embedded comments are likely to confuse it.
2051 In a message with multiple envelope headers, only the last one
2052 processed will be visible to fetchmail. To get around this, use a
2053 mailserver-side filter that consolidates the contents of all envelope
2054 headers into a single one (procmail, mailagent, or maildrop can be
2055 programmed to do this fairly easily).
2057 Use of some of these protocols requires that the program send
2058 unencrypted passwords over the TCP/IP connection to the mailserver.
2059 This creates a risk that name/password pairs might be snaffled with a
2060 packet sniffer or more sophisticated monitoring software. Under Linux
2061 and FreeBSD, the --interface option can be used to restrict polling to
2062 availability of a specific interface device with a specific local or
2063 remote IP address, but snooping is still possible if (a) either host
2064 has a network device that can be opened in promiscuous mode, or (b)
2065 the intervening network link can be tapped.
2067 Use of the %F or %T escapes in an mda option could open a security
2068 hole, because they pass text manipulable by an attacker to a shell
2069 command. Potential shell characters are replaced by `_' before
2070 execution. The hole is further reduced by the fact that fetchmail
2071 temporarily discards any suid privileges it may have while running the
2072 MDA. For maximum safety, however, don't use an mda command containing
2073 %F or %T when fetchmail is run from the root account itself.
2075 Fetchmail's method of sending bouncemail and spambounce requires that
2076 port 25 of localhost be available for sending mail via SMTP.
2080 while a background instance is running and break the syntax, the
2081 background instance will die silently. Unfortunately, it can't
2082 die noisily because we don't yet know whether syslog should be enabled.
2084 The RFC 2177 IDLE support is flaky. It sort of works, but may generate
2085 spurious socket error messages or silently hang in the presence of
2086 various network or server errors.
2088 The combination of using a remote name with embedded spaces and POP3
2089 UIDs will not work; the UIDL-handling code will core-dump while trying
2090 to read in what it sees as malformed .fetchids lines, typically
2091 on the second poll after startup.
2093 The UIDL code is generally flaky and tends to lose its state on errors
2094 and line drops (so that old messages are re-seen). If this happens to
2095 you, switch to IMAP4.
2097 ODMR is very new. The ODMR code is untested.
2099 The `principal' option only handles Kerberos IV, not V.
2101 Send comments, bug reports, gripes, and the like to the
2102 fetchmail-friends list <fetchmail-friends@ccil.org>. An HTML FAQ is
2103 available at the fetchmail home page; surf to
2104 http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail or do a WWW search for pages with
2105 `fetchmail' in their titles.
2108 Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>. Too many other people to
2109 name here have contributed code and patches.
2110 This program is descended from and replaces
2112 by Carl Harris <ceharris@mal.com>; the internals have become quite different,
2113 but some of its interface design is directly traceable to that
2117 mutt(1), elm(1), mail(1), sendmail(8), popd(8), imapd(8), netrc(5)
2118 .SH APPLICABLE STANDARDS
2121 RFC 821, RFC 1869, RFC 1652, RFC 1870, RFC1983, RFC 1985
2124 RFC 822, RFC 1892, RFC 1894
2130 RFC 1081, RFC 1225, RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC1734, RFC 1939, RFC 1957,
2134 RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC 1939
2143 RFC 1730, RFC 1731, RFC 1732, RFC 2060, RFC 2061, RFC 2195, RFC 2177,
projects / ~andy / fetchmail / blob