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
51 is available, it will assist you in setting up and editing a
52 fetchmailrc configuration. It runs under X and requires that the
53 language Python and the Tk toolkit be present on your system. If
54 you are first setting up fetchmail for single-user mode, it is
55 recommended that you use Novice mode. Expert mode provides
56 complete control of fetchmail configuration, including the
57 multidrop features. In either case, the `Autoprobe' button
58 will tell you the most capable protocol a given mailserver
59 supports, and warn you of potential problems with that server.
64 is controlled by command-line options and a run control file,
65 .IR ~/.fetchmailrc\fR ,
66 the syntax of which we describe in a later section (this file is what
67 the \fIfetchmailconf\fR program edits). Command-line options override
71 Each server name that you specify following the options on the
72 command line will be queried. If you don't specify any servers
73 on the command line, each `poll' entry in your
77 To facilitate the use of
79 in scripts and pipelines, it returns an appropriate exit code upon
80 termination -- see EXIT CODES below.
82 The following options modify the behavior of \fIfetchmail\fR. It is
83 seldom necessary to specify any of these once you have a
84 working \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file set up.
86 Almost all options have a corresponding keyword which can be used to
91 Some special options are not covered here, but are documented instead
92 in sections on AUTHENTICATION and DAEMON MODE which follow.
96 Displays the version information for your copy of
98 No mail fetch is performed.
99 Instead, for each server specified, all the option information
100 that would be computed if
102 were connecting to that server is displayed. Any non-printables in
103 passwords or other string names are shown as backslashed C-like
104 escape sequences. This option is useful for verifying that your
105 options are set the way you want them.
108 Return a status code to indicate whether there is mail waiting,
109 without actually fetching or deleting mail (see EXIT CODES below).
110 This option turns off daemon mode (in which it would be useless). It
111 doesn't play well with queries to multiple sites, and doesn't work
112 with ETRN or ODMR. It will return a false positive if you leave read but
113 undeleted mail in your server mailbox and your fetch protocol can't
114 tell kept messages from new ones. This means it will work with IMAP,
115 not work with POP2, and may occasionally flake out under POP3.
118 Silent mode. Suppresses all progress/status messages that are
119 normally echoed to standard error during a fetch (but does not
120 suppress actual error messages). The --verbose option overrides this.
123 Verbose mode. All control messages passed between
125 and the mailserver are echoed to stderr. Overrides --silent.
126 Doubling this option (-v -v) causes extra diagnostic information
132 Retrieve both old (seen) and new messages from the mailserver. The
133 default is to fetch only messages the server has not marked seen.
134 Under POP3, this option also forces the use of RETR rather than TOP.
135 Note that POP2 retrieval behaves as though --all is always on (see
136 RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES below) and this option does not work with ETRN
141 Keep retrieved messages on the remote mailserver. Normally, messages
142 are deleted from the folder on the mailserver after they have been retrieved.
145 option causes retrieved messages to remain in your folder on the
146 mailserver. This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
150 Delete retrieved messages from the remote mailserver. This
151 option forces retrieved mail to be deleted. It may be useful if
152 you have specified a default of \fBkeep\fR in your
153 \&\fI.fetchmailrc\fR. This option is forced on with ETRN and ODMR.
156 POP3/IMAP only. Delete old (previously retrieved) messages from the mailserver
157 before retrieving new messages. This option does not work with ETRN or
159 Warning: if your local MTA hangs and fetchmail is aborted, the next
160 time you run fetchmail, it will delete mail that was never delivered to you.
161 What you probably want is the default setting: if you don't specify `-k', then
162 fetchmail will automatically delete messages after successful delivery.
163 .SS Protocol and Query Options
165 .B \-p, \--protocol <proto>
166 (Keyword: proto[col])
167 Specify the protocol to use when communicating with the remote
168 mailserver. If no protocol is specified, the default is AUTO.
170 may be one of the following:
173 Tries IMAP, POP3, and POP2 (skipping any of these for which support
174 has not been compiled in).
176 Post Office Protocol 2
178 Post Office Protocol 3
180 Use POP3 with MD5 authentication.
182 Use POP3 with RPOP authentication.
184 Use POP3 with Kerberos V4 preauthentication on port 1109.
186 Use POP3 with Demon Internet's SDPS extensions.
188 IMAP2bis, IMAP4, or IMAP4rev1 (\fIfetchmail\fR autodetects their capabilities).
190 IMAP4, or IMAP4rev1 (\fIfetchmail\fR autodetects their capabilities)
191 with RFC 1731 Kerberos v4 preauthentication.
193 IMAP4, or IMAP4rev1 (\fIfetchmail\fR autodetects their capabilities)
194 with RFC 1731 GSSAPI preauthentication.
196 IMAP4, or IMAP4rev1 (\fIfetchmail\fR autodetects their capabilities)
197 with RFC 2195 CRAM-MD5 authentication.
199 IMAP4, or IMAP4rev1 (\fIfetchmail\fR autodetects their capabilities)
200 with plain LOGIN authentication only, even if the server supports
203 Use the ESMTP ETRN option.
205 Use the the On-Demand Mail Relay ESMTP profile.
208 All these alternatives work in basically the same way (communicating
209 with standard server daemons to fetch mail already delivered to a
210 mailbox on the server) except ETRN and ODMR. The ETRN mode
211 allows you to ask a compliant ESMTP server (such as BSD sendmail at
212 release 8.8.0 or higher) to immediately open a sender-SMTP connection
213 to your client machine and begin forwarding any items addressed to
214 your client machine in the server's queue of undelivered mail. The
215 ODMR mode requires an ODMR-capable server and works similarly to
216 ETRN, except that it does not require the client machine to have
221 Force UIDL use (effective only with POP3). Force client-side tracking
222 of `newness' of messages (UIDL stands for ``unique ID listing'' and is
223 described in RFC1725). Use with `keep' to use a mailbox as a baby
224 news drop for a group of users.
226 .B \-P, --port <portnumber>
228 The port option permits you to specify a TCP/IP port to connect on.
229 This option will seldom be necessary as all the supported protocols have
230 well-established default port numbers.
232 .B \--principal <principal>
234 The principal option permits you to specify a service principal for
235 mutual authentication. This is applicable to POP3 or IMAP with Kerberos
238 .B \-t, --timeout <seconds>
240 The timeout option allows you to set a server-nonresponse
241 timeout in seconds. If a mailserver does not send a greeting message
242 or respond to commands for the given number of seconds,
243 \fIfetchmail\fR will hang up on it. Without such a timeout
244 \fIfetchmail\fR might hang up indefinitely trying to fetch mail from a
245 down host. This would be particularly annoying for a \fIfetchmail\fR
246 running in background. There is a default timeout which fetchmail -V
247 will report. If a given connection receives too many timeouts in
248 succession, fetchmail will consider it wedged and stop retrying,
249 the calkling user will be notified by email if this happens.
251 .B \--plugin <command>
252 (Keyword: plugin) The plugin option allows you to use an external
253 program to establish the TCP connection. This is useful if you want
254 to use socks, SSL, ssh, or need some special firewalling setup. The
255 program will be looked up in $PATH and can optionally be passed the
256 hostname and port as arguments using "%h" and "%p" respectively (note
257 that the interpolation logic is rather promitive, and these token must
258 be bounded by whitespace or beginning of string or end of string).
259 Fetchmail will write to the plugin's stdin and read from the plugin's
262 .B \--plugout <command>
264 Identical to the plugin option above, but this one is used for the SMTP
265 connections (which will probably not need it, so it has been separated
268 .B \-r <name>, --folder <name>
270 Causes a specified non-default mail folder on the mailserver (or
271 comma-separated list of folders) to be retrieved. The syntax of the
272 folder name is server-dependent. This option is not available under
277 Causes the connection to the mail server to be encrypted via SSL. Connect
278 to the server using the specified base protocol over a connection secured
279 by SSL. SSL support must be present at the server. If no port is
280 specified, the connection is attempted to the well known port of the SSL
281 version of the base protocol. This is generally a different port than the
282 port used by the base protocol. For imap, this is port 143 for the clear
283 protocol and port 993 for the SSL secured protocol.
287 Specifies the file name of the client side public SSL certificate. Some
288 SSL encrypted servers may require client side keys and certificates for
289 authentication. In most cases, this is optional. This specifies
290 the location of the public key certificate to be presented to the server
291 at the time the SSL session is established. It is not required (but may
292 be provided) if the server does not require it. Some servers may
293 require it, some servers may request it but not require it, and some
294 servers may not request it at all. It may be the same file
295 as the private key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not
300 Specifies the file name of the client side private SSL key. Some SSL
301 encrypted servers may require client side keys and certificates for
302 authentication. In most cases, this is optional. This specifies
303 the location of the private key used to sign transactions with the server
304 at the time the SSL session is established. It is not required (but may
305 be provided) if the server does not require it. Some servers may
306 require it, some servers may request it but not require it, and some
307 servers may not request it at all. It may be the same file
308 as the public key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not
309 recommended. If a password is required to unlock the key, it will be
310 prompted for at the time just prior to establishing the session to the
311 server. This can cause some complications in daemon mode.
312 .SS Delivery Control Options
314 .B \-S <hosts>, --smtphost <hosts>
315 (Keyword: smtp[host])
316 Specify a hunt list of hosts to forward mail to (one or more
317 hostnames, comma-separated). In ETRN mode, set the host that the
318 mailserver is asked to ship mail to. Hosts are tried in list order;
319 the first one that is up becomes the forwarding target for the
320 current run. Normally, `localhost' is added to the end of the list as
321 an invisible default. However, when using ETRN mode or Kerberos
322 preauthentication, the FQDN of the machine running fetchmail is added to
323 the end of the list as an invisible default. Each hostname may have a
324 port number following the host name. The port number is separated from
325 the host name by a slash; the default port is 25 (or ``smtp'' under IPv6).
326 If you specify an absolute pathname (beginning with a /), it will be
327 interpreted as the name of a UNIX socket accepting LMTP connections
328 (such as is supported by the Cyrus IMAP daemon) Example:
330 --smtphost server1,server2/2525,server3,/var/imap/socket/lmtp
332 In ODMR mode, this option specifies the list of domains the ODMR
333 server should ship mail for once the connection is turned around.
335 .B \-D <domain>, --smtpaddress <domain>
336 (Keyword: smtpaddress)
337 Specify the domain to be put in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP. The
338 name of the SMTP server (as specified by --smtphost, or defaulted to
339 "localhost") is used when this is not specified.
341 .B --smtpname <user@domain>
343 Specify the domain and user to be put in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP.
344 The default user is the current local user.
346 .B \-Z <nnn>, --antispam <nnn[, nnn]...>
348 Specifies the list of numeric SMTP errors that are to be interpreted
349 as a spam-block response from the listener. A value of -1 disables
350 this option. For the command-line option, the list values should
353 .B \-m <command>, \--mda <command>
355 You can force mail to be passed to an MDA directly (rather than
356 forwarded to port 25) with the -mda or -m option. Be aware that this
357 disables some valuable resource-exhaustion checks and error handling
358 provided by SMTP listeners; it's not a good idea unless running an
359 SMTP listener is impossible. If \fIfetchmail\fR is running as root,
360 it sets its userid to that of the target user while delivering mail
361 through an MDA. Some possible MDAs are "/usr/sbin/sendmail -oem -f %F
362 %T", "/usr/bin/deliver" and "/usr/bin/procmail -d %T" (but the latter
363 is usually redundant as it's what SMTP listeners usually forward
364 to). Local delivery addresses will be inserted into the MDA command
365 wherever you place a %T; the mail message's From address will be
366 inserted where you place an %F. Do \fInot\fR use an MDA invocation
367 like "sendmail -oem -t" that dispatches on the contents of To/Cc/Bcc,
368 it will create mail loops and bring the just wrath of many postmasters
373 Cause delivery via LMTP (Local Mail Transfer Protocol). A service
374 port \fImust\fR be explicitly specified (with a slash suffix) on each
375 host in the smtphost hunt list) if this option is selected; the
376 default port 25 will (in accordance with RFC 2033) not be accepted.
378 .B \--bsmtp <filename>
380 Append fetched mail to a BSMTP file. This simply contains the SMTP
381 commands that would normally be generated by fetchmail when passing
382 mail to an SMTP listener daemon. An argument of `-' causes the mail
383 to be written to standard output. Note that fetchmail's
384 reconstruction of MAIL FROM and RCPT TO lines is not guaranteed
385 correct; the caveats discussed under THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP
386 MAILBOXES below apply.
387 .SS Resource Limit Control Options
389 .B \-l <maxbytes>, --limit <maxbytes>
391 Takes a maximum octet size argument. Messages larger than this size
392 will not be fetched and will be left on the server (in foreground
393 sessions, the progress messages will note that they are "oversized").
394 If the fetch protocol permits (in particular, under IMAP or POP3
395 without the fetchall option) the message will not be marked seen An
396 explicit --limit of 0 overrides any limits set in your run control
397 file. This option is intended for those needing to strictly control
398 fetch time due to expensive and variable phone rates. In daemon mode,
399 oversize notifications are mailed to the calling user (see the
400 --warnings option). This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
402 .B \-w <interval>, --warnings <interval>
404 Takes an interval in seconds. When you call
406 with a `limit' option in daemon mode, this controls the interval at
407 which warnings about oversized messages are mailed to the calling user
408 (or the user specified by the `postmaster' option). One such
409 notification is always mailed at the end of the the first poll that
410 the oversized message is detected. Thereafter, renotification is
411 suppressed until after the warning interval elapses (it will take
412 place at the end of the first following poll).
414 .B -b <count>, --batchlimit <count>
415 (Keyword: batchlimit)
416 Specify the maximum number of messages that will be shipped to an SMTP
417 listener before the connection is deliberately torn down and rebuilt
418 (defaults to 0, meaning no limit). An explicit --batchlimit of 0
419 overrides any limits set in your run control file. While
420 \fBsendmail\fR(8) normally initiates delivery of a message immediately
421 after receiving the message terminator, some SMTP listeners are not so
422 prompt. MTAs like \fIqmail\fR(8) and \fIsmail\fR(8) may wait till the
423 delivery socket is shut down to deliver. This may produce annoying
424 delays when \fIfetchmail\fR is processing very large batches. Setting
425 the batch limit to some nonzero size will prevent these delays. This
426 option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
428 .B -B <number>, --fetchlimit <number>
429 (Keyword: fetchlimit)
430 Limit the number of messages accepted from a given server in a single
431 poll. By default there is no limit. An explicit --fetchlimit of 0
432 overrides any limits set in your run control file.
433 This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
435 .B -e <count>, --expunge <count>
437 Arrange for deletions to be made final after a given number of
438 messages. Under POP2 or POP3, fetchmail cannot make deletions final
439 without sending QUIT and ending the session -- with this option on,
440 fetchmail will break a long mail retrieval session into multiple
441 subsessions, sending QUIT after each sub-session. This is a good
442 defense against line drops on POP3 servers that do not do the
443 equivalent of a QUIT on hangup. Under IMAP,
445 normally issues an EXPUNGE command after each deletion in order to
446 force the deletion to be done immediately. This is safest when your
447 connection to the server is flaky and expensive, as it avoids
448 resending duplicate mail after a line hit. However, on large
449 mailboxes the overhead of re-indexing after every message can slam the
450 server pretty hard, so if your connection is reliable it is good to do
451 expunges less frequently. If you specify this option to an integer N,
454 to only issue expunges on every Nth delete. An argument of zero
455 suppresses expunges entirely (so no expunges at all will be done until
456 the end of run). This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
457 .SS Authentication Options
459 .B \-u <name>, --username <name>
460 (Keyword: user[name])
461 Specifies the user identification to be used when logging in to the mailserver.
462 The appropriate user identification is both server and user-dependent.
463 The default is your login name on the client machine that is running
465 See USER AUTHENTICATION below for a complete description.
467 .B \-I <specification>, --interface <specification>
469 Require that a specific interface device be up and have a specific local
470 or remote IP address (or range) before polling. Frequently
472 is used over a transient point-to-point TCP/IP link established directly
473 to a mailserver via SLIP or PPP. That is a relatively secure channel.
474 But when other TCP/IP routes to the mailserver exist (e.g. when the link
475 is connected to an alternate ISP), your username and password may be
476 vulnerable to snooping (especially when daemon mode automatically polls
477 for mail, shipping a clear password over the net at predictable
478 intervals). The --interface option may be used to prevent this. When
479 the specified link is not up or is not connected to a matching IP
480 address, polling will be skipped. The format is:
482 interface/iii.iii.iii.iii/mmm.mmm.mmm.mmm
484 The field before the first slash is the interface name (i.e. sl0, ppp0
485 etc.). The field before the second slash is the acceptable IP address.
486 The field after the second slash is a mask which specifies a range of
487 IP addresses to accept. If no mask is present 255.255.255.255 is
488 assumed (i.e. an exact match). This option is currently only supported
489 under Linux and FreeBSD. Please see the
491 section for below for FreeBSD specific information.
493 .B \-M <interface>, --monitor <interface>
495 Daemon mode can cause transient links which are automatically taken down
496 after a period of inactivity (e.g. PPP links) to remain up
497 indefinitely. This option identifies a system TCP/IP interface to be
498 monitored for activity. After each poll interval, if the link is up but
499 no other activity has occurred on the link, then the poll will be
500 skipped. However, when fetchmail is woken up by a signal, the
501 monitor check is skipped and the poll goes through unconditionally.
502 This option is currently only supported under Linux and FreeBSD.
507 options to work for non root users under FreeBSD, the fetchmail binary
508 must be installed SGID kmem. This would be a security hole, but
509 fetchmail runs with the effective GID set to that of the kmem group
511 when interface data is being collected.
514 (Keyword: preauth[enticate])
515 This option permits you to specify a preauthentication type (see USER
516 AUTHENTICATION below for details). The possible values are
517 \&`\fBpassword\fR', `\fBkerberos_v5\fR' and `\fBkerberos\fR' (or, for
518 excruciating exactness, `\fBkerberos_v4\fR'), and \fBssh\fR. Use
519 \fBssh\fR to suppress fetchmail's normal inquiry for a password when
520 you are using an end-to-end secure connection such as an ssh tunnel.
521 Other values of this option are provided primarily for developers;
522 choosing KPOP protocol automatically selects Kerberos
523 preauthentication, and all other alternatives use password
524 authentication (though APOP uses a generated one-time key as the
525 password and IMAP-K4 uses RFC1731 Kerberos v4 authentication). This
526 option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
527 .SS Miscellaneous Options
529 .B \-f <pathname>, --fetchmailrc <pathname>
530 Specify a non-default name for the
532 run control file. The pathname argument must be either "-" (a single
533 dash, meaning to read the configuration from standard input) or a
534 filename. Unless the --version option is also on, a named file
535 argument must have permissions no more open than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) or
538 .B \-i <pathname>, --idfile <pathname>
540 Specify an alternate name for the .fetchids file used to save POP3
544 (Keyword: no rewrite)
547 edits RFC-822 address headers (To, From, Cc, Bcc, and Reply-To) in
548 fetched mail so that any mail IDs local to the server are expanded to
549 full addresses (@ and the mailserver hostname are appended). This enables
550 replies on the client to get addressed correctly (otherwise your
551 mailer might think they should be addressed to local users on the
552 client machine!). This option disables the rewrite. (This option is
553 provided to pacify people who are paranoid about having an MTA edit
554 mail headers and want to know they can prevent it, but it is generally
555 not a good idea to actually turn off rewrite.)
556 When using ETRN or ODMR, the rewrite option is ineffective.
558 .B -E <line>, --envelope <line>
560 This option changes the header
562 assumes will carry a copy of the mail's envelope address. Normally
563 this is `X-Envelope-To' but as this header is not standard, practice
564 varies. See the discussion of multidrop address handling below. As a
565 special case, `envelope "Received"' enables parsing of sendmail-style
566 Received lines. This is the default, and it should not be necessary
567 unless you have globally disabled Received parsing with `no envelope'
568 in the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file.
570 .B -Q <prefix>, --qvirtual <prefix>
572 The string prefix assigned to this option will be removed from the user
573 name found in the header specified with the \fIenvelope\fR option
574 (\fIbefore\fR doing multidrop name mapping or localdomain checking,
575 if either is applicable). This option is useful if you are using
577 to collect the mail for an entire domain and your ISP (or your mail
578 redirection provider) is using qmail.
579 One of the basic features of qmail is the
583 message header. Whenever qmail delivers a message to a local mailbox
584 it puts the username and hostname of the envelope recipient on this
585 line. The major reason for this is to prevent mail loops. To set up
586 qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site the ISP-mailhost will have
587 normally put that site in its `Virtualhosts' control file so it will
588 add a prefix to all mail addresses for this site. This results in mail
589 .\" The \&@\& tries to stop HTML converters from making a mailto URL here.
590 sent to 'username\&@\&userhost.userdom.dom.com' having a
591 \&`Delivered-To:' line of the form:
593 Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username\&@\&userhost.userdom.dom.com
595 The ISP can make the 'mbox-userstr-' prefix anything they choose
596 but a string matching the user host name is likely.
597 By using the option `envelope Delivered-To:' you can make fetchmail reliably
598 identify the original envelope recipient, but you have to strip the
599 `mbox-userstr-' prefix to deliver to the correct user.
600 This is what this option is for.
605 file, interpret any command-line options specified, and dump a
606 configuration report to standard output. The configuration report is
607 a data structure assignment in the language Python. This option
608 is meant to be used with an interactive
614 .SH USER AUTHENTICATION AND ENCRYPTION
615 Every mode except ETRN requires authentication of the client.
616 Normal user authentication in
618 is very much like the authentication mechanism of
620 The correct user-id and password depend upon the underlying security
621 system at the mailserver.
623 If the mailserver is a Unix machine on which you have an ordinary user
624 account, your regular login name and password are used with
626 If you use the same login name on both the server and the client machines,
627 you needn't worry about specifying a user-id with the
630 the default behavior is to use your login name on the client machine as the
631 user-id on the server machine. If you use a different login name
632 on the server machine, specify that login name with the
634 option. e.g. if your login name is 'jsmith' on a machine named 'mailgrunt',
639 fetchmail -u jsmith mailgrunt
641 The default behavior of
643 is to prompt you for your mailserver password before the connection is
644 established. This is the safest way to use
646 and ensures that your password will not be compromised. You may also specify
647 your password in your
649 file. This is convenient when using
651 in daemon mode or with scripts.
653 If you do not specify a password, and
655 cannot extract one from your
657 file, it will look for a
659 file in your home directory before requesting one interactively; if an
660 entry matching the mailserver is found in that file, the password will
661 be used. Fetchmail first looks for a match on poll name; if it finds none,
662 it checks for a match on via name. See the
664 man page for details of the syntax of the
666 file. (This feature may allow you to avoid duplicating password
667 information in more than one file.)
669 On mailservers that do not provide ordinary user accounts, your user-id and
670 password are usually assigned by the server administrator when you apply for
671 a mailbox on the server. Contact your server administrator if you don't know
672 the correct user-id and password for your mailbox account.
674 Early versions of POP3 (RFC1081, RFC1225) supported a crude form of
675 independent authentication using the
677 file on the mailserver side. Under this RPOP variant, a fixed
678 per-user ID equivalent to a password was sent in clear over a link to
679 a reserved port, with the command RPOP rather than PASS to alert the
680 server that it should do special checking. RPOP is supported
683 (you can specify `protocol RPOP' to have the program send `RPOP'
684 rather than `PASS') but its use is strongly discouraged. This
685 facility was vulnerable to spoofing and was withdrawn in RFC1460.
687 RFC1460 introduced APOP authentication. In this variant of POP3,
688 you register an APOP password on your server host (the program
689 to do this with on the server is probably called \fIpopauth\fR(8)). You
690 put the same password in your
694 logs in, it sends a cryptographically secure hash of your password and
695 the server greeting time to the server, which can verify it by
696 checking its authorization database.
698 If your \fIfetchmail\fR was built with Kerberos support and you specify
699 Kerberos preauthentication (either with --auth or the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
700 option \fBauthenticate kerberos_v4\fR) it will try to get a Kerberos
701 ticket from the mailserver at the start of each query. Note: if
702 either the pollnane or via name is `hesiod', fetchmail will try to use
703 Hesiod to look up the mailserver.
705 If you use IMAP-K4, \fIfetchmail\fR will expect the IMAP server to have
706 RFC1731-conformant AUTHENTICATE KERBEROS_V4 capability, and will use it.
708 If you use IMAP-GSS, \fIfetchmail\fR will expect the IMAP server to have
709 RFC1731-conformant AUTHENTICATE GSSAPI capability, and will use it.
710 Currently this has only been tested over Kerberos V, so you're expected
711 to already have a ticket-granting ticket. You may pass a username different
712 from your principal name using the standard \fB--user\fR command or by
713 the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR option \fBuser\fR.
715 If your IMAP daemon returns the PREAUTH response in its greeting line,
716 fetchmail will notice this and skip the normal authentication step.
717 This could be useful, e.g. if you start imapd explicitly using ssh.
718 In this case you can declare the preauthentication value `ssh' on that
719 site entry to stop \fI.fetchmail\fR from asking you for a password
722 If you are using POP3, and the server issues a one-time-password
723 challenge conforming to RFC1938, \fIfetchmail\fR will use your
724 password as a pass phrase to generate the required response. This
725 avoids sending secrets over the net unencrypted.
727 Compuserve's RPA authentication (similar to APOP) is supported. If you
728 compile in the support, \fIfetchmail\fR will try to perform an RPA pass-phrase
729 authentication instead of sending over the password en clair if it
730 detects "@compuserve.com" in the hostname.
732 Microsoft's NTLM authentication (used by Microsoft Exchange) is
733 supported. If you compile in the support, \fIfetchmail\fR will try to
734 perform an NTLM authentication (instead of sending over the
735 password en clair) whenever the server returns AUTH=NTLM in its
736 capability response. Note: if you specify a user option value
737 that looks like `user@domain', the part to the left of the @ will
738 be passed as the username and the part to the right as the NTLM domain.
740 If you are using IPsec, the -T (--netsec) option can be used to pass
741 an IP security request to be used when outgoing IP connections are
742 initialized. You can also do this using the `netsec' server option
743 in the .fetchmailrc file. In either case, the option value is a
744 string in the format accepted by the net_security_strtorequest()
745 function of the inet6_apps library.
747 You can access SSL encrypted services by specifying the --ssl option.
748 You can also do this using the "ssl" server option in the .fetchmailrc
749 file. With SSL encryption enabled, queries are initiated over a connection
750 after negotiating an SSL session. Some services, such as POP3 and IMAP,
751 have different well known ports defined for the SSL encrypted services.
752 The encrypted ports will be selected automatically when SSL is enabled and
753 no explicit port is specified.
755 When connecting to an SSL encrypted server, the server presents a certificate
756 to the client for validation. The certificate is checked to verify that
757 the common name in the certificate matches the name of the server being
758 contacted and that the effective and expiration dates in the certificate
759 indicate that it is currently valid. If any of these checks fail, a warning
760 message is printed, but the connection continues. The server certificate
761 does not need to be signed by any specific Certifying Authority and may
762 be a "self-signed" certificate.
764 Some SSL encrypted servers may request a client side certificate. A client
765 side public SSL certificate and private SSL key may be specified. If
766 requested by the server, the client certificate is sent to the server for
767 validation. Some servers may require a valid client certificate and may
768 refuse connections if a certificate is not provided or if the certificate
769 is not valid. Some servers may require client side certificates be signed
770 by a recognized Certifying Authority. The format for the key files and
771 the certificate files is that required by the underlying SSL libraries
772 (OpenSSL in the general case).
776 .B --daemon <interval>
781 in daemon mode. You must specify a numeric argument which is a
782 polling interval in seconds.
786 puts itself in background and runs forever, querying each specified
787 host and then sleeping for the given polling interval.
793 will, therefore, poll all the hosts described in your
795 file (except those explicitly excluded with the `skip' verb) once
796 every fifteen minutes.
798 It is possible to set a polling interval
801 file by saying `set daemon <interval>', where <interval> is an
802 integer number of seconds. If you do this, fetchmail will always
803 start in daemon mode unless you override it with the command-line
804 option --daemon 0 or -d0.
806 Only one daemon process is permitted per user; in daemon mode,
808 makes a per-user lockfile to guarantee this.
810 Normally, calling fetchmail with a daemon in the background sends a
811 wakeup signal to the daemon, forcing it to poll mailservers
812 immediately. (The wakeup signal is SIGHUP if fetchmail is running as
813 root, SIGUSR1 otherwise.) The wakeup action also clears any `wedged'
814 flags indicating that connections have wedged due to failed
815 authentication or multiple timeouts.
819 will kill a running daemon process instead of waking it up (if there
822 notifies you). If the --quit option is the only command-line option,
823 that's all there is to it.
825 The quit option may also be mixed with other command-line options; its
826 effect is to kill any running daemon before doing what the other
827 options specify in combination with the rc file.
832 .B --logfile <filename>
833 option (keyword: set logfile) allows you to redirect status messages
834 emitted while detached into a specified logfile (follow the
835 option with the logfile name). The logfile is opened for append, so
836 previous messages aren't deleted. This is primarily useful for
837 debugging configurations.
841 option (keyword: set syslog) allows you to redirect status and error
842 messages emitted to the
844 system daemon if available.
845 Messages are logged with an id of \fBfetchmail\fR, the facility \fBLOG_MAIL\fR,
846 and priorities \fBLOG_ERR\fR, \fBLOG_ALERT\fR or \fBLOG_INFO\fR.
847 This option is intended for logging status and error messages which
848 indicate the status of the daemon and the results while fetching mail
850 Error messages for command line options and parsing the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
851 file are still written to stderr, or to the specified log file.
854 option turns off use of
856 assuming it's turned on in the
866 or --nodetach option suppresses backgrounding and detachment of the
867 daemon process from its control terminal. This is primarily useful
868 for debugging. Note that this also causes the logfile option to be
869 ignored (though perhaps it shouldn't).
871 Note that while running in daemon mode polling a POP2 or IMAP2bis server,
872 transient errors (such as DNS failures or sendmail delivery refusals)
873 may force the fetchall option on for the duration of the next polling
874 cycle. This is a robustness feature. It means that if a message is
875 fetched (and thus marked seen by the mailserver) but not delivered
876 locally due to some transient error, it will be re-fetched during the
877 next poll cycle. (The IMAP logic doesn't delete messages until
878 they're delivered, so this problem does not arise.)
880 If you touch or change the
882 file while fetchmail is running in daemon mode, this will be detected
883 at the beginning of the next poll cycle. When a changed
885 is detected, fetchmail rereads it and restarts from scratch (using
886 exec(2); no state information is retained in the new instance). Note also
887 that if you break the
889 file's syntax, the new instance will softly and silently vanish away
892 .SH ADMINISTRATIVE OPTIONS
895 .B --postmaster <name>
896 option (keyword: set postmaster) specifies the last-resort username to
897 which multidrop mail is to be forwarded if no matching local recipient
898 can be found. Normally this is just the user who invoked fetchmail.
899 If the invoking user is root, then the default of this option is
900 the user `postmaster'.
904 option suppresses the normal action of bouncing errors back to the
905 sender in an RFC1894-conformant error message. If nobounce is on, the
906 message will go to the postmaster instead.
910 option (keyword: set invisible) tries to make fetchmail invisible.
911 Normally, fetchmail behaves like any other MTA would -- it generates a
912 Received header into each message describing its place in the chain of
913 transmission, and tells the MTA it forwards to that the mail came from
914 the machine fetchmail itself is running on. If the invisible option
915 is on, the Received header is suppressed and fetchmail tries to spoof
916 the MTA it forwards to into thinking it came directly from the
921 option (keyword: set showdots) forces fetchmail to show progress dots
922 even if the current tty is not stdout (for example logfiles).
923 Starting with fetchmail version 5.3.0,
924 progress dots are only shown on stdout by default.
926 .SH RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES
927 The protocols \fIfetchmail\fR uses to talk to mailservers are next to
928 bulletproof. In normal operation forwarding to port 25, no message is
929 ever deleted (or even marked for deletion) on the host until the SMTP
930 listener on the client has acknowledged to \fIfetchmail\fR that the
931 message has been accepted for delivery or rejected due to a spam
932 block. When forwarding to an MDA, however, there is more possibility
933 of error (because there's no way for fetchmail to get a reliable
934 positive acknowledgement from the MDA).
936 The normal mode of \fIfetchmail\fR is to try to download only `new'
937 messages, leaving untouched (and undeleted) messages you have already
938 read directly on the server (or fetched with a previous \fIfetchmail
939 --keep\fR). But you may find that messages you've already read on the
940 server are being fetched (and deleted) even when you don't specify
941 --all. There are several reasons this can happen.
943 One could be that you're using POP2. The POP2 protocol includes no
944 representation of `new' or `old' state in messages, so \fIfetchmail\fR
945 must treat all messages as new all the time. But POP2 is obsolete, so
948 Under POP3, blame RFC1725. That version of the POP3 protocol
949 specification removed the LAST command, and some POP servers follow it
950 (you can verify this by invoking \fIfetchmail -v\fR to the mailserver
951 and watching the response to LAST early in the query). The
952 \fIfetchmail\fR code tries to compensate by using POP3's UID feature,
953 storing the identifiers of messages seen in each session until the
954 next session, in the \fI.fetchids\fR file. But this doesn't track
955 messages seen with other clients, or read directly with a mailer on
956 the host but not deleted afterward. A better solution would be to
959 Another potential POP3 problem might be servers that insert messages
960 in the middle of mailboxes (some VMS implementations of mail are
961 rumored to do this). The \fIfetchmail\fR code assumes that new
962 messages are appended to the end of the mailbox; when this is not true
963 it may treat some old messages as new and vice versa. The only
964 real fix for this problem is to switch to IMAP.
966 Yet another POP3 problem is that if they can't make tempfiles in the
967 user's home directory, some POP3 servers will hand back an
968 undocumented response that causes fetchmail to spuriously report "No
971 The IMAP code uses the presence or absence of the server flag \eSeen
972 to decide whether or not a message is new. Under Unix, it counts on
973 your IMAP server to notice the BSD-style Status flags set by mail user
974 agents and set the \eSeen flag from them when appropriate. All Unix
975 IMAP servers we know of do this, though it's not specified by the IMAP
976 RFCs. If you ever trip over a server that doesn't, the symptom will
977 be that messages you have already read on your host will look new to
978 the server. In this (unlikely) case, only messages you fetched with
979 \fIfetchmail --keep\fR will be both undeleted and marked old.
981 In ETRN and ODMR modes, \fIfetchmail\fR does not actually retrieve messages;
982 instead, it asks the server's SMTP listener to start a queue flush
983 to the client via SMTP. Therefore it sends only undelivered messages.
986 Many SMTP listeners allow administrators to set up `spam filters' that
987 block unsolicited email from specified domains. A MAIL FROM or DATA line that
988 triggers this feature will elicit an SMTP response which
989 (unfortunately) varies according to the listener.
993 return an error code of 571. This return value
994 is blessed by RFC1893 as "Delivery not authorized, message refused".
996 According to current drafts of the replacement for RFC821, the correct
997 thing to return in this situation is 550 "Requested action not taken:
998 mailbox unavailable" (the draft adds "[E.g., mailbox not found, no
999 access, or command rejected for policy reasons].").
1003 MTA returns 501 "Syntax error in parameters or arguments", but will
1008 MTA runs 554 as an antispam response.
1012 code recognizes and discards the message on any of a list of responses
1013 that defaults to [571, 550, 501, 554] but can be set with the `antispam'
1014 option. This is one of the
1016 three circumstance under which fetchmail ever discards mail (the others
1017 are the 552 and 553 errors described below, and the suppression of
1018 multidropped messages with a message-ID already seen).
1022 is fetching from an IMAP server, the antispam response will be detected and
1023 the message rejected immediately after the headers have been fetched,
1024 without reading the message body. Thus, you won't pay for downloading
1025 spam message bodies.
1027 Mail that is spam-blocked triggers an RFC1892 bounce message informing
1028 the originator that we do not accept mail from it.
1030 .SH SMTP/ESMTP ERROR HANDLING
1031 Besides the spam-blocking described above,fetchmail takes special
1032 actions on the following SMTP/ESMTP error responses
1034 452 (insufficient system storage)
1035 Leave the message in the server mailbox for later retrieval.
1037 552 (message exceeds fixed maximum message size)
1038 Delete the message from the server. Send bounce-mail to the originator.
1040 553 (invalid sending domain)
1041 Delete the message from the server. Send bounce-mail to the originator.
1043 Other errors trigger bounce mail back to the originator.
1045 .SH THE RUN CONTROL FILE
1046 The preferred way to set up fetchmail is to write a
1047 \&\fI.fetchmailrc\fR file in your home directory (you may do this
1048 directly, with a text editor, or indirectly via \fIfetchmailconf\fR).
1049 When there is a conflict between the command-line arguments and the
1050 arguments in this file, the command-line arguments take precedence.
1052 To protect the security of your passwords, when --version is not on
1053 your \fI~/.fetchmailrc\fR may not have more than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) permissions;
1055 will complain and exit otherwise.
1057 You may read the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file as a list of commands to
1060 is called with no arguments.
1061 .SS Run Control Syntax
1063 Comments begin with a '#' and extend through the end of the line.
1064 Otherwise the file consists of a series of server entries or global
1065 option statements in a free-format, token-oriented syntax.
1067 There are four kinds of tokens: grammar keywords, numbers
1068 (i.e. decimal digit sequences), unquoted strings, and quoted strings.
1069 A quoted string is bounded by double quotes and may contain
1070 whitespace (and quoted digits are treated as a string). An unquoted
1071 string is any whitespace-delimited token that is neither numeric, string
1072 quoted nor contains the special characters `,', `;', `:', or `='.
1074 Any amount of whitespace separates tokens in server entries, but is
1075 otherwise ignored. You may use standard C-style escapes (\en, \et,
1076 \eb, octal, and hex) to embed non-printable characters or string
1077 delimiters in strings.
1079 Each server entry consists of one of the keywords `poll' or `skip',
1080 followed by a server name, followed by server options, followed by any
1081 number of user descriptions. Note: the most common cause of syntax
1082 errors is mixing up user and server options.
1084 For backward compatibility, the word `server' is a synonym for `poll'.
1086 You can use the noise keywords `and', `with',
1087 \&`has', `wants', and `options' anywhere in an entry to make
1088 it resemble English. They're ignored, but but can make entries much
1089 easier to read at a glance. The punctuation characters ':', ';' and
1090 \&',' are also ignored.
1093 The `poll' verb tells fetchmail to query this host when it is run with
1094 no arguments. The `skip' verb tells
1096 not to poll this host unless it is explicitly named on the command
1097 line. (The `skip' verb allows you to experiment with test entries
1098 safely, or easily disable entries for hosts that are temporarily down.)
1100 .SS Keyword/Option Summary
1101 Here are the legal options. Keyword suffixes enclosed in
1102 square brackets are optional. Those corresponding to command-line
1103 options are followed by `-' and the appropriate option letter.
1105 Here are the legal global options:
1109 Keyword Opt Function
1112 Set a background poll interval in seconds
1114 set postmaster \& T{
1115 Give the name of the last-resort mail recipient
1117 set no bouncemail \& T{
1118 Direct error mail to postmaster rather than sender
1120 set no spambounce \& T{
1124 Name of a file to dump error and status messages to
1127 Name of the file to store UID lists in
1130 Do error logging through syslog(3).
1133 Turn off error logging through syslog(3).
1135 set properties \& T{
1136 String value is ignored by fetchmail (may be used by extension scripts)
1140 Here are the legal server options:
1144 Keyword Opt Function
1147 Specify DNS name of mailserver, overriding poll name
1150 Specify protocol (case insensitive):
1151 POP2, POP3, IMAP, IMAP-K4, IMAP-GSS, APOP, KPOP
1153 local[domains] \& T{
1154 Specify domain(s) to be regarded as local
1157 Specify TCP/IP service port
1159 auth[enticate] -A T{
1160 Set preauthentication type (default `password')
1163 Server inactivity timeout in seconds (default 300)
1166 Specify envelope-address header name
1169 Disable looking for envelope address
1172 Qmail virtual domain prefix to remove from user name
1175 Specify alternate DNS names of mailserver
1178 specify IP interface(s) that must be up for server poll to take place
1181 Specify IP address to monitor for activity
1184 Specify command through which to make server connections.
1187 Specify command through which to make listener connections.
1190 Enable DNS lookup for multidrop (default)
1193 Disable DNS lookup for multidrop
1196 Do comparison by IP address for multidrop
1199 Do comparison by name for multidrop (default)
1202 Force POP3 to use client-side UIDLs
1205 Turn off POP3 use of client-side UIDLs (default)
1208 Only check this site every N poll cycles; N is a numeric argument.
1211 Pass in IPsec security option request.
1214 Set Kerberos principal (only useful with imap-k4)
1218 Here are the legal user options:
1222 Keyword Opt Function
1225 Set remote user name
1226 (local user name if name followed by `here')
1229 Connect local and remote user names
1232 Connect local and remote user names
1235 Specify remote account password
1238 Connect to server over the specified base protocol using SSL encryption
1241 Specify file for client side public SSL certificate
1244 Specify file for client side private SSL key
1247 Specify remote folder to query
1250 Specify smtp host(s) to forward to
1253 Specify the domain to be put in RCPT TO lines
1256 Specify the user and domain to be put in RCPT TO lines
1259 Specify what SMTP returns are interpreted as spam-policy blocks
1262 Specify MDA for local delivery
1265 Specify BSMTP batch file to append to
1268 Command to be executed before each connection
1271 Command to be executed after each connection
1274 Don't delete seen messages from server
1277 Flush all seen messages before querying
1280 Fetch all messages whether seen or not
1283 Rewrite destination addresses for reply (default)
1286 Strip carriage returns from ends of lines
1289 Force carriage returns at ends of lines
1292 Force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP listener
1295 Strip Status and X-Mozilla-Status lines out of incoming mail
1298 Strip Delivered-To lines out of incoming mail
1301 Convert quoted-printable to 8-bit in MIME messages
1304 Idle waiting for new messages after each poll (IMAP only)
1307 Delete seen messages from server (default)
1310 Don't flush all seen messages before querying (default)
1313 Retrieve only new messages (default)
1316 Don't rewrite headers
1319 Don't strip carriage returns (default)
1322 Don't force carriage returns at EOL (default)
1325 Don't force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP listener (default)
1328 Don't drop Status headers (default)
1330 no dropdelivered \& T{
1331 Don't drop Delivered-To headers (default)
1334 Don't convert quoted-printable to 8-bit in MIME messages (default)
1337 Don't idle waiting for new messages after each poll (IMAP only)
1340 Set message size limit
1343 Set message size warning interval
1346 Max # messages to forward in single connect
1349 Max # messages to fetch in single connect
1352 Perform an expunge on every #th message (IMAP and POP3 only)
1355 String value is ignored by fetchmail (may be used by extension scripts)
1359 Remember that all user options must \fIfollow\fR all server options.
1361 In the .fetchmailrc file, the `envelope' string argument may be
1362 preceded by a whitespace-separated number. This number, if specified,
1363 is the number of such headers to skip (that is, an argument of 1
1364 selects the second header of the given type). This is sometime useful
1365 for ignoring bogus Received headers created by an ISP's local delivery
1367 .SS Keywords Not Corresponding To Option Switches
1369 The `folder' and `smtphost' options (unlike their command-line
1370 equivalents) can take a space- or comma-separated list of names
1373 All options correspond to the obvious command-line arguments, except
1374 the following: `via', `interval', `aka', `is', `to', `dns'/`no dns',
1375 `checkalias'/`no checkalias', `password', `preconnect', `postconnect',
1376 `localdomains', `stripcr'/`no stripcr', `forcecr'/`no forcecr',
1377 `pass8bits'/`no pass8bits' `dropstatus/no dropstatus',
1378 `dropdelivered/no dropdelivered', `mimedecode/no mimedecode', `idle/no
1379 idle', and `no envelope'.
1381 The `via' option is for use with ssh, or if you want to have more
1382 than one configuration pointing at the same site. If it is present,
1383 the string argument will be taken as the actual DNS name of the
1384 mailserver host to query.
1385 This will override the argument of poll, which can then simply be a
1386 distinct label for the configuration (e.g. what you would give on the
1387 command line to explicitly query this host).
1388 If the `via' name is `localhost', the poll name will also still be
1389 used as a possible match in multidrop mode; otherwise the `via' name
1390 will be used instead and the poll name will be purely a label.
1392 The `interval' option (which takes a numeric argument) allows you to poll a
1393 server less frequently than the basic poll interval. If you say
1394 \&`interval N' the server this option is attached to will only be
1395 queried every N poll intervals.
1397 The `is' or `to' keywords associate the following local (client)
1398 name(s) (or server-name to client-name mappings separated by =) with
1399 the mailserver user name in the entry. If an is/to list has `*' as
1400 its last name, unrecognized names are simply passed through.
1402 A single local name can be used to support redirecting your mail when
1403 your username on the client machine is different from your name on the
1404 mailserver. When there is only a single local name, mail is forwarded
1405 to that local username regardless of the message's Received, To, Cc,
1406 and Bcc headers. In this case
1408 never does DNS lookups.
1410 When there is more than one local name (or name mapping) the
1411 \fIfetchmail\fR code does look at the Received, To, Cc, and Bcc
1412 headers of retrieved mail (this is `multidrop mode'). It looks for
1413 addresses with hostname parts that match your poll name or your `via',
1414 `aka' or `localdomains' options, and usually also for hostname parts
1415 which DNS tells it are aliases of the mailserver. See the discussion
1416 of `dns', `checkalias', `localdomains', and `aka' for details on how
1417 matching addresses are handled.
1419 If \fIfetchmail\fR cannot match any mailserver usernames or
1420 localdomain addresses, the mail will be bounced.
1421 Normally it will be bounced to the sender, but if `nobounce' is on
1422 it will go to the postmaster (which in turn defaults to being the
1425 The `dns' option (normally on) controls the way addresses from
1426 multidrop mailboxes are checked. On, it enables logic to check each
1427 host address that doesn't match an `aka' or `localdomains' declaration
1428 by looking it up with DNS. When a mailserver username is recognized
1429 attached to a matching hostname part, its local mapping is added to
1430 the list of local recipients.
1432 The `checkalias' option (normally off) extends the lookups performed
1433 by the `dns' keyword in multidrop mode, providing a way to cope with
1434 remote MTAs that identify themselves using their canonical name, while
1435 they're polled using an alias.
1436 When such a server is polled, checks to extract the envelope address
1439 reverts to delivery using the To/Cc/Bcc headers (See below
1440 `Header vs. Envelope addresses').
1441 Specifying this option instructs
1443 to retrieve all the IP addresses associated with both the poll name
1444 and the name used by the remote MTA and to do a comparison of the IP
1445 addresses. This comes in handy in situations where the remote server
1446 undergoes frequent canonical name changes, that would otherwise
1447 require modifications to the rcfile. `checkalias' has no effect if
1448 `no dns' is specified in the rcfile.
1450 The `aka' option is for use with multidrop mailboxes. It allows you
1451 to pre-declare a list of DNS aliases for a server. This is an
1452 optimization hack that allows you to trade space for speed. When
1454 while processing a multidrop mailbox, grovels through message headers
1455 looking for names of the mailserver, pre-declaring common ones can
1456 save it from having to do DNS lookups. Note: the names you give
1457 as arguments to `aka' are matched as suffixes -- if you specify
1458 (say) `aka netaxs.com', this will match not just a hostnamed
1459 netaxs.com, but any hostname that ends with `.netaxs.com'; such as
1460 (say) pop3.netaxs.com and mail.netaxs.com.
1462 The `localdomains' option allows you to declare a list of domains
1463 which fetchmail should consider local. When fetchmail is parsing
1464 address lines in multidrop modes, and a trailing segment of a host
1465 name matches a declared local domain, that address is passed through
1466 to the listener or MDA unaltered (local-name mappings are \fInot\fR
1469 If you are using `localdomains', you may also need to specify \&`no
1470 envelope', which disables \fIfetchmail\fR's normal attempt to deduce
1471 an envelope address from the Received line or X-Envelope-To header or
1472 whatever header has been previously set by `envelope'. If you set `no
1473 envelope' in the defaults entry it is possible to undo that in
1474 individual entries by using `envelope <string>'. As a special case,
1475 \&`envelope "Received"' restores the default parsing of
1478 The \fBpassword\fR option requires a string argument, which is the password
1479 to be used with the entry's server.
1481 The `preconnect' keyword allows you to specify a shell command to be
1482 executed just before each time
1484 establishes a mailserver connection. This may be useful if you are
1485 attempting to set up secure POP connections with the aid of
1487 If the command returns a nonzero status, the poll of that mailserver
1490 Similarly, the `postconnect' keyword similarly allows you to specify a
1491 shell command to be executed just after each time a mailserver
1492 connection is taken down.
1494 The `forcecr' option controls whether lines terminated by LF only are
1495 given CRLF termination before forwarding. Strictly speaking RFC821
1496 requires this, but few MTAs enforce the requirement it so this option
1497 is normally off (only one such MTA, qmail, is in significant use at
1500 The `stripcr' option controls whether carriage returns are stripped
1501 out of retrieved mail before it is forwarded. It is normally not
1502 necessary to set this, because it defaults to `on' (CR stripping
1503 enabled) when there is an MDA declared but `off' (CR stripping
1504 disabled) when forwarding is via SMTP. If `stripcr' and `forcecr' are
1505 both on, `stripcr' will override.
1507 The `pass8bits' option exists to cope with Microsoft mail programs that
1508 stupidly slap a "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit" on everything. With
1509 this option off (the default) and such a header present,
1511 declares BODY=7BIT to an ESMTP-capable listener; this causes problems for
1512 messages actually using 8-bit ISO or KOI-8 character sets, which will
1513 be garbled by having the high bits of all characters stripped. If
1514 \&`pass8bits' is on,
1516 is forced to declare BODY=8BITMIME to any ESMTP-capable listener. If
1517 the listener is 8-bit-clean (as all the major ones now are) the right
1518 thing will probably result.
1520 The `dropstatus' option controls whether nonempty Status and
1521 X-Mozilla-Status lines are retained in fetched mail (the default) or
1522 discarded. Retaining them allows your MUA to see what messages (if
1523 any) were marked seen on the server. On the other hand, it can
1524 confuse some new-mail notifiers, which assume that anything with a
1525 Status line in it has been seen. (Note: the empty Status lines
1526 inserted by some buggy POP servers are unconditionally discarded.)
1528 The `dropdelivered' option controls wether Delivered-To headers will
1529 be kept in fetched mail (the default) or discarded. These headers are
1530 added by Qmail and Postfix mailservers in order to avoid mail loops but
1531 may get in your way if you try to "mirror" a mailserver within the same
1532 domain. Use with caution.
1534 The `mimedecode' option controls whether MIME messages using the
1535 quoted-printable encoding are automatically converted into pure 8-bit
1536 data. If you are delivering mail to an ESMTP-capable, 8-bit-clean
1537 listener (that includes all of the major MTAs like sendmail), then
1538 this will automatically convert quoted-printable message headers and
1539 data into 8-bit data, making it easier to understand when reading
1540 mail. If your e-mail programs know how to deal with MIME messages,
1541 then this option is not needed. The mimedecode option is off by
1542 default, because doing RFC2047 conversion on headers throws away
1543 character-set information and can lead to bad results if the encoding
1544 of the headers differs from the body encoding.
1546 The `idle' option is usable only with IMAP servers supporting the
1547 RFC2177 IDLE command extension. If it is enabled, and fetchmail
1548 detects that IDLE is supported, an IDLE will be issued at the end
1549 of each poll. This will tell the IMAP server to hold the connection
1550 open and notify the client when new mail is available. If you need to
1551 poll a link frequently, IDLE can save bandwidth by eliminating TCP/IP
1552 connects and LOGIN/LOGOUT sequences. On the other hand, an IDLE
1553 connection will eat almost akll of your fetchmail's time, because it
1554 will never drop the connection and allow other pools to occur unless
1555 the server times out the IDLE.
1557 The `properties' option is an extension mechanism. It takes a string
1558 argument, which is ignored by fetchmail itself. The string argument may be
1559 used to store configuration information for scripts which require it.
1560 In particular, the output of `--configdump' option will make properties
1561 associated with a user entry readily available to a Python script.
1563 .SS Miscellaneous Run Control Options
1564 The words `here' and `there' have useful English-like
1565 significance. Normally `user eric is esr' would mean that
1566 mail for the remote user `eric' is to be delivered to `esr',
1567 but you can make this clearer by saying `user eric there is esr here',
1568 or reverse it by saying `user esr here is eric there'
1570 Legal protocol identifiers for use with the `protocol' keyword are:
1577 imap-k4 (or IMAP-K4)
1578 imap-gss (or IMAP-GSS)
1579 imap-crammd5 (or IMAP-CRAMMD5)
1580 imap-login (or IMAP-LOGIN)
1585 Legal authentication types are `password' or `kerberos'. The former
1586 specifies authentication by normal transmission of a password (the
1587 password may be plaintext or subject to protocol-specific encryption
1588 as in APOP); the second tells \fIfetchmail\fR to try to get a Kerberos
1589 ticket at the start of each query instead, and send an arbitrary
1590 string as the password.
1592 Specifying `kpop' sets POP3 protocol over port 1109 with Kerberos V4
1593 preauthentication. These defaults may be overridden by later options.
1595 There are currently four global option statements; `set logfile'
1596 followed by a string sets the same global specified by --logfile. A
1597 command-line --logfile option will override this. Also, `set daemon'
1598 sets the poll interval as --daemon does. This can be overridden by a
1599 command-line --daemon option; in particular --daemon 0 can be used to
1600 force foreground operation. The `set postmaster' statement sets the
1601 address to which multidrop mail defaults if there are no local
1602 matches. Finally, `set syslog' sends log messages to syslogd(8).
1604 .SH INTERACTION WITH RFC 822
1605 When trying to determine the originating address of a message,
1606 fetchmail looks through headers in the following order:
1616 The originating address is used for logging, and to set the MAIL FROM
1617 address when forwarding to SMTP. This order is intended to cope
1618 gracefully with receiving mailing list messages in multidrop mode. The
1619 intent is that if a local address doesn't exist, the bounce message
1620 won't be returned blindly to the author or to the list itself, but
1621 rather to the list manager (which is less annoying).
1623 In multidrop mode, destination headers are processed as follows:
1624 First, fetchmail looks for the Received: header (or whichever one is
1625 specified by the `envelope' option) to determine the local
1626 recipient address. If the mail is addressed to more than one recipient,
1627 the Received line won't contain any information regarding recipient addresses.
1629 Then fetchmail looks for the Resent-To:, Resent-Cc:, and Resent-Bcc:
1630 lines. If they exists, they should contain the final recipients and
1631 have precedence over their To:/Cc:/Bcc: counterparts. If the Resent-*
1632 lines doesn't exist, the To:, Cc:, Bcc: and Apparently-To: lines are
1633 looked for. (The presence of a Resent-To: is taken to imply that the
1634 person referred by the To: address has already received the original
1637 .SH CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES
1641 poll SERVERNAME protocol PROTOCOL username NAME password PASSWORD
1647 poll pop.provider.net protocol pop3 username "jsmith" password "secret1"
1650 Or, using some abbreviations:
1653 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" password "secret1"
1656 Multiple servers may be listed:
1659 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" pass "secret1"
1660 poll other.provider.net proto pop2 user "John.Smith" pass "My^Hat"
1663 Here's a version of those two with more whitespace and some noise words:
1666 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3
1667 user "jsmith", with password secret1, is "jsmith" here;
1668 poll other.provider.net proto pop2:
1669 user "John.Smith", with password "My^Hat", is "John.Smith" here;
1672 This version is much easier to read and doesn't cost significantly
1673 more (parsing is done only once, at startup time).
1676 If you need to include whitespace in a parameter string, enclose the
1677 string in double quotes. Thus:
1680 poll mail.provider.net with proto pop3:
1681 user "jsmith" there has password "u can't krak this"
1682 is jws here and wants mda "/bin/mail"
1685 You may have an initial server description headed by the keyword
1686 `defaults' instead of `poll' followed by a name. Such a record
1687 is interpreted as defaults for all queries to use. It may be overwritten
1688 by individual server descriptions. So, you could write:
1693 poll pop.provider.net
1695 poll mail.provider.net
1696 user "jjsmith" there has password "secret2"
1699 It's possible to specify more than one user per server (this is only
1700 likely to be useful when running fetchmail in daemon mode as root).
1701 The `user' keyword leads off a user description, and every user specification
1702 in a multi-user entry must include it. Here's an example:
1705 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 port 3111
1706 user "jsmith" with pass "secret1" is "smith" here
1707 user jones with pass "secret2" is "jjones" here
1710 This associates the local username `smith' with the pop.provider.net
1711 username `jsmith' and the local username `jjones' with the
1712 pop.provider.net username `jones'.
1714 Here's what a simple retrieval configuration for a multi-drop mailbox
1718 poll pop.provider.net:
1719 user maildrop with pass secret1 to golux hurkle=happy snark here
1722 This says that the mailbox of account `maildrop' on the server is a
1723 multi-drop box, and that messages in it should be parsed for the
1724 server user names `golux', `hurkle', and `snark'. It further
1725 specifies that `golux' and `snark' have the same name on the
1726 client as on the server, but mail for server user `hurkle' should be
1727 delivered to client user `happy'.
1729 Here's an example of another kind of multidrop connection:
1732 poll pop.provider.net localdomains loonytoons.org toons.org:
1733 user maildrop with pass secret1 to esr * here
1736 This also says that the mailbox of account `maildrop' on the server is
1737 a multi-drop box. It tells fetchmail that any address in the
1738 loonytoons.org or toons.org domains (including subdomain addresses like
1739 `joe@daffy.loonytoons.org') should be passed through to the local SMTP
1740 listener without modification. Be careful of mail loops if you do this!
1742 Here's an example configuration using ssh. The queries go through an
1743 ssh connecting local port 1234 to port 110 on mailhost.net; the
1744 preconnect command sets up the ssh.
1747 poll mailhost.net via localhost port 1234 with proto pop3:
1748 preconnect "ssh -f -L 1234:mailhost.net:110
1749 mailhost.net sleep 20 </dev/null >/dev/null";
1753 Here's an another example configuration using ssh and the plugin option.
1754 The queries are made directly on the stdin and stdout of imapd via ssh.
1755 Note that in this setup, IMAP authentication can be skipped.
1758 poll mailhost.net with proto imap and preauth ssh:
1759 plugin "ssh %h /usr/sbin/imapd";
1762 .SH THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP MAILBOXES
1763 Use the multiple-local-recipients feature with caution -- it can bite.
1764 All multidrop features are ineffective in ETRN and ODMR modes.
1766 Also, note that in multidrop mode duplicate mails are suppressed. A
1767 piece of mail is considered duplicate if it has the same message-ID as
1768 the message immediately preceding and more than one addressee. Such
1769 runs of messages may be generated when copies of a message addressed
1770 to multiple users are delivered to a multidrop box.
1772 .SS Header vs. Envelope addresses
1773 The fundamental problem is that by having your mailserver toss several
1774 peoples' mail in a single maildrop box, you may have thrown away
1775 potentially vital information about who each piece of mail was
1776 actually addressed to (the `envelope address', as opposed to the
1777 header addresses in the RFC822 To/Cc/Bcc headers). This `envelope
1778 address' is the address you need in order to reroute mail properly.
1782 can deduce the envelope address. If the mailserver MTA is
1784 and the item of mail had just one recipient, the MTA will have written
1785 a `by/for' clause that gives the envelope addressee into its Received
1786 header. But this doesn't work reliably for other MTAs, nor if there is
1787 more than one recipient. By default, \fIfetchmail\fR looks for
1788 envelope addresses in these lines; you can restore this default with
1789 -E "Received" or \&`envelope Received'.
1791 Alternatively, some SMTP listeners and/or mail servers insert a header
1792 in each message containing a copy of the envelope addresses. This
1793 header (when it exists) is often `X-Envelope-To'. Fetchmail's
1794 assumption about this can be changed with the -E or `envelope' option.
1795 Note that writing an envelope header of this kind exposes the names of
1796 recipients (including blind-copy recipients) to all receivers of the
1797 messages; it is therefore regarded by some administrators as a
1798 security/privacy problem.
1800 A slight variation of the `X-Envelope-To' header is the `Delivered-To' put
1801 by qmail to avoid mail loops. It will probably prefix the user name with a
1802 string that normally matches the user's domain. To remove this prefix you
1803 can use the -Q or `qvirtual' option.
1805 Sometimes, unfortunately, neither of these methods works. When they
1806 all fail, fetchmail must fall back on the contents of To/Cc/Bcc
1807 headers to try to determine recipient addressees -- and these are not
1808 reliable. In particular, mailing-list software often ships mail with
1809 only the list broadcast address in the To header.
1813 cannot deduce a recipient address that is local, and the intended
1814 recipient address was anyone other than fetchmail's invoking user,
1815 mail will get lost. This is what makes the multidrop feature risky.
1817 A related problem is that when you blind-copy a mail message, the Bcc
1818 information is carried \fIonly\fR as envelope address (it's not put
1819 in the headers fetchmail can see unless there is an X-Envelope
1820 header). Thus, blind-copying to someone who gets mail over a
1821 fetchmail link will fail unless the the mailserver host routinely
1822 writes X-Envelope or an equivalent header into messages in your maildrop.
1824 .SS Good Ways To Use Multidrop Mailboxes
1825 Multiple local names can be used to administer a mailing list from the
1826 client side of a \fIfetchmail\fR collection. Suppose your name is
1827 \&`esr', and you want to both pick up your own mail and maintain a mailing
1828 list called (say) "fetchmail-friends", and you want to keep the alias
1829 list on your client machine.
1831 On your server, you can alias \&`fetchmail-friends' to `esr'; then, in
1832 your \fI.fetchmailrc\fR, declare \&`to esr fetchmail-friends here'.
1833 Then, when mail including `fetchmail-friends' as a local address
1834 gets fetched, the list name will be appended to the list of
1835 recipients your SMTP listener sees. Therefore it will undergo alias
1836 expansion locally. Be sure to include `esr' in the local alias
1837 expansion of fetchmail-friends, or you'll never see mail sent only to
1838 the list. Also be sure that your listener has the "me-too" option set
1839 (sendmail's -oXm command-line option or OXm declaration) so your name
1840 isn't removed from alias expansions in messages you send.
1842 This trick is not without its problems, however. You'll begin to see
1843 this when a message comes in that is addressed only to a mailing list
1844 you do \fInot\fR have declared as a local name. Each such message
1845 will feature an `X-Fetchmail-Warning' header which is generated
1846 because fetchmail cannot find a valid local name in the recipient
1847 addresses. Such messages default (as was described above) to being
1848 sent to the local user running
1850 but the program has no way to know that that's actually the right thing.
1852 .SS Bad Ways To Abuse Multidrop Mailboxes
1853 Multidrop mailboxes and
1855 serving multiple users in daemon mode do not mix. The problem, again, is
1856 mail from mailing lists, which typically does not have an individual
1857 recipient address on it. Unless
1859 can deduce an envelope address, such mail will only go to the account
1860 running fetchmail (probably root). Also, blind-copied users are very
1861 likely never to see their mail at all.
1863 If you're tempted to use
1865 to retrieve mail for multiple users from a single mail drop via POP or
1866 IMAP, think again (and reread the section on header and envelope
1867 addresses above). It would be smarter to just let the mail sit in the
1868 mailserver's queue and use fetchmail's ETRN or ODMR modes to trigger
1869 SMTP sends periodically (of course, this means you have to poll more
1870 frequently than the mailserver's expiry period). If you can't arrange
1871 this, try setting up a UUCP feed.
1873 If you absolutely \fImust\fR use multidrop for this purpose, make sure
1874 your mailserver writes an envelope-address header that fetchmail can
1875 see. Otherwise you \fIwill\fR lose mail and it \fIwill\fR come back
1878 .SS Speeding Up Multidrop Checking
1879 Normally, when multiple users are declared
1881 extracts recipient addresses as described above and checks each host
1882 part with DNS to see if it's an alias of the mailserver. If so, the
1883 name mappings described in the to ... here declaration are done and
1884 the mail locally delivered.
1886 This is the safest but also slowest method. To speed it up,
1887 pre-declare mailserver aliases with `aka'; these are checked before
1888 DNS lookups are done. If you're certain your aka list contains
1890 DNS aliases of the mailserver (and all MX names pointing at it)
1891 you can declare `no dns' to suppress DNS lookups entirely and
1892 \fIonly\fR match against the aka list.
1895 To facilitate the use of
1897 in shell scripts, an exit code is returned to give an indication
1898 of what occurred during a given connection.
1900 The exit codes returned by
1904 One or more messages were successfully retrieved (or, if the -c option
1905 was selected, were found waiting but not retrieved).
1907 There was no mail awaiting retrieval. (There may have been old mail still
1908 on the server but not selected for retrieval.)
1910 An error was encountered when attempting to open a socket to retrieve
1911 mail. If you don't know what a socket is, don't worry about it --
1912 just treat this as an 'unrecoverable error'. This error can also be
1913 because a protocol fetchmail wants to use is not listed in /etc/services.
1915 The user authentication step failed. This usually means that a bad
1916 user-id, password, or APOP id was specified. Or it may mean that you
1917 tried to run fetchmail under circumstances where it did not have
1918 standard input attached to a terminal and could not prompt for a
1921 Some sort of fatal protocol error was detected.
1923 There was a syntax error in the arguments to
1926 The run control file had bad permissions.
1928 There was an error condition reported by the server. Can also
1931 timed out while waiting for the server.
1933 Client-side exclusion error. This means
1935 either found another copy of itself already running, or failed in such
1936 a way that it isn't sure whether another copy is running.
1938 The user authentication step failed because the server responded "lock
1939 busy". Try again after a brief pause! This error is not implemented
1940 for all protocols, nor for all servers. If not implemented for your
1941 server, "3" will be returned instead, see above. May be returned when
1942 talking to qpopper or other servers that can respond with "lock busy"
1943 or some similar text containing the word "lock".
1947 run failed while trying to do an SMTP port open or transaction.
1949 Fatal DNS error. Fetchmail encountered an error while performing
1950 a DNS lookup at startup and could not proceed.
1952 BSMTP batch file could not be opened.
1954 Poll terminated by a fetch limit (see the --fetchlimit option).
1956 Internal error. You should see a message on standard error with
1961 queries more than one host, return status is 0 if \fIany\fR query
1962 successfully retrieved mail. Otherwise the returned error status is
1963 that of the last host queried.
1966 Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>. Too many other people to
1967 name here have contributed code and patches.
1968 This program is descended from and replaces
1970 by Carl Harris <ceharris@mal.com>; the internals have become quite different,
1971 but some of its interface design is directly traceable to that
1977 default run control file
1980 default location of file associating hosts with last message IDs seen
1981 (used only with newer RFC1725-compliant POP3 servers supporting the
1985 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (non-root mode).
1988 your FTP run control file, which (if present) will be searched for
1989 passwords as a last resort before prompting for one interactively.
1991 /var/run/fetchmail.pid
1992 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode, Linux systems).
1995 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode, systems without /var/run).
1998 If the FETCHMAILUSER variable is set, it is used as the name of the
1999 calling user (default local name) for purposes such as mailing error
2000 notifications. Otherwise, if either the LOGNAME or USER variable is
2001 correctly set (e.g. the corresponding UID matches the session user ID)
2002 then that name is used as the default local name. Otherwise
2003 \fBgetpwuid\fR(3) must be able to retrieve a password entry for the
2004 session ID (this elaborate logic is designed to handle the case of
2005 multiple names per userid gracefully).
2007 If the environment variable FETCHMAILHOME is set to a valid and
2008 existing directory name, the .fetchmailrc and .fetchids and
2009 \&.fetchmail.pid files are put there instead of in the invoking user's
2010 home directory (and lose the leading dots on theirt names). The
2011 \&.netrc file is looked for in the the invoking user's home directory
2012 regardless of FETCHMAILHOME's setting.
2017 daemon is running as root, SIGHUP wakes it up from its sleep phase and
2018 forces a poll of all non-skipped servers (this is in accordance with
2019 the usual conventions for system daemons).
2023 is running in daemon mode as non-root, use SIGUSR1 to wake it (this is
2024 so SIGHUP due to logout can retain the default action of killing it).
2028 in foreground while a background fetchmail is running will do
2029 whichever of these is appropriate to wake it up.
2031 .SH BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
2032 The RFC822 address parser used in multidrop mode chokes on some
2033 @-addresses that are technically legal but bizarre. Strange uses of
2034 quoting and embedded comments are likely to confuse it.
2036 In a message with multiple envelope headers, only the last one
2037 processed will be visible to fetchmail. To get around this, use a
2038 mailserver-side filter that consolidates the contents of all envelope
2039 headers into a single one (procmail, mailagent, or maildrop can be
2040 programmed to do this fairly easily).
2042 Use of any of the supported protocols other than POP3 with OTP or RPA,
2043 APOP, KPOP, IMAP-K4, IMAP-GSS, IMAP-CRAMMD5, or ETRN requires that the
2044 program send unencrypted passwords over the TCP/IP connection to the
2045 mailserver. This creates a risk that name/password pairs might be
2046 snaffled with a packet sniffer or more sophisticated monitoring
2047 software. Under Linux and FreeBSD, the --interface option can be used
2048 to restrict polling to availability of a specific interface device
2049 with a specific local or remote IP address, but snooping is still
2050 possible if (a) either host has a network device that can be opened
2051 in promiscuous mode, or (b) the intervening network link can be tapped.
2053 Use of the %F or %T escapes in an mda option could open a security
2054 hole, because they pass text manipulable by an attacker to a shell
2055 command. Potential shell characters are replaced by `_' before
2056 execution. The hole is further reduced by the fact that fetchmail
2057 temporarily discards any suid privileges it may have while running the
2058 MDA. For maximum safety, however, don't use an mda command containing
2059 %F or %T when fetchmail is run from the root account itself.
2061 Fetchmail's method of sending bouncemail and spambounce requires that
2062 port 25 of localhost be available for sending mail via SMTP.
2066 while a background instance is running and break the syntax, the
2067 background instance will die silently. Unfortunately, it can't
2068 die noisily because we don't yet know whether syslog should be enabled.
2070 The RFC 2177 IDLE support is flaky. It sort of works, but may generate
2071 spurious socket error messages or silently hang in the presence of
2072 various network or server errors.
2074 The combination of using a remote name with embedded spaces and POP3
2075 UIDs will not work; the UIDL-handling code will core-dump while trying
2076 to read in what it sees as malformed .fetchids lines, typically
2077 on the second poll after startup.
2079 The UIDL code is generally flaky and tends to lose its state on errors
2080 and line drops (so that old messages are re-seen). If this happens to
2081 you, switch to IMAP4.
2083 The ODMR code is untested.
2085 The `principal' option only handles Kerberos IV, not V.
2087 Send comments, bug reports, gripes, and the like to the
2088 fetchmail-friends list <fetchmail-friends@ccil.org>. An HTML FAQ is
2089 available at the fetchmail home page; surf to
2090 http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail or do a WWW search for pages with
2091 `fetchmail' in their titles.
2094 mutt(1), elm(1), mail(1), sendmail(8), popd(8), imapd(8)
2095 .SH APPLICABLE STANDARDS
2098 RFC 821, RFC 1869, RFC 1652, RFC 1870, RFC1983, RFC 1985
2101 RFC 822, RFC 1892, RFC 1894
2107 RFC 1081, RFC 1225, RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC 1939, RFC 1957, RFC2195, RFC 2449
2110 RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC 1939
2119 RFC 1730, RFC 1731, RFC 1732, RFC 2060, RFC 2061, RFC 2195, RFC 2177,
projects / ~andy / fetchmail / blob