2 .\" ** The above line should force tbl to be used as a preprocessor **
4 .\" Man page for fetchmail
6 .\" For license terms, see the file COPYING in this directory.
9 fetchmail \- fetch mail from a POP, IMAP, ETRN, or ODMR-capable server
12 \fBfetchmail\fR [\fIoption...\fR] [\fImailserver...\fR]
18 is a mail-retrieval and forwarding utility; it fetches mail from
19 remote mailservers and forwards it to your local (client) machine's
20 delivery system. You can then handle the retrieved mail using normal
21 mail user agents such as \fImutt\fR(1), \fIelm\fR(1) or \fIMail\fR(1).
22 The \fIfetchmail\fR utility can be run in a daemon mode to repeatedly
23 poll one or more systems at a specified interval.
27 program can gather mail from servers supporting any of the common
28 mail-retrieval protocols: POP2, POP3, IMAP2bis, IMAP4, and 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
50 detected or was told about a reliable local MDA, it will use that MDA
51 for local delivery instead. At build time, fetchmail normally looks
60 is available, it will assist you in setting up and editing a
61 fetchmailrc configuration. It runs under X and requires that the
62 language Python and the Tk toolkit be present on your system. If
63 you are first setting up fetchmail for single-user mode, it is
64 recommended that you use Novice mode. Expert mode provides
65 complete control of fetchmail configuration, including the
66 multidrop features. In either case, the `Autoprobe' button
67 will tell you the most capable protocol a given mailserver
68 supports, and warn you of potential problems with that server.
73 is controlled by command-line options and a run control file,
74 .IR ~/.fetchmailrc\fR ,
75 the syntax of which we describe in a later section (this file is what
76 the \fIfetchmailconf\fR program edits). Command-line options override
80 Each server name that you specify following the options on the
81 command line will be queried. If you don't specify any servers
82 on the command line, each `poll' entry in your
86 To facilitate the use of
88 in scripts and pipelines, it returns an appropriate exit code upon
89 termination -- see EXIT CODES below.
91 The following options modify the behavior of \fIfetchmail\fR. It is
92 seldom necessary to specify any of these once you have a
93 working \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file set up.
95 Almost all options have a corresponding keyword which can be used to
100 Some special options are not covered here, but are documented instead
101 in sections on AUTHENTICATION and DAEMON MODE which follow.
105 Displays the version information for your copy of
107 No mail fetch is performed.
108 Instead, for each server specified, all the option information
109 that would be computed if
111 were connecting to that server is displayed. Any non-printables in
112 passwords or other string names are shown as backslashed C-like
113 escape sequences. This option is useful for verifying that your
114 options are set the way you want them.
117 Return a status code to indicate whether there is mail waiting,
118 without actually fetching or deleting mail (see EXIT CODES below).
119 This option turns off daemon mode (in which it would be useless). It
120 doesn't play well with queries to multiple sites, and doesn't work
121 with ETRN or ODMR. It will return a false positive if you leave read but
122 undeleted mail in your server mailbox and your fetch protocol can't
123 tell kept messages from new ones. This means it will work with IMAP,
124 not work with POP2, and may occasionally flake out under POP3.
127 Silent mode. Suppresses all progress/status messages that are
128 normally echoed to standard error during a fetch (but does not
129 suppress actual error messages). The --verbose option overrides this.
132 Verbose mode. All control messages passed between
134 and the mailserver are echoed to stdout. Overrides --silent.
135 Doubling this option (-v -v) causes extra diagnostic information
141 Retrieve both old (seen) and new messages from the mailserver. The
142 default is to fetch only messages the server has not marked seen.
143 Under POP3, this option also forces the use of RETR rather than TOP.
144 Note that POP2 retrieval behaves as though --all is always on (see
145 RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES below) and this option does not work with ETRN
150 Keep retrieved messages on the remote mailserver. Normally, messages
151 are deleted from the folder on the mailserver after they have been retrieved.
154 option causes retrieved messages to remain in your folder on the
155 mailserver. This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
159 Delete retrieved messages from the remote mailserver. This
160 option forces retrieved mail to be deleted. It may be useful if
161 you have specified a default of \fBkeep\fR in your
162 \&\fI.fetchmailrc\fR. This option is forced on with ETRN and ODMR.
165 POP3/IMAP only. Delete old (previously retrieved) messages from the mailserver
166 before retrieving new messages. This option does not work with ETRN or
168 Warning: if your local MTA hangs and fetchmail is aborted, the next
169 time you run fetchmail, it will delete mail that was never delivered to you.
170 What you probably want is the default setting: if you don't specify `-k', then
171 fetchmail will automatically delete messages after successful delivery.
172 .SS Protocol and Query Options
174 .B \-p, \--protocol <proto>
175 (Keyword: proto[col])
176 Specify the protocol to use when communicating with the remote
177 mailserver. If no protocol is specified, the default is AUTO.
179 may be one of the following:
182 Tries IMAP, POP3, and POP2 (skipping any of these for which support
183 has not been compiled in).
185 Post Office Protocol 2
187 Post Office Protocol 3
189 Use POP3 with old-fashioned MD5-challenge authentication.
191 Use POP3 with RPOP authentication.
193 Use POP3 with Kerberos V4 authentication on port 1109.
195 Use POP3 with Demon Internet's SDPS extensions.
197 IMAP2bis, IMAP4, or IMAP4rev1 (\fIfetchmail\fR autodetects their capabilities).
199 Use the ESMTP ETRN option.
201 Use the the On-Demand Mail Relay ESMTP profile.
204 All these alternatives work in basically the same way (communicating
205 with standard server daemons to fetch mail already delivered to a
206 mailbox on the server) except ETRN and ODMR. The ETRN mode
207 allows you to ask a compliant ESMTP server (such as BSD sendmail at
208 release 8.8.0 or higher) to immediately open a sender-SMTP connection
209 to your client machine and begin forwarding any items addressed to
210 your client machine in the server's queue of undelivered mail. The
211 ODMR mode requires an ODMR-capable server and works similarly to
212 ETRN, except that it does not require the client machine to have
217 Force UIDL use (effective only with POP3). Force client-side tracking
218 of `newness' of messages (UIDL stands for ``unique ID listing'' and is
219 described in RFC1725). Use with `keep' to use a mailbox as a baby
220 news drop for a group of users.
222 .B \-P, --port <portnumber>
224 The port option permits you to specify a TCP/IP port to connect on.
225 This option will seldom be necessary as all the supported protocols have
226 well-established default port numbers.
228 .B \--principal <principal>
230 The principal option permits you to specify a service principal for
231 mutual authentication. This is applicable to POP3 or IMAP with Kerberos
234 .B \-t, --timeout <seconds>
236 The timeout option allows you to set a server-nonresponse
237 timeout in seconds. If a mailserver does not send a greeting message
238 or respond to commands for the given number of seconds,
239 \fIfetchmail\fR will hang up on it. Without such a timeout
240 \fIfetchmail\fR might hang up indefinitely trying to fetch mail from a
241 down host. This would be particularly annoying for a \fIfetchmail\fR
242 running in background. There is a default timeout which fetchmail -V
243 will report. If a given connection receives too many timeouts in
244 succession, fetchmail will consider it wedged and stop retrying,
245 the calkling user will be notified by email if this happens.
247 .B \--plugin <command>
248 (Keyword: plugin) The plugin option allows you to use an external
249 program to establish the TCP connection. This is useful if you want
250 to use socks, SSL, ssh, or need some special firewalling setup. The
251 program will be looked up in $PATH and can optionally be passed the
252 hostname and port as arguments using "%h" and "%p" respectively (note
253 that the interpolation logic is rather primitive, and these token must
254 be bounded by whitespace or beginning of string or end of string).
255 Fetchmail will write to the plugin's stdin and read from the plugin's
258 .B \--plugout <command>
260 Identical to the plugin option above, but this one is used for the SMTP
261 connections (which will probably not need it, so it has been separated
264 .B \-r <name>, --folder <name>
266 Causes a specified non-default mail folder on the mailserver (or
267 comma-separated list of folders) to be retrieved. The syntax of the
268 folder name is server-dependent. This option is not available under
272 (Keyword: tracepolls)
273 Tell fetchail to poll trace information in the form `polling %s
274 account %s' to the Received line it generates, where the %s parts are
275 replaced by the user's remote name and the poll label (the Received
276 header also normally includes the server's truename). This can be
277 used to facilate mail filtering based on the account it is being
282 Causes the connection to the mail server to be encrypted via SSL. Connect
283 to the server using the specified base protocol over a connection secured
284 by SSL. SSL support must be present at the server. If no port is
285 specified, the connection is attempted to the well known port of the SSL
286 version of the base protocol. This is generally a different port than the
287 port used by the base protocol. For IMAP, this is port 143 for the clear
288 protocol and port 993 for the SSL secured protocol.
292 Specifies the file name of the client side public SSL certificate. Some
293 SSL 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 public key certificate to be presented to 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 private key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not
305 Specifies the file name of the client side private SSL key. Some SSL
306 encrypted servers may require client side keys and certificates for
307 authentication. In most cases, this is optional. This specifies
308 the location of the private key used to sign transactions with the server
309 at the time the SSL session is established. It is not required (but may
310 be provided) if the server does not require it. Some servers may
311 require it, some servers may request it but not require it, and some
312 servers may not request it at all. It may be the same file
313 as the public key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not
314 recommended. If a password is required to unlock the key, it will be
315 prompted for at the time just prior to establishing the session to the
316 server. This can cause some complications in daemon mode.
318 .B \--sslproto <name>
320 Forces an ssl protocol. Possible values are \&`\fBssl2\fR', `\fBssl3\fR' and
321 `\fBtls1\fR'. Try this if the default handshake does not work for your server.
325 Causes fetchmail to strictly check the server certificate against a set of
326 local trusted certificates (see the \fBsslcertpath\fR option). If the server
327 certificate is not signed by one of the trusted ones (directly or indirectly),
328 the SSL connection will fail. This checking should prevent man-in-the-middle
329 attacks against the SSL connection. Note that CRLs are seemingly not currently
330 supported by OpenSSL in certificate verification! Your system clock should
331 be reasonably accurate when using this option!
333 .B \--sslcertpath <directory>
334 (Keyword: sslcertpath)
335 Sets the directory fetchmail uses to look up local certificates. The default
336 is your OpenSSL default one. The directory must be hashed as OpenSSL expects
337 it - every time you add or modify a certificate in the directory, you need
338 to use the \fBc_rehash\fR tool (which comes with OpenSSL in the tools/
342 (Keyword: sslfingerprint)
343 Specify the fingerprint of the server key (an MD5 hash of the key) in
344 hexadecimal notation with colons separating groups of two digits. The letter
345 hex digits must be in upper case. This is the default format OpenSSL uses,
346 and the one fetchmail uses to report the fingerprint when an SSL connection
347 is established. When this is specified, fetchmail will compare the server key
348 fingerprint with the given one, and the connection will fail if they do not
349 match. This can be used to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.
350 .SS Delivery Control Options
352 .B \-S <hosts>, --smtphost <hosts>
353 (Keyword: smtp[host])
354 Specify a hunt list of hosts to forward mail to (one or more
355 hostnames, comma-separated). Hosts are tried in list order; the first
356 one that is up becomes the forwarding target for the current run.
357 Normally, `localhost' is added to the end of the list as an invisible
358 default. However, when using Kerberos authentication, the FQDN of the
359 machine running fetchmail is added to the end of the list as an
360 invisible default. Each hostname may have a port number following the
361 host name. The port number is separated from the host name by a
362 slash; the default port is 25 (or ``smtp'' under IPv6). If you
363 specify an absolute pathname (beginning with a /), it will be
364 interpreted as the name of a UNIX socket accepting LMTP connections
365 (such as is supported by the Cyrus IMAP daemon) Example:
367 --smtphost server1,server2/2525,server3,/var/imap/socket/lmtp
369 This option can be used with ODMR, and will make fetchmail a relay
370 between the ODMR server and SMTP or LMTP receiver.
372 .B --fetchdomains <hosts>
373 (Keyword: fetchdomains)
374 In ETRN or ODMR mode, this option specifies the list of domains the
375 server should ship mail for once the connection is turned around. The
376 default is the FQDN of the machine running fetchmail.
378 .B \-D <domain>, --smtpaddress <domain>
379 (Keyword: smtpaddress) Specify the domain to be appended to addresses
380 in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP. The name of the SMTP server (as
381 specified by --smtphost, or defaulted to "localhost") is used when
382 this is not specified.
384 .B --smtpname <user@domain>
386 Specify the domain and user to be put in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP.
387 The default user is the current local user.
389 .B \-Z <nnn>, --antispam <nnn[, nnn]...>
391 Specifies the list of numeric SMTP errors that are to be interpreted
392 as a spam-block response from the listener. A value of -1 disables
393 this option. For the command-line option, the list values should
396 .B \-m <command>, \--mda <command>
398 You can force mail to be passed to an MDA directly (rather than
399 forwarded to port 25) with the -mda or -m option. To avoid losing
400 mail, use this option only with MDAs like procmail or sendmail that
401 return a nonzero status on disk-full and other resource-exhaustion
402 errors; the nonzero status tells fetchmail that delivery failed and
403 prevents the message from being deleted off the server. If
404 \fIfetchmail\fR is running as root, it sets its userid to that of the
405 target user while delivering mail through an MDA. Some possible MDAs
406 are "/usr/sbin/sendmail -oem -f %F %T", "/usr/bin/deliver" and
407 "/usr/bin/procmail -d %T" (but the latter is usually redundant as it's
408 what SMTP listeners normally forward to). Local delivery addresses
409 will be inserted into the MDA command wherever you place a %T; the
410 mail message's From address will be inserted where you place an %F.
411 Do \fInot\fR use an MDA invocation like "sendmail -oem -t" that
412 dispatches on the contents of To/Cc/Bcc, it will create mail loops and
413 bring the just wrath of many postmasters down upon your head.
417 Cause delivery via LMTP (Local Mail Transfer Protocol). A service
418 port \fImust\fR be explicitly specified (with a slash suffix) on each
419 host in the smtphost hunt list if this option is selected; the
420 default port 25 will (in accordance with RFC 2033) not be accepted.
422 .B \--bsmtp <filename>
424 Append fetched mail to a BSMTP file. This simply contains the SMTP
425 commands that would normally be generated by fetchmail when passing
426 mail to an SMTP listener daemon. An argument of `-' causes the mail
427 to be written to standard output. Note that fetchmail's
428 reconstruction of MAIL FROM and RCPT TO lines is not guaranteed
429 correct; the caveats discussed under THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP
430 MAILBOXES below apply.
431 .SS Resource Limit Control Options
433 .B \-l <maxbytes>, --limit <maxbytes>
435 Takes a maximum octet size argument. Messages larger than this size
436 will not be fetched and will be left on the server (in foreground
437 sessions, the progress messages will note that they are "oversized").
438 If the fetch protocol permits (in particular, under IMAP or POP3
439 without the fetchall option) the message will not be marked seen An
440 explicit --limit of 0 overrides any limits set in your run control
441 file. This option is intended for those needing to strictly control
442 fetch time due to expensive and variable phone rates. In daemon mode,
443 oversize notifications are mailed to the calling user (see the
444 --warnings option). This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
446 .B \-w <interval>, --warnings <interval>
448 Takes an interval in seconds. When you call
450 with a `limit' option in daemon mode, this controls the interval at
451 which warnings about oversized messages are mailed to the calling user
452 (or the user specified by the `postmaster' option). One such
453 notification is always mailed at the end of the the first poll that
454 the oversized message is detected. Thereafter, renotification is
455 suppressed until after the warning interval elapses (it will take
456 place at the end of the first following poll).
458 .B -b <count>, --batchlimit <count>
459 (Keyword: batchlimit)
460 Specify the maximum number of messages that will be shipped to an SMTP
461 listener before the connection is deliberately torn down and rebuilt
462 (defaults to 0, meaning no limit). An explicit --batchlimit of 0
463 overrides any limits set in your run control file. While
464 \fBsendmail\fR(8) normally initiates delivery of a message immediately
465 after receiving the message terminator, some SMTP listeners are not so
466 prompt. MTAs like \fIqmail\fR(8) and \fIsmail\fR(8) may wait till the
467 delivery socket is shut down to deliver. This may produce annoying
468 delays when \fIfetchmail\fR is processing very large batches. Setting
469 the batch limit to some nonzero size will prevent these delays. This
470 option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
472 .B -B <number>, --fetchlimit <number>
473 (Keyword: fetchlimit)
474 Limit the number of messages accepted from a given server in a single
475 poll. By default there is no limit. An explicit --fetchlimit of 0
476 overrides any limits set in your run control file.
477 This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
479 .B -e <count>, --expunge <count>
481 Arrange for deletions to be made final after a given number of
482 messages. Under POP2 or POP3, fetchmail cannot make deletions final
483 without sending QUIT and ending the session -- with this option on,
484 fetchmail will break a long mail retrieval session into multiple
485 subsessions, sending QUIT after each sub-session. This is a good
486 defense against line drops on POP3 servers that do not do the
487 equivalent of a QUIT on hangup. Under IMAP,
489 normally issues an EXPUNGE command after each deletion in order to
490 force the deletion to be done immediately. This is safest when your
491 connection to the server is flaky and expensive, as it avoids
492 resending duplicate mail after a line hit. However, on large
493 mailboxes the overhead of re-indexing after every message can slam the
494 server pretty hard, so if your connection is reliable it is good to do
495 expunges less frequently. Also note that some servers enforce a delay
496 of a few seconds after each quit, so fetchmail may not be able to get
497 back in immediately after an expunge -- you may see "lock busy" errors
498 if this happens. If you specify this option to an integer N,
501 to only issue expunges on every Nth delete. An argument of zero
502 suppresses expunges entirely (so no expunges at all will be done until
503 the end of run). This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
504 .SS Authentication Options
506 .B \-u <name>, --username <name>
507 (Keyword: user[name])
508 Specifies the user identification to be used when logging in to the mailserver.
509 The appropriate user identification is both server and user-dependent.
510 The default is your login name on the client machine that is running
512 See USER AUTHENTICATION below for a complete description.
514 .B \-I <specification>, --interface <specification>
516 Require that a specific interface device be up and have a specific local
517 or remote IP address (or range) before polling. Frequently
519 is used over a transient point-to-point TCP/IP link established directly
520 to a mailserver via SLIP or PPP. That is a relatively secure channel.
521 But when other TCP/IP routes to the mailserver exist (e.g. when the link
522 is connected to an alternate ISP), your username and password may be
523 vulnerable to snooping (especially when daemon mode automatically polls
524 for mail, shipping a clear password over the net at predictable
525 intervals). The --interface option may be used to prevent this. When
526 the specified link is not up or is not connected to a matching IP
527 address, polling will be skipped. The format is:
529 interface/iii.iii.iii.iii/mmm.mmm.mmm.mmm
531 The field before the first slash is the interface name (i.e. sl0, ppp0
532 etc.). The field before the second slash is the acceptable IP address.
533 The field after the second slash is a mask which specifies a range of
534 IP addresses to accept. If no mask is present 255.255.255.255 is
535 assumed (i.e. an exact match). This option is currently only supported
536 under Linux and FreeBSD. Please see the
538 section for below for FreeBSD specific information.
540 .B \-M <interface>, --monitor <interface>
542 Daemon mode can cause transient links which are automatically taken down
543 after a period of inactivity (e.g. PPP links) to remain up
544 indefinitely. This option identifies a system TCP/IP interface to be
545 monitored for activity. After each poll interval, if the link is up but
546 no other activity has occurred on the link, then the poll will be
547 skipped. However, when fetchmail is woken up by a signal, the
548 monitor check is skipped and the poll goes through unconditionally.
549 This option is currently only supported under Linux and FreeBSD.
554 options to work for non root users under FreeBSD, the fetchmail binary
555 must be installed SGID kmem. This would be a security hole, but
556 fetchmail runs with the effective GID set to that of the kmem group
558 when interface data is being collected.
561 (Keyword: auth[enticate])
562 This option permits you to specify an authentication type (see USER
563 AUTHENTICATION below for details). The possible values are \fBany\fR,
564 \&`\fBpassword\fR', `\fBkerberos_v5\fR' and `\fBkerberos\fR' (or, for
565 excruciating exactness, `\fBkerberos_v4\fR'), \fRgssapi\fR,
566 \fIcram-md5\fR, \fIotp\fR, \fIntlm\fR, and \fBssh\fR. When \fBany\fR (the
567 default) is specified, fetchmail tries first methods that don't
568 require a password (GSSAPI, KERBEROS_IV); then it looks for methods
569 that mask your password (CRAM-MD5, X-OTP, NTLM); and only if the server
570 doesn't support any of those will it ship your password en clair.
571 Other values may be used to force various authentication methods
572 (\fBssh\fR suppresses authentication). Any value other than
573 \fIpassword\fR, \fIcram-md5\fR, \fIntlm\fR or \fIotp\fR suppresses fetchmail's
574 normal inquiry for a password. Specify \fIssh\fR when you are using
575 an end-to-end secure connection such as an ssh tunnel; specify
576 \fRgssapi\fR or \fBkerberos_v4\fR if you are using a protocol variant
577 that employs GSSAPI or K4. Choosing KPOP protocol automatically
578 selects Kerberos authentication. This option does not work with ETRN.
579 .SS Miscellaneous Options
581 .B \-f <pathname>, --fetchmailrc <pathname>
582 Specify a non-default name for the
584 run control file. The pathname argument must be either "-" (a single
585 dash, meaning to read the configuration from standard input) or a
586 filename. Unless the --version option is also on, a named file
587 argument must have permissions no more open than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) or
590 .B \-i <pathname>, --idfile <pathname>
592 Specify an alternate name for the .fetchids file used to save POP3
596 (Keyword: no rewrite)
599 edits RFC-822 address headers (To, From, Cc, Bcc, and Reply-To) in
600 fetched mail so that any mail IDs local to the server are expanded to
601 full addresses (@ and the mailserver hostname are appended). This enables
602 replies on the client to get addressed correctly (otherwise your
603 mailer might think they should be addressed to local users on the
604 client machine!). This option disables the rewrite. (This option is
605 provided to pacify people who are paranoid about having an MTA edit
606 mail headers and want to know they can prevent it, but it is generally
607 not a good idea to actually turn off rewrite.)
608 When using ETRN or ODMR, the rewrite option is ineffective.
610 .B -E <line>, --envelope <line>
612 This option changes the header
614 assumes will carry a copy of the mail's envelope address. Normally
615 this is `X-Envelope-To' but as this header is not standard, practice
616 varies. See the discussion of multidrop address handling below. As a
617 special case, `envelope "Received"' enables parsing of sendmail-style
618 Received lines. This is the default, and it should not be necessary
619 unless you have globally disabled Received parsing with `no envelope'
620 in the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file.
622 .B -Q <prefix>, --qvirtual <prefix>
624 The string prefix assigned to this option will be removed from the user
625 name found in the header specified with the \fIenvelope\fR option
626 (\fIbefore\fR doing multidrop name mapping or localdomain checking,
627 if either is applicable). This option is useful if you are using
629 to collect the mail for an entire domain and your ISP (or your mail
630 redirection provider) is using qmail.
631 One of the basic features of qmail is the
635 message header. Whenever qmail delivers a message to a local mailbox
636 it puts the username and hostname of the envelope recipient on this
637 line. The major reason for this is to prevent mail loops. To set up
638 qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site the ISP-mailhost will have
639 normally put that site in its `Virtualhosts' control file so it will
640 add a prefix to all mail addresses for this site. This results in mail
641 .\" The \&@\& tries to stop HTML converters from making a mailto URL here.
642 sent to 'username\&@\&userhost.userdom.dom.com' having a
643 \&`Delivered-To:' line of the form:
645 Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username\&@\&userhost.userdom.dom.com
647 The ISP can make the 'mbox-userstr-' prefix anything they choose
648 but a string matching the user host name is likely.
649 By using the option `envelope Delivered-To:' you can make fetchmail reliably
650 identify the original envelope recipient, but you have to strip the
651 `mbox-userstr-' prefix to deliver to the correct user.
652 This is what this option is for.
657 file, interpret any command-line options specified, and dump a
658 configuration report to standard output. The configuration report is
659 a data structure assignment in the language Python. This option
660 is meant to be used with an interactive
666 .SH USER AUTHENTICATION AND ENCRYPTION
667 All modes except ETRN require authentication of the client to the server.
668 Normal user authentication in
670 is very much like the authentication mechanism of
672 The correct user-id and password depend upon the underlying security
673 system at the mailserver.
675 If the mailserver is a Unix machine on which you have an ordinary user
676 account, your regular login name and password are used with
678 If you use the same login name on both the server and the client machines,
679 you needn't worry about specifying a user-id with the
682 the default behavior is to use your login name on the client machine as the
683 user-id on the server machine. If you use a different login name
684 on the server machine, specify that login name with the
686 option. e.g. if your login name is 'jsmith' on a machine named 'mailgrunt',
691 fetchmail -u jsmith mailgrunt
693 The default behavior of
695 is to prompt you for your mailserver password before the connection is
696 established. This is the safest way to use
698 and ensures that your password will not be compromised. You may also specify
699 your password in your
701 file. This is convenient when using
703 in daemon mode or with scripts.
705 If you do not specify a password, and
707 cannot extract one from your
709 file, it will look for a
711 file in your home directory before requesting one interactively; if an
712 entry matching the mailserver is found in that file, the password will
713 be used. Fetchmail first looks for a match on poll name; if it finds none,
714 it checks for a match on via name. See the
716 man page for details of the syntax of the
718 file. (This feature may allow you to avoid duplicating password
719 information in more than one file.)
721 On mailservers that do not provide ordinary user accounts, your user-id and
722 password are usually assigned by the server administrator when you apply for
723 a mailbox on the server. Contact your server administrator if you don't know
724 the correct user-id and password for your mailbox account.
726 Early versions of POP3 (RFC1081, RFC1225) supported a crude form of
727 independent authentication using the
729 file on the mailserver side. Under this RPOP variant, a fixed
730 per-user ID equivalent to a password was sent in clear over a link to
731 a reserved port, with the command RPOP rather than PASS to alert the
732 server that it should do special checking. RPOP is supported
735 (you can specify `protocol RPOP' to have the program send `RPOP'
736 rather than `PASS') but its use is strongly discouraged. This
737 facility was vulnerable to spoofing and was withdrawn in RFC1460.
739 RFC1460 introduced APOP authentication. In this variant of POP3,
740 you register an APOP password on your server host (the program
741 to do this with on the server is probably called \fIpopauth\fR(8)). You
742 put the same password in your
746 logs in, it sends a cryptographically secure hash of your password and
747 the server greeting time to the server, which can verify it by
748 checking its authorization database.
750 If your \fIfetchmail\fR was built with Kerberos support and you specify
751 Kerberos authentication (either with --auth or the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
752 option \fBauthenticate kerberos_v4\fR) it will try to get a Kerberos
753 ticket from the mailserver at the start of each query. Note: if
754 either the pollnane or via name is `hesiod', fetchmail will try to use
755 Hesiod to look up the mailserver.
757 If you use POP3 or IMAP with GSSAPI authentication, \fIfetchmail\fR will
758 expect the server to have RFC1731- or RFC1734-conformant GSSAPI
759 capability, and will use it. Currently this has only been tested over
760 Kerberos V, so you're expected to already have a ticket-granting
761 ticket. You may pass a username different from your principal name
762 using the standard \fB--user\fR command or by the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
765 If your IMAP daemon returns the PREAUTH response in its greeting line,
766 fetchmail will notice this and skip the normal authentication step.
767 This can be useful, e.g. if you start imapd explicitly using ssh.
768 In this case you can declare the authentication value `ssh' on that
769 site entry to stop \fI.fetchmail\fR from asking you for a password
772 If you are using POP3, and the server issues a one-time-password
773 challenge conforming to RFC1938, \fIfetchmail\fR will use your
774 password as a pass phrase to generate the required response. This
775 avoids sending secrets over the net unencrypted.
777 Compuserve's RPA authentication (similar to APOP) is supported. If you
778 compile in the support, \fIfetchmail\fR will try to perform an RPA pass-phrase
779 authentication instead of sending over the password en clair if it
780 detects "@compuserve.com" in the hostname.
782 If you are using IMAP, Microsoft's NTLM authentication (used by Microsoft
783 Exchange) is supported. If you compile in the support, \fIfetchmail\fR
784 will try to perform an NTLM authentication (instead of sending over the
785 password en clair) whenever the server returns AUTH=NTLM in its
786 capability response. Specify a user option value that looks like
787 `user@domain': the part to the left of the @ will be passed as the
788 username and the part to the right as the NTLM domain.
790 If you are using IPsec, the -T (--netsec) option can be used to pass
791 an IP security request to be used when outgoing IP connections are
792 initialized. You can also do this using the `netsec' server option
793 in the .fetchmailrc file. In either case, the option value is a
794 string in the format accepted by the net_security_strtorequest()
795 function of the inet6_apps library.
797 You can access SSL encrypted services by specifying the --ssl option.
798 You can also do this using the "ssl" server option in the .fetchmailrc
799 file. With SSL encryption enabled, queries are initiated over a connection
800 after negotiating an SSL session. Some services, such as POP3 and IMAP,
801 have different well known ports defined for the SSL encrypted services.
802 The encrypted ports will be selected automatically when SSL is enabled and
803 no explicit port is specified.
805 When connecting to an SSL encrypted server, the server presents a certificate
806 to the client for validation. The certificate is checked to verify that
807 the common name in the certificate matches the name of the server being
808 contacted and that the effective and expiration dates in the certificate
809 indicate that it is currently valid. If any of these checks fail, a warning
810 message is printed, but the connection continues. The server certificate
811 does not need to be signed by any specific Certifying Authority and may
812 be a "self-signed" certificate.
814 Some SSL encrypted servers may request a client side certificate. A client
815 side public SSL certificate and private SSL key may be specified. If
816 requested by the server, the client certificate is sent to the server for
817 validation. Some servers may require a valid client certificate and may
818 refuse connections if a certificate is not provided or if the certificate
819 is not valid. Some servers may require client side certificates be signed
820 by a recognized Certifying Authority. The format for the key files and
821 the certificate files is that required by the underlying SSL libraries
822 (OpenSSL in the general case).
824 A word of care about the use of SSL: While above mentioned
825 setup with self-signed server certificates retrieved over the wires
826 can protect you from a passive eavesdropper it doesn't help against an
827 active attacker. It's clearly an improvement over sending the
828 passwords in clear but you should be aware that a man-in-the-middle
829 attack is trivially possible (in particular with tools such as dsniff,
830 http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/dsniff/). Use of an ssh tunnel (see
831 below for some examples) is preferable if you care seriously about the
832 security of your mailbox.
835 also supports authentication to the ESMTP server on the client side
836 according to RFC 2554. You can specify a name/password pair to be
837 used with the keywords `esmtpname' and `esmtppassword'; the former
838 defaults to the username of the calling user.
842 .B --daemon <interval>
847 in daemon mode. You must specify a numeric argument which is a
848 polling interval in seconds.
852 puts itself in background and runs forever, querying each specified
853 host and then sleeping for the given polling interval.
859 will, therefore, poll all the hosts described in your
861 file (except those explicitly excluded with the `skip' verb) once
862 every fifteen minutes.
864 It is possible to set a polling interval
867 file by saying `set daemon <interval>', where <interval> is an
868 integer number of seconds. If you do this, fetchmail will always
869 start in daemon mode unless you override it with the command-line
870 option --daemon 0 or -d0.
872 Only one daemon process is permitted per user; in daemon mode,
874 makes a per-user lockfile to guarantee this.
876 Normally, calling fetchmail with a daemon in the background sends a
877 wakeup signal to the daemon, forcing it to poll mailservers
878 immediately. (The wakeup signal is SIGHUP if fetchmail is running as
879 root, SIGUSR1 otherwise.) The wakeup action also clears any `wedged'
880 flags indicating that connections have wedged due to failed
881 authentication or multiple timeouts.
885 will kill a running daemon process instead of waking it up (if there
888 notifies you). If the --quit option is the only command-line option,
889 that's all there is to it.
891 The quit option may also be mixed with other command-line options; its
892 effect is to kill any running daemon before doing what the other
893 options specify in combination with the rc file.
898 .B --logfile <filename>
899 option (keyword: set logfile) allows you to redirect status messages
900 emitted while detached into a specified logfile (follow the
901 option with the logfile name). The logfile is opened for append, so
902 previous messages aren't deleted. This is primarily useful for
903 debugging configurations.
907 option (keyword: set syslog) allows you to redirect status and error
908 messages emitted to the
910 system daemon if available.
911 Messages are logged with an id of \fBfetchmail\fR, the facility \fBLOG_MAIL\fR,
912 and priorities \fBLOG_ERR\fR, \fBLOG_ALERT\fR or \fBLOG_INFO\fR.
913 This option is intended for logging status and error messages which
914 indicate the status of the daemon and the results while fetching mail
916 Error messages for command line options and parsing the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
917 file are still written to stderr, or to the specified log file.
920 option turns off use of
922 assuming it's turned on in the
932 or --nodetach option suppresses backgrounding and detachment of the
933 daemon process from its control terminal. This is primarily useful
934 for debugging. Note that this also causes the logfile option to be
935 ignored (though perhaps it shouldn't).
937 Note that while running in daemon mode polling a POP2 or IMAP2bis server,
938 transient errors (such as DNS failures or sendmail delivery refusals)
939 may force the fetchall option on for the duration of the next polling
940 cycle. This is a robustness feature. It means that if a message is
941 fetched (and thus marked seen by the mailserver) but not delivered
942 locally due to some transient error, it will be re-fetched during the
943 next poll cycle. (The IMAP logic doesn't delete messages until
944 they're delivered, so this problem does not arise.)
946 If you touch or change the
948 file while fetchmail is running in daemon mode, this will be detected
949 at the beginning of the next poll cycle. When a changed
951 is detected, fetchmail rereads it and restarts from scratch (using
952 exec(2); no state information is retained in the new instance). Note also
953 that if you break the
955 file's syntax, the new instance will softly and silently vanish away
958 .SH ADMINISTRATIVE OPTIONS
961 .B --postmaster <name>
962 option (keyword: set postmaster) specifies the last-resort username to
963 which multidrop mail is to be forwarded if no matching local recipient
964 can be found. Normally this is just the user who invoked fetchmail.
965 If the invoking user is root, then the default of this option is
966 the user `postmaster'. Setting postmaster to the empty string causes
967 such mail to be discarded.
971 option suppresses the normal action of bouncing errors back to the
972 sender in an RFC1894-conformant error message. If nobounce is on, the
973 message will go to the postmaster instead.
977 option (keyword: set invisible) tries to make fetchmail invisible.
978 Normally, fetchmail behaves like any other MTA would -- it generates a
979 Received header into each message describing its place in the chain of
980 transmission, and tells the MTA it forwards to that the mail came from
981 the machine fetchmail itself is running on. If the invisible option
982 is on, the Received header is suppressed and fetchmail tries to spoof
983 the MTA it forwards to into thinking it came directly from the
988 option (keyword: set showdots) forces fetchmail to show progress dots
989 even if the current tty is not stdout (for example logfiles).
990 Starting with fetchmail version 5.3.0,
991 progress dots are only shown on stdout by default.
995 option, you can ask fetchmail to add information to the Received
996 header on the form "polling {label} account {user}", where {label} is
997 the account label (from the specified rcfile, normally ~/.fetchmailrc)
998 and {user} is the username which is used to log on to the mail
999 server. This header can be used to make filtering email where no
1000 useful header information is available and you want mail from
1001 different accounts sorted into different mailboxes (this could, for
1002 example, occur if you have an account on the same server running a
1003 mailing list, and are subscribed to the list using that account). The
1004 default is not adding any such header. In
1006 this is called `tracepolls'.
1008 .SH RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES
1009 The protocols \fIfetchmail\fR uses to talk to mailservers are next to
1010 bulletproof. In normal operation forwarding to port 25, no message is
1011 ever deleted (or even marked for deletion) on the host until the SMTP
1012 listener on the client side has acknowledged to \fIfetchmail\fR that
1013 the message has been either accepted for delivery or rejected due to a
1016 When forwarding to an MDA, however, there is more possibility
1017 of error. Some MDAs are `safe' and reliably return a nonzero status
1018 on any delivery error, even one due to temporary resource limits.
1021 program is like this; so are most programs designed as mail transport
1026 These programs give back a reliable positive acknowledgement and
1027 can be used with the mda option with no risk of mail loss. Unsafe
1028 MDAs, though, may return 0 even on delivery failure. If this
1029 happens, you will lose mail.
1031 The normal mode of \fIfetchmail\fR is to try to download only `new'
1032 messages, leaving untouched (and undeleted) messages you have already
1033 read directly on the server (or fetched with a previous \fIfetchmail
1034 --keep\fR). But you may find that messages you've already read on the
1035 server are being fetched (and deleted) even when you don't specify
1036 --all. There are several reasons this can happen.
1038 One could be that you're using POP2. The POP2 protocol includes no
1039 representation of `new' or `old' state in messages, so \fIfetchmail\fR
1040 must treat all messages as new all the time. But POP2 is obsolete, so
1043 Under POP3, blame RFC1725. That version of the POP3 protocol
1044 specification removed the LAST command, and some POP servers follow it
1045 (you can verify this by invoking \fIfetchmail -v\fR to the mailserver
1046 and watching the response to LAST early in the query). The
1047 \fIfetchmail\fR code tries to compensate by using POP3's UID feature,
1048 storing the identifiers of messages seen in each session until the
1049 next session, in the \fI.fetchids\fR file. But this doesn't track
1050 messages seen with other clients, or read directly with a mailer on
1051 the host but not deleted afterward. A better solution would be to
1054 Another potential POP3 problem might be servers that insert messages
1055 in the middle of mailboxes (some VMS implementations of mail are
1056 rumored to do this). The \fIfetchmail\fR code assumes that new
1057 messages are appended to the end of the mailbox; when this is not true
1058 it may treat some old messages as new and vice versa. The only
1059 real fix for this problem is to switch to IMAP.
1061 Yet another POP3 problem is that if they can't make tempfiles in the
1062 user's home directory, some POP3 servers will hand back an
1063 undocumented response that causes fetchmail to spuriously report "No
1066 The IMAP code uses the presence or absence of the server flag \eSeen
1067 to decide whether or not a message is new. Under Unix, it counts on
1068 your IMAP server to notice the BSD-style Status flags set by mail user
1069 agents and set the \eSeen flag from them when appropriate. All Unix
1070 IMAP servers we know of do this, though it's not specified by the IMAP
1071 RFCs. If you ever trip over a server that doesn't, the symptom will
1072 be that messages you have already read on your host will look new to
1073 the server. In this (unlikely) case, only messages you fetched with
1074 \fIfetchmail --keep\fR will be both undeleted and marked old.
1076 In ETRN and ODMR modes, \fIfetchmail\fR does not actually retrieve messages;
1077 instead, it asks the server's SMTP listener to start a queue flush
1078 to the client via SMTP. Therefore it sends only undelivered messages.
1081 Many SMTP listeners allow administrators to set up `spam filters' that
1082 block unsolicited email from specified domains. A MAIL FROM or DATA line that
1083 triggers this feature will elicit an SMTP response which
1084 (unfortunately) varies according to the listener.
1088 return an error code of 571. This return value
1089 is blessed by RFC1893 as "Delivery not authorized, message refused".
1091 According to current drafts of the replacement for RFC821, the correct
1092 thing to return in this situation is 550 "Requested action not taken:
1093 mailbox unavailable" (the draft adds "[E.g., mailbox not found, no
1094 access, or command rejected for policy reasons].").
1098 MTA returns 501 "Syntax error in parameters or arguments", but will
1103 MTA runs 554 as an antispam response.
1107 code recognizes and discards the message on any of a list of responses
1108 that defaults to [571, 550, 501, 554] but can be set with the `antispam'
1109 option. This is one of the
1111 three circumstance under which fetchmail ever discards mail (the others
1112 are the 552 and 553 errors described below, and the suppression of
1113 multidropped messages with a message-ID already seen).
1117 is fetching from an IMAP server, the antispam response will be detected and
1118 the message rejected immediately after the headers have been fetched,
1119 without reading the message body. Thus, you won't pay for downloading
1120 spam message bodies.
1122 If the \fIspambounce\fR option is on, mail that is spam-blocked
1123 triggers an RFC1892 bounce message informing the originator that we do
1124 not accept mail from it.
1126 .SH SMTP/ESMTP ERROR HANDLING
1127 Besides the spam-blocking described above, fetchmail takes special
1128 actions on the following SMTP/ESMTP error responses
1130 452 (insufficient system storage)
1131 Leave the message in the server mailbox for later retrieval.
1133 552 (message exceeds fixed maximum message size)
1134 Delete the message from the server. Send bounce-mail to the
1137 553 (invalid sending domain)
1138 Delete the message from the server. Don't even try to send
1139 bounce-mail to the originator.
1141 Other errors trigger bounce mail back to the originator.
1143 .SH THE RUN CONTROL FILE
1144 The preferred way to set up fetchmail is to write a
1145 \&\fI.fetchmailrc\fR file in your home directory (you may do this
1146 directly, with a text editor, or indirectly via \fIfetchmailconf\fR).
1147 When there is a conflict between the command-line arguments and the
1148 arguments in this file, the command-line arguments take precedence.
1150 To protect the security of your passwords, when --version is not on
1151 your \fI~/.fetchmailrc\fR may not have more than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) permissions;
1153 will complain and exit otherwise.
1155 You may read the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file as a list of commands to
1158 is called with no arguments.
1159 .SS Run Control Syntax
1161 Comments begin with a '#' and extend through the end of the line.
1162 Otherwise the file consists of a series of server entries or global
1163 option statements in a free-format, token-oriented syntax.
1165 There are four kinds of tokens: grammar keywords, numbers
1166 (i.e. decimal digit sequences), unquoted strings, and quoted strings.
1167 A quoted string is bounded by double quotes and may contain
1168 whitespace (and quoted digits are treated as a string). An unquoted
1169 string is any whitespace-delimited token that is neither numeric, string
1170 quoted nor contains the special characters `,', `;', `:', or `='.
1172 Any amount of whitespace separates tokens in server entries, but is
1173 otherwise ignored. You may use standard C-style escapes (\en, \et,
1174 \eb, octal, and hex) to embed non-printable characters or string
1175 delimiters in strings.
1177 Each server entry consists of one of the keywords `poll' or `skip',
1178 followed by a server name, followed by server options, followed by any
1179 number of user descriptions. Note: the most common cause of syntax
1180 errors is mixing up user and server options.
1182 For backward compatibility, the word `server' is a synonym for `poll'.
1184 You can use the noise keywords `and', `with',
1185 \&`has', `wants', and `options' anywhere in an entry to make
1186 it resemble English. They're ignored, but but can make entries much
1187 easier to read at a glance. The punctuation characters ':', ';' and
1188 \&',' are also ignored.
1191 The `poll' verb tells fetchmail to query this host when it is run with
1192 no arguments. The `skip' verb tells
1194 not to poll this host unless it is explicitly named on the command
1195 line. (The `skip' verb allows you to experiment with test entries
1196 safely, or easily disable entries for hosts that are temporarily down.)
1198 .SS Keyword/Option Summary
1199 Here are the legal options. Keyword suffixes enclosed in
1200 square brackets are optional. Those corresponding to command-line
1201 options are followed by `-' and the appropriate option letter.
1203 Here are the legal global options:
1207 Keyword Opt Function
1210 Set a background poll interval in seconds
1212 set postmaster \& T{
1213 Give the name of the last-resort mail recipient
1215 set no bouncemail \& T{
1216 Direct error mail to postmaster rather than sender
1218 set no spambounce \& T{
1222 Name of a file to dump error and status messages to
1225 Name of the file to store UID lists in
1228 Do error logging through syslog(3).
1231 Turn off error logging through syslog(3).
1233 set properties \& T{
1234 String value is ignored by fetchmail (may be used by extension scripts)
1238 Here are the legal server options:
1242 Keyword Opt Function
1245 Specify DNS name of mailserver, overriding poll name
1248 Specify protocol (case insensitive):
1249 POP2, POP3, IMAP, APOP, KPOP
1251 local[domains] \& T{
1252 Specify domain(s) to be regarded as local
1255 Specify TCP/IP service port
1257 auth[enticate] \& T{
1258 Set authentication type (default `password')
1261 Server inactivity timeout in seconds (default 300)
1264 Specify envelope-address header name
1267 Disable looking for envelope address
1270 Qmail virtual domain prefix to remove from user name
1273 Specify alternate DNS names of mailserver
1276 specify IP interface(s) that must be up for server poll to take place
1279 Specify IP address to monitor for activity
1282 Specify command through which to make server connections.
1285 Specify command through which to make listener connections.
1288 Enable DNS lookup for multidrop (default)
1291 Disable DNS lookup for multidrop
1294 Do comparison by IP address for multidrop
1297 Do comparison by name for multidrop (default)
1300 Force POP3 to use client-side UIDLs
1303 Turn off POP3 use of client-side UIDLs (default)
1306 Only check this site every N poll cycles; N is a numeric argument.
1309 Pass in IPsec security option request.
1312 Set Kerberos principal (only useful with imap and kerberos)
1315 Set name for RFC2554 authentication to the ESMTP server.
1318 Set password for RFC2554 authentication to the ESMTP server.
1322 Here are the legal user options:
1326 Keyword Opt Function
1329 Set remote user name
1330 (local user name if name followed by `here')
1333 Connect local and remote user names
1336 Connect local and remote user names
1339 Specify remote account password
1342 Connect to server over the specified base protocol using SSL encryption
1345 Specify file for client side public SSL certificate
1348 Specify file for client side private SSL key
1351 Force ssl protocol for connection
1354 Specify remote folder to query
1357 Specify smtp host(s) to forward to
1360 Specify domains for which mail should be fetched
1363 Specify the domain to be put in RCPT TO lines
1366 Specify the user and domain to be put in RCPT TO lines
1369 Specify what SMTP returns are interpreted as spam-policy blocks
1372 Specify MDA for local delivery
1375 Specify BSMTP batch file to append to
1378 Command to be executed before each connection
1381 Command to be executed after each connection
1384 Don't delete seen messages from server
1387 Flush all seen messages before querying
1390 Fetch all messages whether seen or not
1393 Rewrite destination addresses for reply (default)
1396 Strip carriage returns from ends of lines
1399 Force carriage returns at ends of lines
1402 Force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP listener
1405 Strip Status and X-Mozilla-Status lines out of incoming mail
1408 Strip Delivered-To lines out of incoming mail
1411 Convert quoted-printable to 8-bit in MIME messages
1414 Idle waiting for new messages after each poll (IMAP only)
1417 Delete seen messages from server (default)
1420 Don't flush all seen messages before querying (default)
1423 Retrieve only new messages (default)
1426 Don't rewrite headers
1429 Don't strip carriage returns (default)
1432 Don't force carriage returns at EOL (default)
1435 Don't force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP listener (default)
1438 Don't drop Status headers (default)
1440 no dropdelivered \& T{
1441 Don't drop Delivered-To headers (default)
1444 Don't convert quoted-printable to 8-bit in MIME messages (default)
1447 Don't idle waiting for new messages after each poll (IMAP only)
1450 Set message size limit
1453 Set message size warning interval
1456 Max # messages to forward in single connect
1459 Max # messages to fetch in single connect
1462 Perform an expunge on every #th message (IMAP and POP3 only)
1465 Add poll tracing information to the Received header
1468 String value is ignored by fetchmail (may be used by extension scripts)
1472 Remember that all user options must \fIfollow\fR all server options.
1474 In the .fetchmailrc file, the `envelope' string argument may be
1475 preceded by a whitespace-separated number. This number, if specified,
1476 is the number of such headers to skip (that is, an argument of 1
1477 selects the second header of the given type). This is sometime useful
1478 for ignoring bogus Received headers created by an ISP's local delivery
1480 .SS Keywords Not Corresponding To Option Switches
1482 The `folder' and `smtphost' options (unlike their command-line
1483 equivalents) can take a space- or comma-separated list of names
1486 All options correspond to the obvious command-line arguments, except
1487 the following: `via', `interval', `aka', `is', `to', `dns'/`no dns',
1488 `checkalias'/`no checkalias', `password', `preconnect', `postconnect',
1489 `localdomains', `stripcr'/`no stripcr', `forcecr'/`no forcecr',
1490 `pass8bits'/`no pass8bits' `dropstatus/no dropstatus',
1491 `dropdelivered/no dropdelivered', `mimedecode/no mimedecode', `idle/no
1492 idle', and `no envelope'.
1494 The `via' option is for if you want to have more
1495 than one configuration pointing at the same site. If it is present,
1496 the string argument will be taken as the actual DNS name of the
1497 mailserver host to query.
1498 This will override the argument of poll, which can then simply be a
1499 distinct label for the configuration (e.g. what you would give on the
1500 command line to explicitly query this host).
1502 The `interval' option (which takes a numeric argument) allows you to poll a
1503 server less frequently than the basic poll interval. If you say
1504 \&`interval N' the server this option is attached to will only be
1505 queried every N poll intervals.
1507 The `is' or `to' keywords associate the following local (client)
1508 name(s) (or server-name to client-name mappings separated by =) with
1509 the mailserver user name in the entry. If an is/to list has `*' as
1510 its last name, unrecognized names are simply passed through.
1512 A single local name can be used to support redirecting your mail when
1513 your username on the client machine is different from your name on the
1514 mailserver. When there is only a single local name, mail is forwarded
1515 to that local username regardless of the message's Received, To, Cc,
1516 and Bcc headers. In this case
1518 never does DNS lookups.
1520 When there is more than one local name (or name mapping) the
1521 \fIfetchmail\fR code does look at the Received, To, Cc, and Bcc
1522 headers of retrieved mail (this is `multidrop mode'). It looks for
1523 addresses with hostname parts that match your poll name or your `via',
1524 `aka' or `localdomains' options, and usually also for hostname parts
1525 which DNS tells it are aliases of the mailserver. See the discussion
1526 of `dns', `checkalias', `localdomains', and `aka' for details on how
1527 matching addresses are handled.
1529 If \fIfetchmail\fR cannot match any mailserver usernames or
1530 localdomain addresses, the mail will be bounced.
1531 Normally it will be bounced to the sender, but if `nobounce' is on
1532 it will go to the postmaster (which in turn defaults to being the
1535 The `dns' option (normally on) controls the way addresses from
1536 multidrop mailboxes are checked. On, it enables logic to check each
1537 host address that doesn't match an `aka' or `localdomains' declaration
1538 by looking it up with DNS. When a mailserver username is recognized
1539 attached to a matching hostname part, its local mapping is added to
1540 the list of local recipients.
1542 The `checkalias' option (normally off) extends the lookups performed
1543 by the `dns' keyword in multidrop mode, providing a way to cope with
1544 remote MTAs that identify themselves using their canonical name, while
1545 they're polled using an alias.
1546 When such a server is polled, checks to extract the envelope address
1549 reverts to delivery using the To/Cc/Bcc headers (See below
1550 `Header vs. Envelope addresses').
1551 Specifying this option instructs
1553 to retrieve all the IP addresses associated with both the poll name
1554 and the name used by the remote MTA and to do a comparison of the IP
1555 addresses. This comes in handy in situations where the remote server
1556 undergoes frequent canonical name changes, that would otherwise
1557 require modifications to the rcfile. `checkalias' has no effect if
1558 `no dns' is specified in the rcfile.
1560 The `aka' option is for use with multidrop mailboxes. It allows you
1561 to pre-declare a list of DNS aliases for a server. This is an
1562 optimization hack that allows you to trade space for speed. When
1564 while processing a multidrop mailbox, grovels through message headers
1565 looking for names of the mailserver, pre-declaring common ones can
1566 save it from having to do DNS lookups. Note: the names you give
1567 as arguments to `aka' are matched as suffixes -- if you specify
1568 (say) `aka netaxs.com', this will match not just a hostnamed
1569 netaxs.com, but any hostname that ends with `.netaxs.com'; such as
1570 (say) pop3.netaxs.com and mail.netaxs.com.
1572 The `localdomains' option allows you to declare a list of domains
1573 which fetchmail should consider local. When fetchmail is parsing
1574 address lines in multidrop modes, and a trailing segment of a host
1575 name matches a declared local domain, that address is passed through
1576 to the listener or MDA unaltered (local-name mappings are \fInot\fR
1579 If you are using `localdomains', you may also need to specify \&`no
1580 envelope', which disables \fIfetchmail\fR's normal attempt to deduce
1581 an envelope address from the Received line or X-Envelope-To header or
1582 whatever header has been previously set by `envelope'. If you set `no
1583 envelope' in the defaults entry it is possible to undo that in
1584 individual entries by using `envelope <string>'. As a special case,
1585 \&`envelope "Received"' restores the default parsing of
1588 The \fBpassword\fR option requires a string argument, which is the password
1589 to be used with the entry's server.
1591 The `preconnect' keyword allows you to specify a shell command to be
1592 executed just before each time
1594 establishes a mailserver connection. This may be useful if you are
1595 attempting to set up secure POP connections with the aid of
1597 If the command returns a nonzero status, the poll of that mailserver
1600 Similarly, the `postconnect' keyword similarly allows you to specify a
1601 shell command to be executed just after each time a mailserver
1602 connection is taken down.
1604 The `forcecr' option controls whether lines terminated by LF only are
1605 given CRLF termination before forwarding. Strictly speaking RFC821
1606 requires this, but few MTAs enforce the requirement it so this option
1607 is normally off (only one such MTA, qmail, is in significant use at
1610 The `stripcr' option controls whether carriage returns are stripped
1611 out of retrieved mail before it is forwarded. It is normally not
1612 necessary to set this, because it defaults to `on' (CR stripping
1613 enabled) when there is an MDA declared but `off' (CR stripping
1614 disabled) when forwarding is via SMTP. If `stripcr' and `forcecr' are
1615 both on, `stripcr' will override.
1617 The `pass8bits' option exists to cope with Microsoft mail programs that
1618 stupidly slap a "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit" on everything. With
1619 this option off (the default) and such a header present,
1621 declares BODY=7BIT to an ESMTP-capable listener; this causes problems for
1622 messages actually using 8-bit ISO or KOI-8 character sets, which will
1623 be garbled by having the high bits of all characters stripped. If
1624 \&`pass8bits' is on,
1626 is forced to declare BODY=8BITMIME to any ESMTP-capable listener. If
1627 the listener is 8-bit-clean (as all the major ones now are) the right
1628 thing will probably result.
1630 The `dropstatus' option controls whether nonempty Status and
1631 X-Mozilla-Status lines are retained in fetched mail (the default) or
1632 discarded. Retaining them allows your MUA to see what messages (if
1633 any) were marked seen on the server. On the other hand, it can
1634 confuse some new-mail notifiers, which assume that anything with a
1635 Status line in it has been seen. (Note: the empty Status lines
1636 inserted by some buggy POP servers are unconditionally discarded.)
1638 The `dropdelivered' option controls wether Delivered-To headers will
1639 be kept in fetched mail (the default) or discarded. These headers are
1640 added by Qmail and Postfix mailservers in order to avoid mail loops but
1641 may get in your way if you try to "mirror" a mailserver within the same
1642 domain. Use with caution.
1644 The `mimedecode' option controls whether MIME messages using the
1645 quoted-printable encoding are automatically converted into pure 8-bit
1646 data. If you are delivering mail to an ESMTP-capable, 8-bit-clean
1647 listener (that includes all of the major MTAs like sendmail), then
1648 this will automatically convert quoted-printable message headers and
1649 data into 8-bit data, making it easier to understand when reading
1650 mail. If your e-mail programs know how to deal with MIME messages,
1651 then this option is not needed. The mimedecode option is off by
1652 default, because doing RFC2047 conversion on headers throws away
1653 character-set information and can lead to bad results if the encoding
1654 of the headers differs from the body encoding.
1656 The `idle' option is usable only with IMAP servers supporting the
1657 RFC2177 IDLE command extension. If it is enabled, and fetchmail
1658 detects that IDLE is supported, an IDLE will be issued at the end
1659 of each poll. This will tell the IMAP server to hold the connection
1660 open and notify the client when new mail is available. If you need to
1661 poll a link frequently, IDLE can save bandwidth by eliminating TCP/IP
1662 connects and LOGIN/LOGOUT sequences. On the other hand, an IDLE
1663 connection will eat almost all of your fetchmail's time, because it
1664 will never drop the connection and allow other pools to occur unless
1665 the server times out the IDLE. It also doesn't work with multiple
1666 folders; only the first folder will ever be polled.
1668 The `properties' option is an extension mechanism. It takes a string
1669 argument, which is ignored by fetchmail itself. The string argument may be
1670 used to store configuration information for scripts which require it.
1671 In particular, the output of `--configdump' option will make properties
1672 associated with a user entry readily available to a Python script.
1674 .SS Miscellaneous Run Control Options
1675 The words `here' and `there' have useful English-like
1676 significance. Normally `user eric is esr' would mean that
1677 mail for the remote user `eric' is to be delivered to `esr',
1678 but you can make this clearer by saying `user eric there is esr here',
1679 or reverse it by saying `user esr here is eric there'
1681 Legal protocol identifiers for use with the `protocol' keyword are:
1692 Legal authentication types are `any', `password', `kerberos', 'kereberos_v5'
1693 and `gssapi', `cram-md5', `otp', `ntlm', `ssh`.
1694 The `password' type specifies authentication by normal transmission of a
1695 password (the password may be plaintext or subject to
1696 protocol-specific encryption as in APOP); `kerberos' tells
1697 \fIfetchmail\fR to try to get a Kerberos ticket at the start of each
1698 query instead, and send an arbitrary string as the password; and
1699 `gssapi' tells fetchmail to use GSSAPI authentication. See the description
1700 of the `auth' keyword for more.
1702 Specifying `kpop' sets POP3 protocol over port 1109 with Kerberos V4
1703 authentication. These defaults may be overridden by later options.
1705 There are currently four global option statements; `set logfile'
1706 followed by a string sets the same global specified by --logfile. A
1707 command-line --logfile option will override this. Also, `set daemon'
1708 sets the poll interval as --daemon does. This can be overridden by a
1709 command-line --daemon option; in particular --daemon 0 can be used to
1710 force foreground operation. The `set postmaster' statement sets the
1711 address to which multidrop mail defaults if there are no local
1712 matches. Finally, `set syslog' sends log messages to syslogd(8).
1714 .SH INTERACTION WITH RFC 822
1715 When trying to determine the originating address of a message,
1716 fetchmail looks through headers in the following order:
1719 Resent-Sender: (ignored if it doesn't contain an @ or !)
1720 Sender: (ignored if it doesn't contain an @ or !)
1726 The originating address is used for logging, and to set the MAIL FROM
1727 address when forwarding to SMTP. This order is intended to cope
1728 gracefully with receiving mailing list messages in multidrop mode. The
1729 intent is that if a local address doesn't exist, the bounce message
1730 won't be returned blindly to the author or to the list itself, but
1731 rather to the list manager (which is less annoying).
1733 In multidrop mode, destination headers are processed as follows:
1734 First, fetchmail looks for the Received: header (or whichever one is
1735 specified by the `envelope' option) to determine the local
1736 recipient address. If the mail is addressed to more than one recipient,
1737 the Received line won't contain any information regarding recipient addresses.
1739 Then fetchmail looks for the Resent-To:, Resent-Cc:, and Resent-Bcc:
1740 lines. If they exists, they should contain the final recipients and
1741 have precedence over their To:/Cc:/Bcc: counterparts. If the Resent-*
1742 lines doesn't exist, the To:, Cc:, Bcc: and Apparently-To: lines are
1743 looked for. (The presence of a Resent-To: is taken to imply that the
1744 person referred by the To: address has already received the original
1747 .SH CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES
1748 Note that although there are password declarations in a good many
1749 of the examples below, this is mainly for illustrative purposes.
1750 We recommend stashing account/password pairs in your $HOME/.netrc
1751 file, where they can be used not just by fetchmail but by ftp(1) and
1757 poll SERVERNAME protocol PROTOCOL username NAME password PASSWORD
1763 poll pop.provider.net protocol pop3 username "jsmith" password "secret1"
1766 Or, using some abbreviations:
1769 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" password "secret1"
1772 Multiple servers may be listed:
1775 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" pass "secret1"
1776 poll other.provider.net proto pop2 user "John.Smith" pass "My^Hat"
1779 Here's a version of those two with more whitespace and some noise words:
1782 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3
1783 user "jsmith", with password secret1, is "jsmith" here;
1784 poll other.provider.net proto pop2:
1785 user "John.Smith", with password "My^Hat", is "John.Smith" here;
1788 This version is much easier to read and doesn't cost significantly
1789 more (parsing is done only once, at startup time).
1792 If you need to include whitespace in a parameter string, enclose the
1793 string in double quotes. Thus:
1796 poll mail.provider.net with proto pop3:
1797 user "jsmith" there has password "u can't krak this"
1798 is jws here and wants mda "/bin/mail"
1801 You may have an initial server description headed by the keyword
1802 `defaults' instead of `poll' followed by a name. Such a record
1803 is interpreted as defaults for all queries to use. It may be overwritten
1804 by individual server descriptions. So, you could write:
1809 poll pop.provider.net
1811 poll mail.provider.net
1812 user "jjsmith" there has password "secret2"
1815 It's possible to specify more than one user per server (this is only
1816 likely to be useful when running fetchmail in daemon mode as root).
1817 The `user' keyword leads off a user description, and every user specification
1818 in a multi-user entry must include it. Here's an example:
1821 poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 port 3111
1822 user "jsmith" with pass "secret1" is "smith" here
1823 user jones with pass "secret2" is "jjones" here keep
1826 This associates the local username `smith' with the pop.provider.net
1827 username `jsmith' and the local username `jjones' with the
1828 pop.provider.net username `jones'. Mail for `jones' is kept on the
1829 server after download.
1831 Here's what a simple retrieval configuration for a multi-drop mailbox
1835 poll pop.provider.net:
1836 user maildrop with pass secret1 to golux 'hurkle'='happy' snark here
1839 This says that the mailbox of account `maildrop' on the server is a
1840 multi-drop box, and that messages in it should be parsed for the
1841 server user names `golux', `hurkle', and `snark'. It further
1842 specifies that `golux' and `snark' have the same name on the
1843 client as on the server, but mail for server user `hurkle' should be
1844 delivered to client user `happy'.
1846 Here's an example of another kind of multidrop connection:
1849 poll pop.provider.net localdomains loonytoons.org toons.org:
1850 user maildrop with pass secret1 to * here
1853 This also says that the mailbox of account `maildrop' on the server is
1854 a multi-drop box. It tells fetchmail that any address in the
1855 loonytoons.org or toons.org domains (including subdomain addresses like
1856 `joe@daffy.loonytoons.org') should be passed through to the local SMTP
1857 listener without modification. Be careful of mail loops if you do this!
1859 Here's an example configuration using ssh and the plugin option. The
1860 queries are made directly on the stdin and stdout of imapd via ssh.
1861 Note that in this setup, IMAP authentication can be skipped.
1864 poll mailhost.net with proto imap:
1865 plugin "ssh %h /usr/sbin/imapd" auth ssh;
1866 user esr is esr here
1869 .SH THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP MAILBOXES
1870 Use the multiple-local-recipients feature with caution -- it can bite.
1871 All multidrop features are ineffective in ETRN and ODMR modes.
1873 Also, note that in multidrop mode duplicate mails are suppressed. A
1874 piece of mail is considered duplicate if it has the same message-ID as
1875 the message immediately preceding and more than one addressee. Such
1876 runs of messages may be generated when copies of a message addressed
1877 to multiple users are delivered to a multidrop box.
1879 .SS Header vs. Envelope addresses
1880 The fundamental problem is that by having your mailserver toss several
1881 peoples' mail in a single maildrop box, you may have thrown away
1882 potentially vital information about who each piece of mail was
1883 actually addressed to (the `envelope address', as opposed to the
1884 header addresses in the RFC822 To/Cc/Bcc headers). This `envelope
1885 address' is the address you need in order to reroute mail properly.
1889 can deduce the envelope address. If the mailserver MTA is
1891 and the item of mail had just one recipient, the MTA will have written
1892 a `by/for' clause that gives the envelope addressee into its Received
1893 header. But this doesn't work reliably for other MTAs, nor if there is
1894 more than one recipient. By default, \fIfetchmail\fR looks for
1895 envelope addresses in these lines; you can restore this default with
1896 -E "Received" or \&`envelope Received'.
1898 Alternatively, some SMTP listeners and/or mail servers insert a header
1899 in each message containing a copy of the envelope addresses. This
1900 header (when it exists) is often `X-Envelope-To'. Fetchmail's
1901 assumption about this can be changed with the -E or `envelope' option.
1902 Note that writing an envelope header of this kind exposes the names of
1903 recipients (including blind-copy recipients) to all receivers of the
1904 messages; it is therefore regarded by some administrators as a
1905 security/privacy problem.
1907 A slight variation of the `X-Envelope-To' header is the `Delivered-To' put
1908 by qmail to avoid mail loops. It will probably prefix the user name with a
1909 string that normally matches the user's domain. To remove this prefix you
1910 can use the -Q or `qvirtual' option.
1912 Sometimes, unfortunately, neither of these methods works. When they
1913 all fail, fetchmail must fall back on the contents of To/Cc/Bcc
1914 headers to try to determine recipient addressees -- and these are not
1915 reliable. In particular, mailing-list software often ships mail with
1916 only the list broadcast address in the To header.
1920 cannot deduce a recipient address that is local, and the intended
1921 recipient address was anyone other than fetchmail's invoking user,
1922 mail will get lost. This is what makes the multidrop feature risky.
1924 A related problem is that when you blind-copy a mail message, the Bcc
1925 information is carried \fIonly\fR as envelope address (it's not put
1926 in the headers fetchmail can see unless there is an X-Envelope
1927 header). Thus, blind-copying to someone who gets mail over a
1928 fetchmail link will fail unless the the mailserver host routinely
1929 writes X-Envelope or an equivalent header into messages in your maildrop.
1931 .SS Good Ways To Use Multidrop Mailboxes
1932 Multiple local names can be used to administer a mailing list from the
1933 client side of a \fIfetchmail\fR collection. Suppose your name is
1934 \&`esr', and you want to both pick up your own mail and maintain a mailing
1935 list called (say) "fetchmail-friends", and you want to keep the alias
1936 list on your client machine.
1938 On your server, you can alias \&`fetchmail-friends' to `esr'; then, in
1939 your \fI.fetchmailrc\fR, declare \&`to esr fetchmail-friends here'.
1940 Then, when mail including `fetchmail-friends' as a local address
1941 gets fetched, the list name will be appended to the list of
1942 recipients your SMTP listener sees. Therefore it will undergo alias
1943 expansion locally. Be sure to include `esr' in the local alias
1944 expansion of fetchmail-friends, or you'll never see mail sent only to
1945 the list. Also be sure that your listener has the "me-too" option set
1946 (sendmail's -oXm command-line option or OXm declaration) so your name
1947 isn't removed from alias expansions in messages you send.
1949 This trick is not without its problems, however. You'll begin to see
1950 this when a message comes in that is addressed only to a mailing list
1951 you do \fInot\fR have declared as a local name. Each such message
1952 will feature an `X-Fetchmail-Warning' header which is generated
1953 because fetchmail cannot find a valid local name in the recipient
1954 addresses. Such messages default (as was described above) to being
1955 sent to the local user running
1957 but the program has no way to know that that's actually the right thing.
1959 .SS Bad Ways To Abuse Multidrop Mailboxes
1960 Multidrop mailboxes and
1962 serving multiple users in daemon mode do not mix. The problem, again, is
1963 mail from mailing lists, which typically does not have an individual
1964 recipient address on it. Unless
1966 can deduce an envelope address, such mail will only go to the account
1967 running fetchmail (probably root). Also, blind-copied users are very
1968 likely never to see their mail at all.
1970 If you're tempted to use
1972 to retrieve mail for multiple users from a single mail drop via POP or
1973 IMAP, think again (and reread the section on header and envelope
1974 addresses above). It would be smarter to just let the mail sit in the
1975 mailserver's queue and use fetchmail's ETRN or ODMR modes to trigger
1976 SMTP sends periodically (of course, this means you have to poll more
1977 frequently than the mailserver's expiry period). If you can't arrange
1978 this, try setting up a UUCP feed.
1980 If you absolutely \fImust\fR use multidrop for this purpose, make sure
1981 your mailserver writes an envelope-address header that fetchmail can
1982 see. Otherwise you \fIwill\fR lose mail and it \fIwill\fR come back
1985 .SS Speeding Up Multidrop Checking
1986 Normally, when multiple users are declared
1988 extracts recipient addresses as described above and checks each host
1989 part with DNS to see if it's an alias of the mailserver. If so, the
1990 name mappings described in the to ... here declaration are done and
1991 the mail locally delivered.
1993 This is the safest but also slowest method. To speed it up,
1994 pre-declare mailserver aliases with `aka'; these are checked before
1995 DNS lookups are done. If you're certain your aka list contains
1997 DNS aliases of the mailserver (and all MX names pointing at it)
1998 you can declare `no dns' to suppress DNS lookups entirely and
1999 \fIonly\fR match against the aka list.
2002 To facilitate the use of
2004 in shell scripts, an exit code is returned to give an indication
2005 of what occurred during a given connection.
2007 The exit codes returned by
2011 One or more messages were successfully retrieved (or, if the -c option
2012 was selected, were found waiting but not retrieved).
2014 There was no mail awaiting retrieval. (There may have been old mail still
2015 on the server but not selected for retrieval.)
2017 An error was encountered when attempting to open a socket to retrieve
2018 mail. If you don't know what a socket is, don't worry about it --
2019 just treat this as an 'unrecoverable error'. This error can also be
2020 because a protocol fetchmail wants to use is not listed in /etc/services.
2022 The user authentication step failed. This usually means that a bad
2023 user-id, password, or APOP id was specified. Or it may mean that you
2024 tried to run fetchmail under circumstances where it did not have
2025 standard input attached to a terminal and could not prompt for a
2028 Some sort of fatal protocol error was detected.
2030 There was a syntax error in the arguments to
2033 The run control file had bad permissions.
2035 There was an error condition reported by the server. Can also
2038 timed out while waiting for the server.
2040 Client-side exclusion error. This means
2042 either found another copy of itself already running, or failed in such
2043 a way that it isn't sure whether another copy is running.
2045 The user authentication step failed because the server responded "lock
2046 busy". Try again after a brief pause! This error is not implemented
2047 for all protocols, nor for all servers. If not implemented for your
2048 server, "3" will be returned instead, see above. May be returned when
2049 talking to qpopper or other servers that can respond with "lock busy"
2050 or some similar text containing the word "lock".
2054 run failed while trying to do an SMTP port open or transaction.
2056 Fatal DNS error. Fetchmail encountered an error while performing
2057 a DNS lookup at startup and could not proceed.
2059 BSMTP batch file could not be opened.
2061 Poll terminated by a fetch limit (see the --fetchlimit option).
2063 Server busy indication.
2065 Internal error. You should see a message on standard error with
2070 queries more than one host, return status is 0 if \fIany\fR query
2071 successfully retrieved mail. Otherwise the returned error status is
2072 that of the last host queried.
2077 default run control file
2080 default location of file associating hosts with last message IDs seen
2081 (used only with newer RFC1725-compliant POP3 servers supporting the
2085 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (non-root mode).
2088 your FTP run control file, which (if present) will be searched for
2089 passwords as a last resort before prompting for one interactively.
2091 /var/run/fetchmail.pid
2092 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode, Linux systems).
2095 lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode, systems without /var/run).
2098 If the FETCHMAILUSER variable is set, it is used as the name of the
2099 calling user (default local name) for purposes such as mailing error
2100 notifications. Otherwise, if either the LOGNAME or USER variable is
2101 correctly set (e.g. the corresponding UID matches the session user ID)
2102 then that name is used as the default local name. Otherwise
2103 \fBgetpwuid\fR(3) must be able to retrieve a password entry for the
2104 session ID (this elaborate logic is designed to handle the case of
2105 multiple names per userid gracefully).
2107 If the environment variable FETCHMAILHOME is set to a valid and
2108 existing directory name, the .fetchmailrc and .fetchids and
2109 \&.fetchmail.pid files are put there instead of in the invoking user's
2110 home directory (and lose the leading dots on theirt names). The
2111 \&.netrc file is looked for in the the invoking user's home directory
2112 regardless of FETCHMAILHOME's setting.
2117 daemon is running as root, SIGHUP wakes it up from its sleep phase and
2118 forces a poll of all non-skipped servers (this is in accordance with
2119 the usual conventions for system daemons).
2123 is running in daemon mode as non-root, use SIGUSR1 to wake it (this is
2124 so SIGHUP due to logout can retain the default action of killing it).
2128 in foreground while a background fetchmail is running will do
2129 whichever of these is appropriate to wake it up.
2131 .SH BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
2132 The mda and plugin options interact badly. In order to collect error
2133 status from the MDA, fetchmail has to change its normal signal
2134 handling so that dead plugin processes don't get reaped until the end
2135 of the poll cycle. This can cause resource starvation if too many
2136 zombies accumulate. So either don't deliver to a MDA using plugins or
2137 risk being overrun by an army of undead.
2139 The RFC822 address parser used in multidrop mode chokes on some
2140 @-addresses that are technically legal but bizarre. Strange uses of
2141 quoting and embedded comments are likely to confuse it.
2143 In a message with multiple envelope headers, only the last one
2144 processed will be visible to fetchmail. To get around this, use a
2145 mailserver-side filter that consolidates the contents of all envelope
2146 headers into a single one (procmail, mailagent, or maildrop can be
2147 programmed to do this fairly easily).
2149 Use of some of these protocols requires that the program send
2150 unencrypted passwords over the TCP/IP connection to the mailserver.
2151 This creates a risk that name/password pairs might be snaffled with a
2152 packet sniffer or more sophisticated monitoring software. Under Linux
2153 and FreeBSD, the --interface option can be used to restrict polling to
2154 availability of a specific interface device with a specific local or
2155 remote IP address, but snooping is still possible if (a) either host
2156 has a network device that can be opened in promiscuous mode, or (b)
2157 the intervening network link can be tapped. We recommend the use of
2159 tunnelling to not only shroud your passwords but encrypt the entire
2162 Use of the %F or %T escapes in an mda option could open a security
2163 hole, because they pass text manipulable by an attacker to a shell
2164 command. Potential shell characters are replaced by `_' before
2165 execution. The hole is further reduced by the fact that fetchmail
2166 temporarily discards any suid privileges it may have while running the
2167 MDA. For maximum safety, however, don't use an mda command containing
2168 %F or %T when fetchmail is run from the root account itself.
2170 Fetchmail's method of sending bouncemail and spam bounces requires that
2171 port 25 of localhost be available for sending mail via SMTP.
2175 while a background instance is running and break the syntax, the
2176 background instance will die silently. Unfortunately, it can't
2177 die noisily because we don't yet know whether syslog should be enabled.
2179 The -f - option (reading a configuration from stdin) is incompatible
2180 with the plugin option.
2182 The UIDL code is generally flaky and tends to lose its state on errors
2183 and line drops (so that old messages are re-seen). If this happens to
2184 you, switch to IMAP4.
2186 The `principal' option only handles Kerberos IV, not V.
2188 Send comments, bug reports, gripes, and the like to the
2189 fetchmail-friends list <fetchmail-friends@lists.ccil.org>. An HTML FAQ is
2190 available at the fetchmail home page; surf to
2191 http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetchmail or do a WWW search for pages with
2192 `fetchmail' in their titles.
2195 Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>. Too many other people to
2196 name here have contributed code and patches.
2197 This program is descended from and replaces
2199 by Carl Harris <ceharris@mal.com>; the internals have become quite different,
2200 but some of its interface design is directly traceable to that
2204 mutt(1), elm(1), mail(1), sendmail(8), popd(8), imapd(8), netrc(5)
2205 .SH APPLICABLE STANDARDS
2208 RFC 821, RFC2821, RFC 1869, RFC 1652, RFC 1870, RFC 1983, RFC 1985,
2212 RFC 822, RFC2822, RFC 1123, RFC 1892, RFC 1894
2218 RFC 1081, RFC 1225, RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC1734, RFC 1939, RFC 1957,
2222 RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC 1939
2231 RFC 1730, RFC 1731, RFC 1732, RFC 2060, RFC 2061, RFC 2195, RFC 2177,
projects / ~andy / fetchmail / blob