3 # indexgen.sh -- generate current version of fetchmail home page.
7 version=`sed -n <Makefile.in "/VERSION *= */s/VERSION *= *\([^ ]*\)/\1/p"`
8 date=`date "+%d %b %Y"`
10 set -- `timeseries | grep -v "%" | head -1`
12 set -- `ls -ks fetchmail`
14 set -- `(cd /lib; ls libc-*)`
15 glibc=`echo $1 | sed 's/libc-\(.*\)\.so/\1/'`
20 # Compute MD5 checksums for security audit
22 for file in fetchmail-$version.tar.gz fetchmail-$version-1.i386.rpm fetchmail-$version-1.src.rpm
24 md5sum $file >>checksums
27 if [ $version != $goldvers ]
29 for file in fetchmail-$goldvers.tar.gz fetchmail-$goldvers-1.i386.rpm fetchmail-$goldvers-1.src.rpm
31 md5sum $file >>checksums
36 <!doctype HTML public "-//W3O//DTD W3 HTML 3.2//EN">
39 <TITLE>Fetchmail Home Page</TITLE>
40 <link rev=made href=mailto:esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
41 <meta name="description" content="The fetchmail home page.">
42 <meta name="keywords" content="fetchmail, POP, POP3, IMAP, IMAP2bis, IMAP4, IMAP4rev1, ETRN, OTP, RPA">
45 <table width="100%" cellpadding=0><tr>
46 <td width="30%">Back to
47 <a href="http://$WWWVIRTUAL/~esr/software.html">Software</a>
48 <td width="30%" align=center>Up to <a href="http://$WWWVIRTUAL/~esr/sitemap.html">Site Map</a>
49 <td width="30%" align=right>$date
56 <center><img src="bighand.png"></center>
60 <H1>The fetchmail Home Page</H1>
63 <H1>What fetchmail does:</H1>
65 Fetchmail is a full-featured, robust, well-documented
66 remote-mail retrieval and forwarding utility intended to be used over
67 on-demand TCP/IP links (such as SLIP or PPP connections). It supports
68 every remote-mail protocol now in use on the Internet: POP2, POP3,
69 RPOP, APOP, KPOP, all flavors of <a
70 href="http://www.imap.org">IMAP</a>, and ESMTP ETRN. It can even
71 support IPv6 and IPSEC.<P>
73 Fetchmail retrieves mail from remote mail servers and forwards it via
74 SMTP, so it can then be be read by normal mail user agents such as <a
75 href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a>, elm(1) or BSD Mail.
76 It allows all your system MTA's filtering, forwarding, and aliasing
77 facilities to work just as they would on normal mail.<P>
79 Fetchmail offers better security than any other Unix remote-mail
80 client. It supports APOP, KPOP, OTP, Compuserve RPA, and IMAP RFC1731
81 encrypted authentication methods to avoid sending passwords en
82 clair. It can be configured to support end-to-end encryption via
83 tunneling with <a href="http://www.cs.hut.fi/ssh/">ssh, the Secure Shell</a><p>
85 Fetchmail can be used as a POP/IMAP-to-SMTP gateway for an entire DNS
86 domain, collecting mail from a single drop box on an ISP and
87 SMTP-forwarding it based on header addresses. (We don't really
88 recommend this, though, as it may lose important envelope-header
89 information. ETRN or a UUCP connection is better.)<p>
91 Fetchmail can be started automatically and silently as a system daemon
92 at boot time. When running in this mode with a short poll interval,
93 it is pretty hard for anyone to tell that the incoming mail link is
94 not a full-time "push" connection.<p>
96 Fetchmail is easy to configure. You can edit its dotfile directly, or
97 use the interactive GUI configurator (fetchmailconf) supplied with the
98 fetchmail distribution.<P>
100 Fetchmail is fast and lightweight. It packs all its standard
101 features (POP3, IMAP, and ETRN support) in ${fetchmailsize}K of core on a
102 Pentium under Linux.<p>
104 Fetchmail is <a href="http://www.opensource.org">open-source</a>
105 software. The openness of the sources is your strongest possible
106 assurance of quality and reliability.<P>
108 <H1>Where to find out more about fetchmail:</H1>
110 See the <a href="fetchmail-features.html">Fetchmail Feature List</a> for more
111 about what fetchmail does.<p>
113 See the <a href="fetchmail-FAQ.html">HTML Fetchmail FAQ</A> for
114 troubleshooting help.<p>
116 See the <a href="design-notes.html">Fetchmail Design Notes</a>
117 for discussion of some of the design choices in fetchmail.<P>
119 <H1>How to get fetchmail:</H1>
121 You can get any of the following leading-edge resources here:
123 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$version.tar.gz">
124 Gzipped source archive of fetchmail $version</a>
125 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$version-1.i386.rpm">
126 Intel binary RPM of fetchmail $version (uses $glibc)</a>
127 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$version-1.src.rpm">
128 Source RPM of fetchmail $version</a>
131 MD5 <a href="checksums">checksums</a> are available for these files.<p>
134 if [ $version != $goldvers ]
136 cat >>index.html <<EOF
138 Or you can get the last \`gold' version, $goldname:
140 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$goldvers.tar.gz">
141 Gzipped source archive of fetchmail $goldname</a>
142 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$goldvers-1.i386.rpm">
143 Intel binary RPM of fetchmail $goldname (uses glibc)</a>
144 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$goldvers-1.alpha.rpm">
145 Alpha binary RPM of fetchmail $goldname (uses glibc)</a>
146 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$goldvers-1.src.rpm">
147 Source RPM of fetchmail $goldname</a>
149 For differences between the leading-edge $version and gold $goldname versions,
150 see the distribution <a href="NEWS">NEWS</a> file.<p>
154 cat >>index.html <<EOF
155 (Note that the RPMs don't have the POP2, OTP, IPv6, Kerberos, GSSAPI,
156 Compuserve RPA, or GNU gettext internationalization support compiled
157 in. To get any of these you will have to build from sources.)<p>
159 The latest version of fetchmail is also carried in the
160 <a href="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/pop/!INDEX.html">
161 Sunsite remote mail tools directory</a>.
163 <H1>Getting help with fetchmail:</H1>
165 There is a fetchmail-friends list for people who want to discuss fixes
166 and improvements in fetchmail and help co-develop it. It's at <a
167 href="mailto:fetchmail-friends@ccil.org">fetchmail-friends@ccil.org</a>.
168 There is also an announcements-only list, <em>fetchmail-announce@ccil.org</em>.<P>
170 Both lists are SmartList reflectors; sign up in the usual way with a
171 message containing the word "subscribe" in the subject line sent to
172 <a href="mailto:fetchmail-friends-request@ccil.org?subject=subscribe">
173 fetchmail-friends-request@ccil.org</a> or
174 <a href="mailto:fetchmail-announce-request@ccil.org?subject=subscribe">
175 fetchmail-announce-request@ccil.org</a>. (Similarly, "unsubscribe"
176 in the Subject line unsubscribes you, and "help" returns general list help) <p>
178 Note: before submitting a question to the list, <strong>please read
179 the <a href="fetchmail-FAQ.html">FAQ</a></strong> (especially item <a
180 href="http:fetchmail-FAQ.html#G3">G3</a> on how to report bugs). We
181 tend to get the same three newbie questions over and over again. The
182 FAQ covers them like a blanket.<P>
184 Fetchmail was written and is maintained by <a
185 href="../index.html">Eric S. Raymond</a>. <a
186 href="mailto:funk+@osu.edu">Rob Funk</a>, <a
187 href="mailto:alberty@apexxtech.com">Al Youngwerth</a> and <a
188 href="mailto:imdave@mcs.net">Dave Bodenstab</a> are fetchmail's
189 designated backup maintainers. Other backup maintainers may be added
190 in the future, in order to ensure continued support should Eric S.
191 Raymond drop permanently off the net for any reason.<P>
193 <H1>Who uses fetchmail:</H1>
195 Fetchmail entered full production status with the 2.0 version in
196 November 1996 after about five months of evolution from the ancestral
197 <IT>popclient</IT> utility. It has since come into extremely wide use
198 in the Internet/Unix/Linux community. The Red Hat, Debian and
199 S.u.S.e. Linux distributions include it. A customized version is used
200 at Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link. Several large ISPs are known to
201 recommend it to Unix-using SLIP and PPP customers.<p>
203 Over seven hundred people have participated on the fetchmail beta list
204 (at time of current release there were $subscribers on the friends and
205 announce lists). While it's hard to count the users of open-source
206 software, we can estimate based on (a) population figures at the WELL
207 and other known fetchmail sites, (b) the size of the Linux-using ISP
208 customer base, and (c) the volume of fetchmail-related talk on USENET.
209 These estimates suggest that daily fetchmail users number well into
210 the tens of thousands, and possibly over a hundred thousand.<p>
212 <H1>The fetchmail paper:</H1>
214 The fetchmail development project was a sociological experiment as well
215 as a technical effort. I ran it as a test of some theories about why the
216 Linux development model works.<P>
219 HREF="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/">The
220 Cathedral And The Bazaar</A>, about these theories and the project.
221 The paper became quite popular and (to my continuing astonishment) may
222 have actually helped change the world. Chase the title link, above,
225 <H1>Recent releases and where fetchmail is going:</H1>
227 Fetchmail is now sufficiently stable and effective that I'm getting
228 very little pressure to fix things or add features. Development has
229 slowed way down, release frequency has dropped off, and we're
230 basically in maintainance mode. Barring any urgent bug fixes, my
231 intention is to leave 5.0.0 alone for several months.<p>
233 Major changes or additions therefore seem unlikely until there are
234 significant changes in or additions to the related protocol RFCs. One
235 development that would stimulate a new release almost instantly is the
236 deployment of a standard lightweight encrypted authentication method
237 for IMAP sessions.<p>
239 <H1>Where you can use fetchmail:</H1>
241 The fetchmail code was developed under Linux, but has also been
242 extensively tested under 4.4BSD, SunOS, Solaris, AIX, and NEXTSTEP. It
243 should be readily portable to other Unix variants (it requires only
244 POSIX plus BSD sockets, and uses GNU autoconf).<P>
246 Fetchmail is supported only for Unix by its official maintainers.
247 However, it is reported to build and run correctly under AmigaOS,
248 Rhapsody, and QNX as well. <p>
250 <H1>Related resources</H1>
252 Jochen Hayek is developing a set of
253 <a href="http://www.ACM.org/~Jochen_Hayek/JHimap_utils/">
254 IMAP tools in Python</a> that read your .fetchmailrc file and are
255 designed to work with fetchmail. Jochen's tools can report selected
256 header lines, or move incoming messages to named mailboxes based on
257 the contents of headers.<p>
259 Hugo Rabson has written a script called \`hotmole' that can retrieve
260 Hotmail mail via the web using Lynx. The script is available on <a
261 href="http://www.jin-sei-kai.demon.co.uk/hugo/linux.html"> Hugo
262 Rabson's Linux page</a>.<P>
264 <H1>Fetchmail's funniest fan letter:</H1>
266 <A HREF="funny.html">This letter</A> still cracks me up whenever I reread it.
268 <H1>The fetchmail button:</H1>
270 If you use fetchmail and like it, here's a nifty fetchmail button you
271 can put on your web page:<P>
273 <center><img src="fetchmail.png"></center><P>
275 Thanks to <a href="http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~smatus1/">Steve
276 Matuszek</a> for the graphic design. The hand in the button (and the
277 larger top-of-page graphic) was actually derived from a color scan of
278 the fetchmail author's hand. <P>
280 <H1>Fetchmail mirror sites:</H1>
282 There is a FTP mirror of the fetchmail FTP directory (not this WWW
283 home site, just the current sources and RPM) in Japan at
284 <a href="ftp://ftp.win.or.jp/pub/network/mail/fetchmail">
285 ftp://ftp.win.or.jp/pub/network/mail/fetchmail</a>.<P>
288 <table width="100%" cellpadding=0><tr>
289 <td width="30%">Back to
290 <a href="http://$WWWVIRTUAL/~esr/software.html">Software</a>
291 <td width="30%" align=center>Up to <a href="http://$WWWVIRTUAL/~esr/sitemap.html">Site Map</a>
292 <td width="30%" align=right>$date
295 <P><ADDRESS>Eric S. Raymond <A HREF="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com"><esr@snark.thyrsus.com></A></ADDRESS>
300 # The following sets edit modes for GNU EMACS