3 # indexgen.sh -- generate current version of fetchmail home page.
7 version=`sed -n <Makefile.in "/VERS=/s/VERS=\([^ ]*\)/\1/p"`
8 date=`date "+%d %b %Y"`
11 <!doctype HTML public "-//W3O//DTD W3 HTML 3.2//EN">
14 <TITLE>Fetchmail Home Page</TITLE>
15 <link rev=made href=mailto:esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
16 <meta name="description" content="The fetchmail home page.">
17 <meta name="keywords" content="fetchmail, POP, POP3, IMAP, IMAP2bis, IMAP4, IMAP4rev1, ETRN, OTP, RPA">
20 <table width="100%" cellpadding=0><tr>
21 <td width="30%">Back to
22 <a href="http://$WWWHOST/~esr/software.html">Software</a>
23 <td width="30%" align=center>Up to <a href="/~esr/sitemap.html">Site Map</a>
24 <td width="30%" align=right>$date
31 <center><img src="bighand.gif"></center>
35 <H1>The fetchmail Home Page</H1>
38 <H1>What fetchmail does:</H1>
40 Fetchmail is a full-featured, robust, well-documented
41 remote-mail retrieval and forwarding utility intended to be used over
42 on-demand TCP/IP links (such as SLIP or PPP connections). It supports
43 every remote-mail protocol now in use on the Internet: POP2, POP3,
44 RPOP, APOP, KPOP, all flavors of <a
45 href="http://www.imap.org">IMAP</a>, and ESMTP ETRN. It can even
46 support IPv6 and IPSEC.<P>
48 Fetchmail retrieves mail from remote mail servers and forwards it via
49 SMTP, so it can then be be read by normal mail user agents such as <a
50 href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a>, elm(1) or BSD Mail.
51 It allows all your system MTA's filtering, forwarding, and aliasing
52 facilities to work just as they would on normal mail.<P>
54 Fetchmail offers better security than any other Unix remote-mail
55 client. It supports APOP, KPOP, OTP, Compuserve RPA, and IMAP RFC1731
56 encrypted authentication methods to avoid sending passwords en
57 clair. It can be configured to support end-to-end encryption via
58 tunneling with <a href="http://www.cs.hut.fi/ssh/">ssh, the Secure Shell</a><p>
60 Fetchmail can be used as a POP/IMAP-to-SMTP gateway for an entire DNS
61 domain, collecting mail from a single drop box on an ISP and
62 SMTP-forwarding it based on header addresses. (We don't really
63 recommend this, though, as it may lose important envelope-header
64 information. ETRN or a UUCP connection is better.)<p>
66 Fetchmail can be started automatically and silently as a system daemon
67 at boot time. When running in this mode with a short poll interval,
68 it is pretty hard for anyone to tell that the incoming mail link is
69 not a full-time "push" connection.<p>
71 Fetchmail is easy to configure. You can edit its dotfile directly, or
72 use the interactive GUI configurator supplied with the fetchmail
75 Fetchmail is fast and lightweight. It packs all its standard
76 features (POP3, IMAP, and ETRN support) in less than 96K of core on a
77 Pentium under Linux.<p>
79 Fetchmail is <a href="http://www.opensource.org">open-source</a>
80 software. The openness of the sources is your strongest possible
81 assurance of quality and reliability.<P>
83 <H1>Where to find out more about fetchmail:</H1>
85 See the <a href="fetchmail-features.html">Fetchmail Feature List</a> for more
86 about what fetchmail does.<p>
88 See the <a href="fetchmail-FAQ.html">HTML Fetchmail FAQ</A> for
89 troubleshooting help.<p>
91 See the <a href="http:design-notes.html">Fetchmail Design Notes</a>
92 for discussion of some of the design choices in fetchmail.<P>
94 <H1>How to get fetchmail:</H1>
96 You can get any of the following leading-edge resources here:
98 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$version.tar.gz">
99 Gzipped source archive of fetchmail $version</a>
100 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$version-1.i386.rpm">
101 Intel binary RPM of fetchmail $version (uses glibc)</a>
102 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$version-1.src.rpm">
103 Source RPM of fetchmail $version</a>
105 Or you can get the last \`gold' version, $goldname:
107 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$goldvers.tar.gz">
108 Gzipped source archive of fetchmail $goldname</a>
109 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$goldvers-1.i386.rpm">
110 Intel binary RPM of fetchmail $goldname (uses glibc)</a>
111 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$goldvers-1.alpha.rpm">
112 Alpha binary RPM of fetchmail $goldname (uses glibc)</a>
113 <LI> <a href="fetchmail-$goldvers-1.src.rpm">
114 Source RPM of fetchmail $goldname</a>
116 For differences between the leading-edge $version and gold $goldname versions,
117 see the distribution <a href="NEWS">NEWS</a> file.<p>
119 (Note that the RPMs don't have the POP2, OTP, IPv6, Kerberos, GSSAPI,
120 or Compuserve RPA support compiled in. To get any of these you will
121 have to build from sources.)<p>
123 The latest version of fetchmail is also carried in the
124 <a href="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/pop/!INDEX.html">
125 Sunsite remote mail tools directory</a>.
127 <H1>Getting help with fetchmail:</H1>
129 There is a fetchmail-friends list for people who want to discuss fixes
130 and improvements in fetchmail and help co-develop it. It's at <a
131 href="mailto:fetchmail-friends@ccil.org">fetchmail-friends@ccil.org</a>.
132 There is also an announcements-only list, <em>fetchmail-announce@ccil.org</em>.<P>
134 Both lists are SmartList reflectors; sign up in the usual way with a
135 message containing the word "subscribe" in the subject line sent to
136 <a href="mailto:fetchmail-friends-request@ccil.org?subject=subscribe">
137 fetchmail-friends-request@ccil.org</a> or
138 <a href="mailto:fetchmail-announce-request@ccil.org?subject=subscribe">
139 fetchmail-announce-request@ccil.org</a>. (Similarly, "unsubscribe"
140 in the Subject line unsubscribes you, and "help" returns general list help) <p>
142 Note: before submitting a question to the list, <strong>please read
143 the <a href="fetchmail-FAQ.html">FAQ</a></strong> (especially item <a
144 href="http:fetchmail-FAQ.html#G3">G3</a> on how to report bugs). We
145 tend to get the same three newbie questions over and over again. The
146 FAQ covers them like a blanket.<P>
148 Fetchmail was written and is maintained by <a
149 href="../index.html">Eric S. Raymond</a>. <a
150 href="mailto:funk+@osu.edu">Rob Funk</a>, <a
151 href="mailto:alberty@apexxtech.com">Al Youngwerth</a> and <a
152 href="mailto:imdave@mcs.net">Dave Bodenstab</a> are fetchmail's
153 designated backup maintainers. Other backup maintainers may be added
154 in the future, in order to ensure continued support should Eric S.
155 Raymond drop permanently off the net for any reason.<P>
157 <H1>Who uses fetchmail:</H1>
159 Fetchmail entered full production status with the 2.0 version in
160 November 1996 after about five months of evolution from the ancestral
161 <IT>popclient</IT> utility. It has since come into extremely wide use
162 in the Internet/Unix/Linux community. The Red Hat, Debian and
163 S.u.S.e. Linux distributions include it. A customized version is used
164 at Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link. Several large ISPs are known to
165 recommend it to Unix-using SLIP and PPP customers.<p>
167 Over five hundred people have participated on the fetchmail beta list.
168 While it's hard to count the users of open-source software, we can
169 estimate based on (a) population figures at the WELL and other known
170 fetchmail sites, (b) the size of the Linux-using ISP customer base,
171 and (c) the volume of fetchmail-related talk on USENET. These
172 estimates suggest that daily fetchmail users number well into the tens
173 of thousands, and possibly over a hundred thousand.<p>
175 <H1>The fetchmail paper:</H1>
177 The fetchmail development project was a sociological experiment as well
178 as a technical effort. I ran it as a test of some theories about why the
179 Linux development model works.<P>
182 HREF="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/">The
183 Cathedral And The Bazaar</A>, about these theories and the project.
184 The paper became quite popular and (to my continuing astonishment) may
185 have actually helped change the world. Chase the title link, above,
188 <H1>Recent releases and where fetchmail is going:</H2>
190 Fetchmail is now sufficiently stable and effective that I'm getting
191 very little pressure to fix things or add features. Development has
192 slowed way down, release frequency has dropped off, and we're
193 basically in maintainance mode.<p>
195 Major changes or additions therefore seem unlikely until there are
196 significant changes in or additions to the related protocol RFCs. One
197 development that would stimulate a new release almost instantly is the
198 deployment of a standard lightweight encrypted authentication method
199 for IMAP sessions.<p>
201 <H1>Where you can use fetchmail:</H1>
203 The fetchmail code was developed under Linux, but has also been
204 extensively tested under 4.4BSD, SunOS, Solaris, AIX, and NEXTSTEP. It
205 should be readily portable to other Unix variants (it requires only
206 POSIX plus BSD sockets, and uses GNU autoconf).<P>
208 Fetchmail is supported only for Unix by its official maintainers.
209 However, it is reported to build and run correctly under AmigaOS and
210 QNX as well. A <a href="http://studentweb.tulane.edu/%7Ejmcbray/os2">beta
211 OS/2 port</a> is available from Jason F. McBrayer.<p>
213 <H1>Fetchmail's funniest fan letter:</H1>
215 <A HREF="funny.html">This letter</A> still cracks me up whenever I reread it.
217 <H1>The fetchmail button:</H1>
219 If you use fetchmail and like it, here's a nifty fetchmail button you
220 can put on your web page:<P>
222 <center><img src="fetchmail.gif"></center><P>
224 Thanks to <a href="http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~smatus1/">Steve
225 Matuszek</a> for the graphic design. The hand in the button (and the
226 larger top-of-page graphic) was actually derived from a color scan of
227 the fetchmail author's hand. <P>
229 <H1>Fetchmail mirror sites:</H1>
231 There is a FTP mirror of the fetchmail FTP directory (not this WWW
232 home site, just the current sources and RPM) in Japan at
233 <a href="ftp://ftp.win.or.jp/pub/network/mail/fetchmail">
234 ftp://ftp.win.or.jp/pub/network/mail/fetchmail</a>.<P>
237 <table width="100%" cellpadding=0><tr>
238 <td width="30%">Back to
239 <a href="http://$WWWHOST/~esr/software.html">Software</a>
240 <td width="30%" align=center>Up to <a href="/~esr/sitemap.html">Site Map</a>
241 <td width="30%" align=right>$date
244 <P><ADDRESS>Eric S. Raymond <A HREF="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com"><esr@snark.thyrsus.com></A></ADDRESS>
249 # The following sets edit modes for GNU EMACS