- The fetchmail announcement
+ fetchmail README
fetchmail is a full-featured, robust, well-documented POP2, POP3,
APOP, and IMAP batch mail retrieval/forwarding utility intended to be
local (client) machine's delivery system, so it can then be be read by
normal mail user agents such as elm(1) or Mail(1).
-The fetchmail code was developed under Linux, but should be readily
-portable to other Unix variants (it uses GNU autoconf). It has also
-been ported to QNX; to build under QNX, see the header comments in the
-Makefile.
+The fetchmail code was developed under Linux, but has also been
+extensively tested under 4.4BSD, Solaris and NEXTSTEP. It should be
+readily portable to other Unix variants (it uses GNU autoconf). It
+has also been ported to QNX; to build under QNX, see the header
+comments in the Makefile.
-The fetchmail program was originally authored (under the name
-popclient) by Carl Harris <ceharris@mal.com>. I, Eric S. Raymond,
-<esr@thyrsus.com> took over development in June 1996. I subsequently
-renamed the program `fetchmail' to reflect the addition of IMAP
-support. See the distribution files NEWS for detailed information on
-recent changes and NOTES for design notes.
+Here are fetchmail's main features. Those unique to fetchmail
+(relative to fetchpop1.9, PopTart-0.9.3, get-mail, gwpop, pimp-1.0,
+pop-perl5-1.2, popc, popmail-1.6 and upop) are marked with **.
-Before accepting responsibility for the popclient sources from Carl, I
-had investigated and used and tinkered with every other UNIX
-remote-mail forwarder I could find, including fetchpop1.9,
-PopTart-0.9.3, get-mail, gwpop, pimp-1.0, pop-perl5-1.2, popc,
-popmail-1.6 and upop. I learned from all of them, and fetchmail is a
-carefully-thought-out attempt to render obsolete every other program
-in its class.
+Since 3.0:
-Here are fetchmail's main features. Those unique to fetchmail are marked
-with **.
+ ** Support for ESMTP 8BITMIME and SIZE options.
- * **POP2, POP3, **APOP, **RPOP and **IMAP support.
+ ** The stripcr option to explicitly control carriage-return
+ stripping before mail forwarding.
+
+Since 2.0:
+
+ ** Support for secure use with ssh.
+
+ ** Mailserver passwords can be parsed out of your .netrc file.
+
+ ** When forwarding mail via SMTP, fetchmail respects the 571
+ "spam filter" response and discards any mail that triggers it.
+
+ ** Transaction and error logging may optionally be done via syslog.
+
+ ** (Linux only) Security option to permit fetchmail to poll a host
+ only when a point-to-point link to a particular IP address is up.
+
+ ** RPOP support (restored; had been removed in 1.8).
+
+2.0 and earlier versions:
+
+ * **POP2, POP3, **APOP, **RPOP, **IMAP2bis, **IMAP4 support.
+
+ ** Support for Kerberos user authentication (either MIT or Cygnus).
** Host is auto-probed for a working server if no protocol is
specified for the connection. Thus you don't need to know
means the retrieved mail automatically goes to the system
default MDA as if it were normal sender-initiated SMTP mail.
+ ** Configurable timeout to detect if server connection is dropped.
+
+ ** Support for retrieving and forwarding from multi-drop mailboxes
+ that is guaranteed not to cause mail loops.
+
* Easy control via command line or free-format run control file.
* Daemon mode -- fetchmail can be run in background to poll
* Strict conformance to relevant RFCs and good debugging options.
You could use fetchmail to test and debug server implementatations.
+ * Message and header processing are 8-bit clean.
+
* Carefully written, comprehensive and up-to-date man page describing
- not only modes of operation but also (**) how to interpret the most
+ not only modes of operation but also (**) how to diagnose the most
common kinds of problems and what to do about deficient servers
* Rugged, simple, and well-tested code -- the author relies on it
every day and it has never lost mail, not even in experimental
versions.
- * Large user community -- fetchmail has inherited a significant
- user base from Carl Harris's popclient community. This means
- feedback is rapid, bugs get found and fixed rapidly.
+ * Large user community -- fetchmail has a large user base (the
+ author's beta list includes about two hundred people). This
+ means feedback is rapid, bugs get found and fixed rapidly.
+
+The fetchmail code appears to be stable and free of bugs affecting
+normal operation (that is, retrieving from POP3 or IMAP in single-drop
+mode and forwarding via SMTP to sendmail). It will probably undergo
+substantial change only if and when support for a new retrieval
+protocol or authentication mode is added. See the distribution files
+NEWS for detailed information on recent changes and NOTES for design
+notes.
+
+You can easily fetch the latest version of fetchmail via FTP from the
+following FTP directory:
-At this point, the fetchmail code appears to be stable and bug-free.
-It will probably undergo substantial change only if and when support
-for a new retrieval protocol or IMAP extensions are added.
+ ftp://ftp.ccil.org/pub/esr/fetchmail
-You can easily find the latest version of fetchmail from Eric's home page:
+Or you can get it from Eric's home page:
http://www.ccil.org/~esr
-Just chase the link to the freeware collection. Besides fetchmail, it
+Just chase the link to Eric's Freeware Collection. Besides fetchmail, it
includes a tasty selection of Web authoring tools, programmer's aids,
graphics libraries, compilers for bizarre languages, games, and
miscellaneous interesting hacks. Enjoy!
projects / ~andy / fetchmail / blobdiff