Before reporting any bug, please read G3 for -advice on how to include diagnostic information that will get your -bug fixed as quickly as possible.
+Support? Bug reports? Please read G3 for what information is required to get your problem +solved as quickly as possible.
-If you have a question or answer you think ought to be added to -this FAQ list, mail it to fetchmail's maintainer, Eric S. Raymond, -at esr@thyrsus.com.
+Note that this FAQ is occasionally updated from the Git repository +and speaks in the past tense ("since") about a fetchmail release that is +not yet available. Please try a release candidate for that version in +case you need the new option.
-If you have a question or answer you think ought to be added to +this FAQ list, file it to one of the trackers at our BerliOS + project site or post to one of the fetchmail mailing lists (see +below).
+ +Fetchmail is a one-stop solution to the remote mail retrieval problem for Unix machines, quite useful to anyone with an -intermittent PPP or SLIP connection to a remote mailserver. It can -collect mail using any variant of POP or IMAP and forwards via port -25 to the local SMTP listener, enabling all the normal -forwarding/filtering/aliasing mechanisms that would apply to local -mail or mail arriving via a full-time TCP/IP connection.
+intermittent or dynamic-IP connection to a remote mailserver, SLIP or +PPP dialup, or leased line when SMTP isn't desired. Fetchmail can +collect mail using any variant of POP or IMAP and forwards to a the +local SMTP (via TCP socket) or LMTP (via TCP or Unix socket) listener or +into an MDA program, enabling all the normal +forwarding/filtering/aliasing mechanisms that would apply to local mail +or mail arriving via a full-time TCP/IP connection.Fetchmail is not a toy or a coder's learning exercise, but an industrial-strength tool capable of transparently handling every @@ -249,42 +309,54 @@ up to mail retrieval and rerouting for an entire client domain. Fetchmail is easy to configure, unobtrusive in operation, powerful, feature-rich, and well documented.
-Fetchmail is open-source -software. The openness of the sources is the strongest assurance of -quality you can have. Extensive peer review by a large, -multi-platform user community has shown that fetchmail is as near -bulletproof as the underlying protocols permit.
+Fetchmail is Open Source +Software. The openness of the sources enables you to review and +customize the code, and contribute your changes.
+ +A former fetchmail maintainer once claimed that Open Source software +were the strongest quality assurance, but the current maintainers do not +believe that open source alone is a criterion for quality – the remotely exploitable POP3 + vulnerability (CVE-2005-2335) lingered undiscovered in +fetchmail's code for years, which is a hint that open source code does +not audit itself.
Fetchmail is licensed under the GNU General Public -License.
+href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GNU General Public +License v2. Details, including an exception that allows linking +against OpenSSL, are in the COPYING file in the fetchmail +distribution.If you found this FAQ in the distribution, see the README for fetchmail's full feature list.
-The latest HTML FAQ is available alongside the latest fetchmail sources at the fetchmail home page: http://fetchmail.berlios.de/. +href="http://www.fetchmail.info/">http://www.fetchmail.info/. You can also usually find both in the -POP mail tools directory on Sunsite.
+href="http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/mail/pop/!INDEX.short.html"> +POP mail tools directory on iBiblio.A text dump of this FAQ is included in the fetchmail distribution. Because it freezes at distribution release time, it may not be completely current.
-Yes I will, provided you include enough diagnostic information +
The first thing you should to is to upgrade to the newest version of +fetchmail, and then see if the problem reproduces. So you'll probably +save us both time if you upgrade and test with the latest + version before sending in a bug report.
+ +Bugs will be fixed, provided you include enough diagnostic information for me to go on. Send bugs to fetchmail-friends. -When reporting bugs, please include the following:
+href="mailto:fetchmail-users@lists.berlios.de">fetchmail-users. +When sending bugs or asking for help, please do not make up + information except your password and please +report the following:It is very important that the transcript include your +POP/IMAP server's greeting line, so I can identify it in case of server +problems. This transcript will not reveal your passwords, which are +specially masked out precisely so transcripts can be passed around.
+If you have FTP access to your remote mail account, and you have any suspicion that the bug was triggered by a particular message, please include a copy of the message that triggered the bug.
-Often, the first thing I will do when you report a bug is tell -you to upgrade to the newest version of fetchmail, and then see if -the problem reproduces. So you'll probably save us both time if you -upgrade and test with the latest version before sending in -a bug report.
-If your bug is something that used to work but stopped working when you upgraded, then you can help pin the bug down by trying intermediate versions +href="http://download.berlios.de/fetchmail/">intermediate versions of fetchmail until you identify the revision that broke your feature. The smart way to do this is by binary search on the version sequence. First, try the version halfway between your last @@ -325,22 +398,17 @@ introduced in the upper half of the sequence; if it doesn't, the failure was introduced in the lower half. Now bisect that half in the same way. In a very few tries, you should be able to identify the exact adjacent pair of versions between which your bug was -introduced -- and with information like that, I can usually come up -with a fix very quickly.
- -Another useful thing you can do, if you're using POP3, is to -test for IMAP4 support on your mailserver using the autoprobe -function of fetchmailconf. If you have IMAP4, and fetchmailconf -doesn't tell you it's broken, switch immediately. POP3 is a weak, -poorly-designed protocol with chronic problems, and the later -versions after RFC1725 actually get worse rather than better. -Changing over to IMAP4 may well make your problem go away -- and if -your ISP doesn't have IMAP4 support, bug them to supply it.
- -It is helpful if you include your .fetchmailrc file, but not +introduced. Please include session transcripts (as +described in the last bullet point above) of both +the working and failing versions. Often, the source of the problem +can instantly identified by looking at the differences in protocol +transactions.
+ +It may helpful if you include your .fetchmailrc file, but not necessary unless your symptom seems to involve an error in configuration parsing. If you do send in your .fetchmailrc, mask -the passwords first!
+the passwords first! Otherwise, fetchmail -V – as directed above +– will usually suffice.If fetchmail seems to run and fetch mail, but the headers look mangled (that is, headers are missing or blank lines are inserted @@ -351,20 +419,6 @@ mail mangling. There are lots of ways for other programs in the mail chain to screw up that look like fetchmail's fault, but you may be able to fix these by tweaking your configuration.
-A transcript of the failed session with -v -v (yes, that's -two -v options, enabling debug mode) will almost always be -useful. It is very important that the transcript include your -POP/IMAP server's greeting line, so I can identify it in case of -server problems. This transcript will not reveal your passwords, -which are specially masked out precisely so transcripts can be -passed around.
- -If you upgraded your fetchmail and something broke, you should -include session transcripts with -v -v of both the working and -failing versions. Very often, the source of the problem can -instantly identified by looking at the differences in protocol -transactions.
-If the bug involves a core dump or hang, a gdb stack trace is good to have. (Bear in mind that you can attach gdb to a running but hung process by giving the process ID as a second argument.) @@ -375,33 +429,29 @@ CFLAGS=-g LDFLAGS=" " ./configure
Then rebuild in order to generate a version that can be -gdb-traced.
+traced with a debugger such as gdb, dbx or idb.Best of all is a mail file which, when fetched, will reproduce the bug under the latest (current) version.
-Any bug I can reproduce will usually get fixed very quickly, -often within 48 hours. Bugs I can't reproduce are a crapshoot. If -the solution isn't obvious when I first look, it may evade me for a -long time (or to put it another way, fetchmail is well enough -tested that the easy bugs have long since been found). So if you -want your bug fixed rapidly, it is not just sufficient but nearly -necessary that you give me a way to reproduce it.
+Any bug I can reproduce will usually get fixed quite quickly. +Bugs I can't reproduce are a crapshoot. If the solution isn't obvious +when I first look, it may evade me for a long time (or to put it another +way, fetchmail is well enough tested that the easy bugs have long since +been found). So if you want your bug fixed rapidly, it is not just +sufficient but necessary that you give me a way to +easily reproduce it.
-Probably not. Most of the feature suggestions I get are for ways -to set various kinds of administrative policy or add more spam -filtering (the most common one, which I used to get about four -million times a week and got really tired of, is for -tin-like kill files).
+If it's reasonable for fetchmail and cannot be solved with reasonable +effort outside of fetchmail, perhaps.
You can do spam filtering better with procmail or maildrop on
the server side and (if you're the server sysadmin) sendmail.cf
domain exclusions. If you really want fetchmail to do it from the
-client side, yse a preconnect command to call
+client side, use a preconnect command to call
mailfilter.
You can do other policy things better with the
@@ -409,127 +459,99 @@ client side, yse a preconnect command to call
it's a prime-time-vs.-non-prime-time issue, ask yourself whether a
wrapper script called from crontab would do the job.
I'm not going to do these; fetchmail's job is transport, not -policy, and I refuse to change it from doing one thing well to -attempting many things badly. One of my objectives is to keep -fetchmail simple so it stays reliable.
+fetchmail's first job is transport though, and it should do this +well. If a feature would cause fetchmail to deteriorate in other +respects, the feature will probably not be added.
For reasons fetchmail doesn't have other commonly-requested features (such as password encryption, or multiple concurrent polls -from the same instance of fetchmail) see the design -notes.
+from the same instance of fetchmail) see ESR's design +notes. Note that this document is partially obsoleted by the +updated design notes. -Fetchmail is a mature project, no longer in constant active -development. It is no longer my top project, and I am going to be -quite reluctant to add features that might either jeopardize its -stability or involve me in large amounts of coding.
- -All that said, if you have a feature idea that really is about a -transport problem that can't be handled anywhere but fetchmail, lay -it on me. I'm very accommodating about good ideas.
- -The second-most-requested feature for fetchmail, after
content-based filtering, is the ability to have it remove messages
from a maildrop after N days, typically to be used with the
-keep option as a sort of poor man's newsgroup
-facility. Microsoft's Outlook Express supports this.
keep option. Several messaging programs with graphical
+user interface support this feature.
-This feature won't be added either. Repeat after me: fetchmail's -job is transport, not policy. If you want this, write a Perl or -Python script, to be run from a cron job, that deletes old messages -off your maildrop. Send it to me and I'll put it in the contrib -directory.
+This feature is not yet implemented. It may be at a future date, +spare time of developers permitting.
+ +For the time being, the contrib/ directory contains some unsupported + tools that may help, namely mold-remover.py and delete-later.
-There is a fetchmail-friends list -(fetchmail-friends@lists.ccil.org) for people who want to discuss +
There is a fetchmail-users list +<fetchmail-users@lists.berlios.de> +for bug reports and people who want to discuss configuration issues of +fetchmail. Please see G3 above for information you need to +report. It's a Mailman list, see http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/fetchmail-users +for info and subscription.
+There is a fetchmail-devel list +<fetchmail-devel@lists.berlios.de> for people who want to discuss fixes and improvements in fetchmail and help co-develop it. It's a -MailMan list, which you can sign up for at http://lists.ccil.org/mailman/listinfo/fetchmail-friends. -There is also an announcements-only list, -fetchmail-announce@lists.ccil.org, which you can sign up for at http://lists.ccil.org/mailman/listinfo/fetchmail-announce.
+Mailman list, which you can sign up for at http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/fetchmail-devel. +There is also an announcements-only list, +<fetchmail-announce@lists.berlios.de>, which you can sign up for at http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/fetchmail-announce.
-The fetchmail development was also a sociological experiment, an -extended test to see if my theory about the critical features of -the Linux development model is correct.
+Eric S. Raymond also considered fetchmail development a sociological +experiment, an extended test to see if my theory about the critical +features of the Linux development model is correct.
-The experiment was a success. I wrote a paper about it titled He considers the experiment a success. He wrote a paper about it titled The Cathedral and the Bazaar which was first presented at Linux Kongress '97 in Bavaria and very well received there. It was also given at Atlanta Linux Expo, Linux Pro '97 in Warsaw, and the first Perl Conference, at UniForum '98, and was the basis of an invited -presentation at Usenix '98. The folks at Netscape tell me it helped +presentation at Usenix '98. The folks at Netscape told ESR it helped them decide to give +href="http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease558.html">give away the source for Netscape Communicator.
If you're reading a non-HTML dump of this FAQ, you can find the paper on the Web with a search for that title.
-The short answer: IMAP 2000 running over Unix.
- -Here's a longer answer:
-Fetchmail will work with any POP, IMAP, ETRN, or ODMR server -that conforms to the relevant RFCs (and even some outright broken -ones like Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise). This doesn't mean it works -equally well with all, however. POP2 servers, and POP3 servers -without LAST, limit fetchmail's capabilities in various ways -described on the manual page.
+that conforms to the relevant standards/RFCs (and even some outright +broken ones like Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise). This doesn't mean it works equally +well with all, however. POP2 servers, and POP3 servers without UIDL, +limit fetchmail's capabilities in various ways described on the manual +page.Most modern Unixes (and effectively all Linux/*BSD systems) come with POP3 support preconfigured (but beware of the horribly broken POP3 server mentioned in D2). An increasing -minority also feature IMAP (you can detect IMAP support by running -fetchmail in AUTO mode, or by using the `Probe for supported -protocols' function in the fetchmailconf utility).
+minority also feature IMAP (you can detect IMAP support by using the +'Probe for supported protocols' function in the fetchmailconf +utility - unfortunately it does not detect SSL-wrapped variants).If you have the option, we recommend using or installing an -IMAP4rev1 server; it has the best facilities for tracking message -`seen' states. It also recovers from interrupted connections more -gracefully than POP3, and enables some significant performance -optimizations. The new IMAP 2000 -is particularly nice, as it supports CRAM-MD5 so you don't have to -ship your mail password over the net en clair (fetchmail -autodetects this capability). Older versions had support for GSSAPI -giving a similar effect.
- -Don't be fooled by NT/Exchange propaganda. M$ Exchange is just -plain broken (see item S2) and NT cannot handle -the sustained load of a high-volume remote mail server. Even -Microsoft itself knows better than to try this; their own Hotmail -service runs over Solaris! For extended discussion, see John -Kirch's excellent white -paper on Unix vs. NT performance.
- -Source for a high-quality supported implementation of POP is -available from the Eudora -FTP site. Don't use 2.5, which has a rather restrictive -license. The 2.5.2 version appears to restore the open-source -license of previous versions.
+IMAP4rev1 or UIDL-capable POP3 server. + +A decent POP3/IMAP server that has recently become popular is Dovecot.
+ +Avoid qmail, + it's broken and unmaintained.
-All this having been said, I can't resist putting in a discreet -plug for mutt. My own personal -mail setup is sendmail plus fetchmail plus mutt. Mutt's interface +plug for mutt. Mutt's interface is only a little different from that of its now-moribund ancestor -elm, but its excellent handling of MIME and PGP put it in a class -by itself. You won't need its built-in POP3 support, though; most -of the mutt developers will cheerfully admit that fetchmail's is -better :-).
+elm, but its flexibility and excellent handling of MIME and PGP put it +in a class by itself. You won't need its built-in POP3 support, though. + -Most people use fetchmail over phone wires (whether plain old -copper or DSL), which are hard to tap. Anybody with the skill and -resources to do this could get into your server mailbox with much less -effort by subverting the server host. So if your provider setup is -phone-company wire going straight into a service box, you probably -don't need to worry.
-In general there is little point in trying to secure your fetchmail transaction unless you trust the security of the server host you are retrieving mail from. Your vulnerability is more likely to be an @@ -578,16 +590,16 @@ concentrator or DSL POP you dial in to and the mailserver host).
Having realized this, you need to ask whether password encryption alone will really address your security exposure. If you think you might be snooped between server and client, it's better -to use end-to-end encryption on your whole mail stream so none of -it can be read. One of the advantages of fetchmail over -conventional SMTP-push delivery is that you may be able to arrange -this by using ssh(1); see K3.
+to use end-to-end encryption such as GnuPG (see below) on your whole +mail stream so none of it can be read. One of the advantages of +fetchmail over conventional SMTP-push delivery is that you may be able +to arrange encryption by using ssh(1); see K3.Note that ssh is not a complete privacy solution either, as your mail could have been snooped in transit to your POP server from wherever it originated. For best security, agree with your correspondents to use a tool such as GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) or PGP + href="http://www.gnupg.org/">GnuPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) or PGP (Pretty Good Privacy).
If ssh/sshd isn't available, or you find it too complicated for
@@ -602,7 +614,7 @@ to a CAPABILITY query). Do a fetchmail -v to see
these, or telnet direct to the server port (110 for POP3, 143 for
IMAP).
If your mailserver is using IMAP 2000, you'll have CRAM-MD5 +
If your mailserver is using IMAP 2000, it'll have CRAM-MD5 support built in. Fetchmail autodetects this; you can skip the rest of this section.
@@ -612,11 +624,12 @@ autoprobe facility will detect it and tell you if you have it). If you see something in the greeting line that looks like an angle-bracket-enclosed Internet address with a numeric left-hand part, that's an APOP challenge (it will vary each time you log in). -You can register a secret on the host (using -popauth(8) or some program like it). Specify the
+For some hosts, you need to register a secret on the host (using
+popauth(8) or some program like that). Specify the
secret as your password in your .fetchmailrc; it will be used to
encrypt the current challenge, and the encrypted form will be sent
-back the the server for verification.
+back the the server for verification. Note that APOP is no longer
+considered secure since March 2007.
Alternatively, you may have Kerberos available. This may require you to set up some magic files in your home directory on your @@ -632,8 +645,8 @@ present by looking for AUTH=KERBEROS_V4 in the CAPABILITY response.
If you are fetching mail from a CompuServe POP3 account, you can -use their RPA authentication (which works much like APOP). See I1 for details. If you are fetching mail from +use their RPA authentication. See I1 for details. +If you are fetching mail from Microsoft Exchange using IMAP, you will be able to use NTLM.
Your POP3 server may have the RFC1938 OTP capability to use @@ -647,7 +660,7 @@ password but it will not be sent en clair.
You can get both POP3 and IMAP OTP patches from Craig Metz at http://www.inner.net/pub/.
+href="http://www.inner.net/opie">http://www.inner.net/opie.These patches use a SASL authentication method named "X-OTP" because there is not currently a standard way to do this; fetchmail @@ -657,13 +670,12 @@ better, because this is how Craig gets his mail ;-)
Finally, you can use SSL for complete end-to-end encryption if you have an SSL-enabled mailserver.
-Yes. In order to avoid giving indigestion to certain picky MTAs -(notably exim), fetchmail always makes the RCPT -TO address it feeds the MTA a fully qualified one with a hostname +(notably exim), fetchmail always makes the RCPT TO +address it feeds the MTA a fully qualified one with a hostname part. Normally it does this by appending @ and "localhost", but when you are using Kerberos or ETRN mode it will append @ and your machine's fully-qualified domain name (FQDN).
@@ -672,7 +684,7 @@ machine's fully-qualified domain name (FQDN). in daemon mode and outlasts the dynamic IP address assignment your client machine had when it started up. -Since the new IP address (looked up at RCPT TO interpretation +
Since the new IP address (looked up at RCPT TO interpretation time) doesn't match the original, the most benign possible result is that your MTA thinks it's seeing a relaying attempt and refuses. More frequently, fetchmail will try to connect to a nonexistent @@ -681,17 +693,17 @@ mail to the wrong machine!
Use the smtpaddress option to force the appended
hostname to one with a (fixed) IP address of 127.0.0.1 in your
-/etc/hosts. (The name `localhost' will usually work;
-or you can use the IP address itself).
/etc/hosts. (The name 'localhost' will usually work;
+or you can use the IP address itself.)
Only one fetchmail option interacts directly with your IP
-address, `interface'. This option can be used to set
+address, 'interface'. This option can be used to set
the gateway device and restrict the IP address range fetchmail will
use. Such a restriction is sometimes useful for security reasons,
especially on multihomed sites. See C3.
I recommend against trying to set up the interface
-option when initially developing your poll configuration -- it's
+option when initially developing your poll configuration – it's
never necessary to do this just to get a link working. Get the link
working first, observe the actual address range you see on
connections, and add an interface option (if you need
@@ -709,11 +721,11 @@ that case.
You can use On-Demand Mail Relay (ODMR) with a dynamic IP address; that's what it was designed for, and it provides capabilities very similar to ETRN. Unfortunately ODMR servers are -not yet widely deployed, as of early 2001.
+still not yet widely deployed, as of 2006.If you're using a dynamic-IP configuration, one other (non-fetchmail) problem you may run into with outgoing mail is that -some sites will bounce your email because the hostname your giving +some sites will bounce your email because the hostname you're giving them isn't real (and doesn't match what they get doing a reverse DNS on your dynamically-assigned IP address). If this happens, you need to hack your sendmail so it masquerades as your host. @@ -735,7 +747,6 @@ mailhost.) See the sendmail FAQ for more details.
-The specific recipe for using fetchmail with a firewall is at K1
-Fetchmail streams message bodies line-by-line; the most core it ever requires per message is enough memory to hold the RFC822 header, and that storage is freed when body processing begins. It -is, accordingly, quite economical in its use of memory.
+is, accordingly, quite economical in its use of memory. It will store +the UID or UIDL data in core however, which can become considerable if +you are keeping lots of messages on the server.After startup time, a fetchmail running in daemon mode stats its configuration file once per poll cycle to see whether it has @@ -810,78 +819,75 @@ by buying more TCP/IP capacity (which tends to improve bandwidth but not necessarily latency).
The vendor-supplied make on FreeBSD systems can only be used -within FreeBSD's "scope", e.g. the ports collection. Type "gmake" -to run GNU make and better things will happen.
+As of release 6.3.0, fetchmail's
+Makefile[.in] should work flawlessly with BSD's portable make used on
+FreeBSD. With older releases, use GNU make (usually installed as
+gmake; otherwise try pkg_add -r gmake).
In the immortal words of Alan Cox the last time this came up: -``Take the Solaris lex and stick it up the backside of a passing -Sun salesman, then install flex and use that. -All will be happier.''
+fetchmail 6.3.0 and newer ship with the lexer and parser in .c +formats, so you do not need to use lex unless you hacked the .l or .y +files.
-I couldn't have put it better myself, and ain't going to try -now.
+fetchmail's lexer has been developed with GNU flex and uses some of +its specialties, so the lexer cannot be compiled with the lex tools +shipped by some UNIX vendors (HP, SGI, Sun).
-(The same problem has been reported under HP-UX v10.20 and -IRIX)
- -If you get errors resembling these
+If you get errors resembling these:
-mxget.o(.text+0x35): undefined referenceto `__res_search' -mxget.o(.text+0x99): undefined reference to`__dn_skipname' -mxget.o(.text+0x11c): undefined reference to`__dn_expand' -mxget.o(.text+0x187): undefined reference to`__dn_expand' +mxget.o(.text+0x35): undefined referenceto '__res_search' +mxget.o(.text+0x99): undefined reference to '__dn_skipname' +mxget.o(.text+0x11c): undefined reference to '__dn_expand' +mxget.o(.text+0x187): undefined reference to '__dn_expand' make: *** [fetchmail] Error 1
then you must add "-lresolv" to the LOADLIBS line in your -Makefile once you have installed the `bind' package.
+Makefile once you have installed the 'bind' package.If you get link errors involving dcgettext, like -this:
+these:-rcfile_y.o: In function `yyparse': -rcfile_y.o(.text+0x3aa): undefined reference to `dcgettext__' -rcfile_y.o(.text+0x4f2): undefined reference to `dcgettext__' -rcfile_y.o(.text+0x5ee): undefined reference to `dcgettext__' -rcfile_y.o: In function `yyerror': -rcfile_y.o(.text+0xc7c): undefined reference to `dcgettext__' -rcfile_y.o(.text+0xcc8): undefined reference to `dcgettext__' -rcfile_y.o(.text+0xdf9): more undefined references to `dcgettext__' follow +rcfile_y.o: In function 'yyparse': +rcfile_y.o(.text+0x3aa): undefined reference to 'dcgettext__' +rcfile_y.o(.text+0x4f2): undefined reference to 'dcgettext__' +rcfile_y.o(.text+0x5ee): undefined reference to 'dcgettext__' +rcfile_y.o: In function 'yyerror': +rcfile_y.o(.text+0xc7c): undefined reference to 'dcgettext__' +rcfile_y.o(.text+0xcc8): undefined reference to 'dcgettext__' +rcfile_y.o(.text+0xdf9): more undefined references to 'dcgettext__' follow-
reconfigure with configure --with-included-gettext. -This is due to some brain-damage in the GNU internationalization -libraries.
+install an up to date version of GNU gettext, reconfigure and rebuild +fetchmail. If that does not help, reconfigure with '--disable-nls' added +to the "./configure" command and rebuild.
-Reconfigure with --disable-nls and recompile.
-GNU gettext is an overengineered, fragile pile of crap. I have -teetered on the brink of removing support for it entirely several -times.
-The netsec option was discontinued and needs to be +removed.
+If you were using ETRN mode, change your smtphost @@ -889,8 +895,8 @@ option to a fetchdomains option.
The `via localhost' special case for use with ssh tunnelling is -gone. Use the %h feature of plugin instead.
+The 'via localhost' special case for use with ssh tunnelling is +gone. Use the %h feature of plugin instead.
Setting the preauth option to any value other than -`password' will prevent from looking for a password in your +'password' will prevent from looking for a password in your .netrc file or querying for it at startup time.
Just after the `via' option was introduced, I
-realized that the interactions between the `via',
-`aka', and `localdomains' options were
+
Just after the 'via' option was introduced, I
+realized that the interactions between the 'via',
+'aka', and 'localdomains' options were
out of control. Their behavior had become complex and confusing, so
much so that I was no longer sure I understood it myself. Users
were being unpleasantly surprised.
Any multidrop configurations that depended on the name just
-after the `poll' or `skip' keyword being
+after the 'poll' or 'skip' keyword being
still interpreted as a DNS name for address-matching purposes, even
-in the presence of a `via' option, will break.
via' option, will break.
It is theoretically possible that other unusual configurations (such as those using a non-FQDN poll name to generate Kerberos IV @@ -957,19 +963,19 @@ contact the maintainer.
The `remote' keyword has been changed to
-`folder'. If you try to use the old keyword, the
+
The 'remote' keyword has been changed to
+'folder'. If you try to use the old keyword, the
parser will utter a warning.
It could be because you're using a .fetchmailrc that's written
in the old popclient syntax without an explicit
-`username' keyword leading the first user entry
+'username' keyword leading the first user entry
attached to a server entry.
This error can be triggered by having a user option such as
-`keep' or `fetchall' before the first
+'keep' or 'fetchall' before the first
explicit username. For example, if you write
@@ -977,7 +983,7 @@ poll openmail protocol pop3
keep user "Hal DeVore" there is hdevore here
-the `keep' option will generate an entire user
+
the 'keep' option will generate an entire user
entry with the default username (the name of fetchmail's invoking
user).
The `interface', `monitor' and
-`batchlimit' options changed after 2.8.
The 'interface', 'monitor' and
+'batchlimit' options changed after 2.8.
They used to be global options with `set' syntax
+
They used to be global options with 'set' syntax
like the batchlimit and logfile options. Now they're per-server
-options, like `protocol'.
protocol'.
If you had something like
@@ -1000,13 +1006,12 @@ options, like `protocol'.
in your .fetchmailrc file, simply delete that line and insert -`interface sl0/10.0.2.15' in the server options part of your -`defaults' declaration.
+'interface sl0/10.0.2.15' in the server options part of your +'defaults' declaration. -Do similarly for any `monitor' or
-`batchlimit' options.
Do similarly for any 'monitor' or
+'batchlimit' options.
The lexical analyzer in 5.0.6 and beyond is smarter and assumes any token following "username" or "password" is a string.
-See F2. You're caught in an unfortunate crack -between the newer-style syntax for negated options (`no keep', `no -rewrite' etc.) and the older style run-on syntax (`nokeep', -`norewrite' etc.).
+between the newer-style syntax for negated options ('no keep', 'no +rewrite' etc.) and the older style run-on syntax ('nokeep', +'norewrite' etc.).Upgrade to a 5.0.6 or later fetchmail, or put string quotes around your token.
-The most common cause of mysterious parse errors is putting a server option after a user option. Check the manual page; you'll probably find that by moving one or more options closer to the -`poll' keyword you can eliminate the problem.
+'poll' keyword you can eliminate the problem.Yes, I know these ordering restrictions are hard to understand. -Unfortunately, they're necessary in order to allow the `defaults' +Unfortunately, they're necessary in order to allow the 'defaults' feature to work.
It won't work if the second line is just "user
itz". This is silly.
It seems fetchmail decides to RECP the `default local user' +
It seems fetchmail decides to RECP the 'default local user' (i.e. the uid running fetchmail) unless there are local aliases, -and the `default' aliases (itz->itz) don't count. They +and the 'default' aliases (itz->itz) don't count. They should.
Answer:
@@ -1083,7 +1087,7 @@ should.No they shouldn't. I thought about this for a while, and I don't much like the conclusion I reached, but it's unavoidable. The problem is that fetchmail has no way to know, in general, that a -local user `itz' actually exists.
+local user 'itz' actually exists."Ah!" you say, "Why doesn't it check the password file to see if the remote name matches a local one?" Well, there are two @@ -1104,15 +1108,14 @@ about ways to tinker with the mapping rules, you'll quickly find that all the alternatives to the present default are worse or unacceptably more complicated or both.
-The easiest way to dispatch fetchmail on logout (which will work reliably only if you have just one login going at any time) is to -arrange for the command `fetchmail -q' to be called on logout. -Under bash, you can arrange this by putting `fetchmail -q' in the -file `~/.bash_logout'. Most csh variants execute `~/.logout' on +arrange for the command 'fetchmail -q' to be called on logout. +Under bash, you can arrange this by putting 'fetchmail -q' in the +file '~/.bash_logout'. Most csh variants execute '~/.logout' on logout. For other shells, consult your shell manual page.
Automatic startup/shutdown of fetchmail is a little harder to @@ -1125,7 +1128,6 @@ profiles that will accomplish this. Thank James Laferriere
Some people start up and shut down fetchmail using the ppp-up and ppp-down scripts of pppd.
-To actually set up the database, run
@@ -1252,7 +1253,6 @@ fetchmail will flush and delete it. your reject file. You will lose mail if you do this!!! -Often, startup scripts have a different environment than an @@ -1285,7 +1284,6 @@ fetchmail at startup can't find the .fetchmailrc.
-f option to point fetchmail at it. That should solve the problem. -smtphost or
smtpname option. See the manual page for details.
+Some users want to write scripts that take action only if mail +could/could not be retrieved, thus fetchmail reports if it has retrieved +messages or not.
+ +If you do not want "no mail" to be an error condition (for instance, +for cron jobs), use a POSIX-compliant shell and add this to the end of +the fetchmail command line, it will change an exit code of 1 to 0 and +others to 1:
++|| [ $? -eq 1 ] ++ +
If you want to map more than one code to 0, you cannot cascade multiple +|| [ $? -eq N ], but you must instead use the +-o operator inside the brackets, (see the test(1) +manpage for details), such as:
+ ++|| [ $? -eq 1 -o $? -eq 9 ] ++ +
A full cron line might then look like this:
+ ++*/15 * * * * fetchmail -s || [ $? -eq 1 ] ++ +
FEATURE(always_add_domain) is
included in sendmail's configuration, you can leave the
rewrite option off.
-If your sendmail complains ``sendmail does not relay'', make +
If your sendmail complains "sendmail does not relay", make
sure your sendmail.cf file says Cwlocalhost so that
-sendmail recognizes `localhost' as a name of its host.
If you're mailing from another machine on your local network, also ensure that its IP address is listed in ip_allow or name in name_allow (usually in /etc/mail/)
If you find that your sendmail doesn't like the address
-`FETCHMAIL-DAEMON@localhost' (which is used in the bouncemail that
+'FETCHMAIL-DAEMON@localhost' (which is used in the bouncemail that
fetchmail generates), you may have to set
FEATURE(accept_unqualified_senders).
H?J?Delivered-To: $u
-Mmdrop, P=/usr/bin/procmail, F=lsDFMqSPfhnu9J,
+Mmdrop, P=/usr/bin/procmail, F=lsDFMqSPfhnu9J,
S=EnvFromSMTP/HdrFromSMTP, R=EnvToSMTP/HdrToSMTP,
T=DNS/RFC822/X-Unix,
A=procmail -Y -a $u -d $h
-For both hacks, you have to declare ` For both hacks, you have to declare ' You will notice that if the mail already has a Delivered-To
header, sendmail will not add another. Further, editing
sendmail.cf directly is not very comfortable. Solutions for
-both problems can be found in Peter `Rattacresh' Backes' `hybrid'
+both problems can be found in Peter 'Rattacresh' Backes' 'hybrid'
patch against sendmail. Have a look at it, you can find it in
the contrib subdirectory.envelope
+envelope
"Delivered-To:"' on the fetchmail side, to put the virtual
-domain (e.g. `domain.com') with RELAY permission into your access
-file and to add a line reading `domain.com
-local:local-pop-user' for the first and `domain.com
+domain (e.g. 'domain.com') with RELAY permission into your access
+file and to add a line reading 'domain.com
+local:local-pop-user' for the first and 'domain.com
mdrop:local-pop-user' for the second hack to your
mailertable.
Avoid qmail, + it's broken and unmaintained.
+Turn on the forcecr option; qmail's listener mode
doesn't like header or message lines terminated with bare
-linefeeds.
(This information is thanks to Robert de Bath
+linefeeds.
+(This information contributed by Robert de Bath
<robert@mayday.cix.co.uk>.)
If a mailhost is using the qmail package (see http://pobox.com/~djb/qmail.html) -then, providing the local hosts are also using qmail, it is -possible to set up one fetchmail link to be reliably collect the -mail for an entire domain.
+Note that qmail's POP3 server, as of version 1.03 and netqmail 1.05, +miscalculates the message sizes, so you may see size-related fetchmail +warnings.
-One of the basic features of qmail is the `Delivered-To:' +
If a mailhost is using the qmail package, then it is usually possible +to set up one fetchmail link to reliably collect the mail for an entire +domain.
+ +One of the basic features of qmail is the 'Delivered-To:' message header. Whenever qmail delivers a message to a local mailbox it puts the username and hostname of the envelope recipient -on this line. The major reason for this is to prevent mail -loops.
+on this line. One major reason for this is to prevent mail +loops, the other is to transport envelope information which is essential +for multidrop (domain-in-a-mailbox) schemes. -To set up qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site the -ISP-mailhost will have normally put that site in its `virtualhosts' +
To set up qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site, the +ISP-mailhost will have normally put that site in its 'virtualhosts' control file so it will add a prefix to all mail addresses for this site. This results in mail sent to -'username@userhost.userdom.dom.com' having a 'Delivered-To:' line +'username@userhost.userdom.example.com' having a 'Delivered-To:' line of the form:
- Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.userdom.dom.com + Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.userdom.example.com
A single host maildrop will be slightly simpler:
- Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.dom.com + Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.example.com
The ISP can make the 'mbox-userstr-' prefix anything they choose @@ -1426,43 +1464,18 @@ but a string matching the user host name is likely.
To use this line you must:
envelope "Delivered-To"' is in the fetchmail
config file.So far this reliably delivers messages to the correct machine of -the local network, to deliver to the correct user the -'mbox-userstr-' prefix must be stripped off of the user name. This -can be done by setting up an alias within the qmail MTA on each -local machine. Simply create a dot-qmail file called -'.qmail-mbox-userstr-default' in the alias directory (normally -/var/qmail/alias) with the contents:
- -
- | ../bin/qmail-inject -a -f"$SENDER" "${LOCAL#mbox-userstr-}@$HOST"
-
-
-Note this does require a modern /bin/sh.
- -Peter Wilson adds:
+qvirtual "mbox-userstr-"' is
+in the fetchmail config file, in order to remove this prefix from the
+username. (added by Luca Olivetti)``My ISP uses "alias-unzzippedcom-" as the prefix, which means -that I need to name my file ".qmail-unzzippedcom-default". This is -due to qmail's assumption that a message sent to user-xyz is -handled by the file ~user/.qmail-xyz (or -~user/.qmail-default).''
- -Luca Olivetti adds:
- -If you aren't using qmail locally, or you don't want to set up
-the alias mechanism described above, you can use the option
-`qvirtual "mbox-userstr-"' in your fetchmail config
-file to strip the prefix from the local user name.
localdomains option containing
+'userdom.example.com' or 'userhost.userdom.example.com'
+respectively.In exim.conf, add `localhost' to your local_domains declaration +
In exim.conf, add 'localhost' to your local_domains declaration if it's not already present. For example, the author's site at thyrsus.com would have a line reading:
@@ -1511,7 +1524,6 @@ this will result in such messages having an incorrect domain name attached to their return address (your SMTP listener's hostname rather than that of the remote mail server). -Very recent smail versions require an @@ -1538,26 +1550,23 @@ listener must allow this mismatch, so smail's new behavior to accept the "localhost" that fetchmail normally appends to recipient addresses.
-MMDF itself is difficult to configure, but it turns out that connecting fetchmail to MMDF's SMTP channel isn't that hard. You can read an MMDF +href="http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/uucptofetch.html">MMDF recipe that describes replacing a UUCP link with fetchmail feeding MMDF.
-The Lotus Notes SMTP gateway tries to deduce when it should convert \n to \r\n, but its rules are not the intuitive and -correct-for-RFC822 ones. Use `forcecr'.
+correct-for-RFC822 ones. Use 'forcecr'. -someone@localhost. Work around this with an
smtphost or smtpaddress.
-vbmailshield's SMTP interpreter is broken. It doesn't understand RSET.
@@ -1573,40 +1581,12 @@ IMAP?As a workaround, you can set batchlimit to 1 so RSET is never used.
Qualcomm's qpopper is probably the best-of-breed among POP3 -servers, and is very widely deployed. Nevertheless, it has some -problems which fetchmail exposes. We recommend using IMAP instead if at all possible. If you must talk to -qpopper, here are some problems to be aware of:
- -Tony Tang <tony@atn.com.hk> reports -that there is a bad intercation between fetchmail and qpopper 2.5.3 -under Red Hat Linux versions 5.0 to 5.2, kernels 2.0.34 to 2.0.35. -When fetching very large messages (over 700K) from 2.5.3, fetchmail -will hang with a socket error.
- -This is probably not a fetchmail bug, but rather a symptom of -some problem in the networking stack that qpopper's transmission -pattern is tickling, as fetchpop (another Linux POP client) also -displays the hang but Netscape running under Win95 does not. The -problem can also be banished by upgrading to -qpopper 3.0b1.
- -Versions of fetchmail from 4.4.2 through 4.4.7 had a bad -interaction with Eudora qpopper versions 2.3 and later. See X5 for details. The solution is to upgrade your -fetchmail.
+The information that used to be here was obsolete and dropped.
-Fetchmail using IMAP supports the proprietary NTLM mode used -with M$ Exchange servers. To enable this, configure fetchmail with +
Fetchmail using IMAP usually supports the proprietary NTLM mode used +with Microsoft Exchange servers. "Usually" here means that it fails on some +servers for reasons that we haven't been able to debug yet, perhaps it's +related to the NTLM domain.
+ +To enable this NTLM mode, configure fetchmail with the --enable-NTLM option and recompile it. Specify a user option -value that looks like `user@domain': the part to the left of the @ +value that looks like 'user@domain': the part to the left of the @ will be passed as the username and the part to the right as the NTLM domain.
-M$ Exchange violates the POP3 and IMAP RFCs. Its LIST command +
Microsoft Exchange violates the POP3 and IMAP RFCs. Its LIST command does not reveal the real sizes of mail in the pop mailbox, but the sizes of the compressed versions in the exchange mail database (thanks to Arjan De Vet and Guido Van Rooij for alerting us to this problem).
-Fetchmail works with M$ Exchange, despite this brain damage. Two -features are compromised. One is that the --limit option will not +
Fetchmail works with Microsoft Exchange, despite this brain damage. +Two features are compromised. One is that the --limit option will not work right (it will check against compressed and not actual sizes). The other is that a too-small SIZE argument may be passed to your ESMTP listener, assuming you're using one (this should not be a problem unless the actual size of the message is above the listener's configured length limit).
-Somewhat belatedly, I've learned that there's supposed to be a +
ESR learned that there's supposed to be a registry bit that can fix this breakage:
@@ -1706,7 +1690,7 @@ reported in KB Q168109) deleted. --The Microsoft pod-person who revealed this information to me +
The Microsoft employee who revealed this information to ESR admitted that he couldn't find it anywhere in their public knowledge base.
@@ -1714,7 +1698,7 @@ knowledge base. as its symptom a response to LOGIN that says "NO Ambiguous Alias". Grant Edwards writes: -This means that Exchange Server is too f*&#ing stupid to +
-This means that Exchange Server is too [...] stupid to figure out which mailbox belongs to you. Instead of actually keeping track of which inbox belongs to which user, it uses some half-witted, guess-o-matic heuristic to try to guess your mailbox @@ -1722,9 +1706,7 @@ name from your username.
In your case it doesn't work because your username maps to more than one mailbox. For some people it doesn't work because their -username maps to zero mailboxes. This is yet another inept, lame, -almost criminally negligent design decision from our friends in -Redmond.
+username maps to zero mailboxes.You've got several options:
@@ -1735,13 +1717,11 @@ usernames and mailbox names are the same.Get your administrator to add an alias that maps your username explicitly to your mailbox name. +But, the best option involves a tactical nuclear weapon (an old -ASROC will do), pissing off a lot people who live downwind from -Redmond, and your choice of any Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, or Solaris -CD-ROM.
+But, the best option involves finding a server that runs better +software.
-
S3. How can I use fetchmail with HP OpenMail?
@@ -1751,43 +1731,34 @@ href="#S2">Microsoft Exchange. The message sizes it gives in the LIST are rounded to the nearest 1024 bytes. It also has a nasty habit of discarding headers it doesn't recognize, such as X- and Resent- headers. - -As with M$ Exchange, the only real fix for these problems is to -get a POP (or preferably IMAP) server that isn't brain-dead. -OpenMail's project manager claims these bugs have been fixed in +
OpenMail's project manager claims these bugs have been fixed in 6.0.
We've had a more recent report (December 2001) that the TOP -command fails, returning only one line regrardless of its argument, +command fails, returning only one line regardless of its argument, on something identifying itself as "OpenMail POP3 interface".
-
S4. How can I use fetchmail with Novell GroupWise?
-The Novell GroupWise IMAP server would be better named -GroupFoolish; it is (according to the designer of IMAP) unusably -broken. Among other things, it doesn't include a required content -length in its BODY[TEXT] response.
+The Novell GroupWise IMAP server is (according to the designer of +IMAP) unusably broken. Among other things, it doesn't include a required +content length in its BODY[TEXT] response.
-Fetchmail works around this problem, but we strongly recommend -voting with your dollars for a server that isn't brain-dead. If you -stick with code as shoddy as GroupWise seems to be, you will -probably pay for it with other problems.
+Fetchmail works around this problem to some extent, but no guarantees.
-
S5. How can I use fetchmail with InterChange?
You can't. At least not if you want to be able to see -attachments. InterChange has a bug similar to the MailMax server; +attachments. InterChange has a bug similar to the MailMax server (see below): it reports the message length with attachments but doesn't download them on TOP or RETR.
-On Jan 9 2001, the people at InfiniteMail sent me mail informing -me that their new 3.61.08 release of InterChange fixes this -problem. I don't have any reports one way or the other yet.
+On Jan 9 2001, the people at InfiniteMail sent ESR mail informing +him that their new 3.61.08 release of InterChange fixed this +problem.
-
S6. How can I use fetchmail with MailMax?
You can't. At least not if you want to be able to see @@ -1800,7 +1771,6 @@ developers have acknowledged this bug as of 4 May 2000, but there is no fix yet. If you must use this server, force RETR with the fetchall option.
-
S7. How can I use fetchmail with FTGate?
The FTGate V2 server (and possibly older versions as well) has a @@ -1809,6 +1779,7 @@ weird bug. It answers OK twice to a TOP request! Use the this bug.
+How to fetchmail work with specific ISPs
I1. How can I use fetchmail with CompuServe RPA?
First, make sure your fetchmail has the RPA support compiled in. @@ -1820,12 +1791,12 @@ good to go, otherwise you'll have to build your own from sources directions).
Give your CompuServe pass-phrase in lower case as your password. -Add `@compuserve.com' to your user ID so that it looks like `user +Add '@compuserve.com' to your user ID so that it looks like 'user <UserID>@compuserve.com', where <UserID> can be either your numerical userID or your E-mail nickname. An RPA-enabled fetchmail will automatically check for csi.com in the POP server's greeting line. If that's found, and your user ID ends with -`@compuserve.com', it will query the server to see if it is +'@compuserve.com', it will query the server to see if it is RPA-capable, and if so do an RPA transaction rather than a plain-text password handshake.
@@ -1847,7 +1818,6 @@ poll non-rpa.csi.com via "pop.site1.csi.com" with proto POP3 and options no dns is LOCAL_USER here options fetchall stripcr
Note that Demon may delete mail on the server which is more than 30 days old; see their POP3 +href="http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/producthelp/mail/sdps-tech.html/">POP3 page for details.
Enable `fetchall'. A user reports that the 2.2
+
Enable 'fetchall'. A user reports that the 2.2
version of USA.NET's POP server reports that you must use the
-`fetchall' option to make sure that all of the mail is
+'fetchall' option to make sure that all of the mail is
retrieved, otherwise some may be left on the server. This is almost
certainly a server bug.
fetchall' forces
+to avoid marking messages seen, but 'fetchall' forces
it to use RETR instead.
Also, we're told USA.NET adds a ton of hops to your messages. You may need to raise the MaxHopCount parameter in your sendmail.cf to avoid having fetched mail rejected.
-(Note: Other failure modes have been reported on usa.net's -servers. They seem to be chronically flaky. We recommend finding -another provider.)
- -Workaround is to use "mda" keyword or "-mda" switch:
+Workaround is to use "mda" keyword or "--mda" switch:
mda "sed -e '1s/^\t/Received: /' | formail | /usr/bin/procmail -d <user>" @@ -1967,10 +1931,6 @@ mda "sed -e '1s/^\t/Received: /' | formail | /usr/bin/procmail -d <user>" Geocities' servers sometimes think that the first 45 messages have already been read. -Fix: Get an email provider that doesn't suck. The pop-up ads on -Geocities are lame, you should boycott them anyway.
- -
I5. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail or Lycos Webmail?
You can't directly. But you can use fetchmail with hotmail or lycos @@ -1990,7 +1950,6 @@ poll localhost protocol pop3 tracepolls
As a second option you may consider using gotmail.
-
I6. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?
You can't. MSN uses something that looks like POP3, except the @@ -2005,7 +1964,6 @@ authentication. It's possible this may enable fetchmail to talk to MSN; if so, somebody should report it so this FAQ can be corrected.
-
I7. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?
The SpryNet POP3 servers mark a message queried with TOP as @@ -2014,30 +1972,68 @@ may end up invisibly stuck on your mail spool. Use the
-fetchallflag to ensure that it's recovered on the next cycle.
-I8. How can I use fetchmail with comcast.net?
- -Stock fetchmail will work with a comcast.net server...but -the Maillennium POP3 server comcat uses seems to have an 80K limit on -the length of downloaded messages if you use POP3 TOP to retrieve. -Anything larger is silently truncated. Don't mistake this for a -fetchmail bug. (Reported July 2003.)
- -Workaround: use the fetchall option.
+I8. How can I use fetchmail with comcast.net or + other Maillennium servers?
+ +Stock fetchmail will work with a +Maillennium POP3/PROXY server... but this server will +truncate "TOP" responses after 64 - 82 kB (we have varying reports), +in violation of Internet Standard #53 aka. RFC-1939 (POP3). Don't +mistake this for a fetchmail bug. (Reported July 2003.) Comcast +documented they haven't understood what this is about in two +messages from April 2004.
+ +Beginning with version 6.3.2, fetchmail will fall back to the RETR +command if the greeting string contains "Maillennium POP3/PROXY server", +and print a warning message. This means however that fetchmail has no +means to prevent the "seen" flag from being set on the server (Note that +officially, POP3 has no notion of seen tracking, but it works for some +sites.)
+ +Workaround for older versions: use the fetchall option.
+ +I9. How can I use fetchmail with GMail/Google Mail?
+ +Google's IMAP servers, as of April 2008, are broken and re-encode +MIME-encoded headers improperly and are not feature-complete yet. The +model how their servers organize mail also deviates in significant ways +from what the POP3 or IMAP protocol 'fathers' conceived. This means all +sorts of strange effects, for instance, your sent mail may show up in +the mail that fetchmail fetches. It's best to avoid fetching mail from +Google until they are using standards-compliant software.
+ +If you still need to use Google's mail service, these links may help (valid as of 2011-04-13):
+
Giuseppe Guerini added a --with-socks option that supports -linking with socks library. If you specify the value of this option -as ``yes'', the configure script will try to find the Rconnect +
Giuseppe Guerini added a --with-socks compile-time option +that supports linking with socks library. If you specify the value of +this option as "yes", the configure script will try to find the Rconnect library and set the makefile up to link it. You can also specify a directory containing the Rconnect library.
-Alan Schmitt has added a similar --with-socks5 option that may +
Alan Schmitt has added a similar --with-socks5 option that may work better if you have a recent version of the SOCKS library.
-In either case, fetchmail has no direct configuration hooks, but you +can specify which socks configuration file the library should read by +means of the SOCKS_CONF environment variable. In order to +bypass the SOCKS proxy altogether, you could run (adding your usual +options to the end of this line):
+ +env SOCKS_CONF=/dev/null fetchmail+
Note that the inet6-apps library is no longer available, so - we're sorry to say that IPsec support is no longer available at this - time. The IPsec information in the next three paragraphs is obsolete - and only included here for historic reasons and no longer - accurate.
To use fetchmail with networking -security (read: IPsec), you -need a system that supports IPsec, the API described in the -"Network Security API for Sockets" -(draft-metz-net-security-api-01.txt), and the inet6-apps kit. This -currently means that you need to have a BSD/OS or NetBSD system -with the NRL IPv6+IPsec software distribution. A Linux IPsec -implementation supporting this API will probably appear in the -coming months.
-The NRL IPv6+IPsec software distribution can be obtained from: http://web.mit.edu/network/isakmp
- -The inet6-apps kit used to be available from http://ftp.ps.pl/pub/linux/IPv6/inet6-apps/.
+href="http://web.mit.edu/network/isakmp/">http://web.mit.edu/network/isakmp/More information on using IPv6 with Linux can be obtained from:
@@ -2075,7 +2054,6 @@ href="http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html"> http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html -Fetchmail can use RFC1731 GSSAPI authorization to safely -identify you to your IMAP server, as long as you can share Kerberos -V credentials with your mail host and you have a GSSAPI-capable -IMAP server. UW-IMAP (available via FTP at ftp.cac.washington.edu) -is the only one I'm aware of and the one I recommend anyway for -other reasons. You'll need version 4.1-FINAL or greater though, and -it has to have GSS support compiled in.
- -Neither UW-IMAP nor fetchmail compile in support for GSS by -default, since it requires libraries from the Kerberos V -distribution (available via FTP at athena-dist.mit.edu). -If you have these, compiling in GSS support is simple: add a +identify you to your IMAP server, as long as you can share +Kerberos V credentials with your mail host and you have a GSSAPI-capable +IMAP server.
+ +fetchmail does not compile in support for GSS by +default, since it requires libraries from a Kerberos V +distribution, such as MIT + Kerberos or Heimdal + Kerberos.
+ +If you have these, compiling in GSS support is simple: add a
--with-gssapi=[/path/to/krb5/root] option to
configure. For instance, I have all of my Kerberos V libraries
installed under /usr/krb5 so I run configure
@@ -2140,26 +2115,22 @@ Kerberos principal.
Now you don't have to worry about your password appearing in cleartext in your .fetchmailrc, or across the network.
-You'll need to have the OpenSSL libraries installed. +href="http://www.openssl.org/">OpenSSL libraries installed, and they +should at least be version 0.9.7. Configure with --with-ssl. If you have the OpenSSL libraries -installed in the default location (/usr/local/ssl) ths will +installed in commonly-used default locations, this will suffice. If you have them installed in a non-default location, -you'll need to specify it as an argument to --with-ssl after an -equal sign.
- -Note that there is a known bug in the implementation of SSL_peek -under OpenSSL versions 0.9.5 and older that fetchmail occasionally -tripped over, causing hangs. It is recommended that you install -0.9.6 or later.
+you'll need to specify the OpenSSL installation directory as an argument +to --with-ssl after an equal sign.Fetchmail binaries built this way support ssl,
sslkey, and sslcert options that control
-SSL encryption. You will need to have an SSL-enabled mailserver to
+SSL encryption, and will automatically use tls if the
+server offers it. You will need to have an SSL-enabled mailserver to
use these options. See the manual page for details and some words
of care on the limited security provided.
If you don't have the libraries installed, but do have the -OpenSSL utility toolkit, something like this may work:
+OpenSSL utility toolkit, something like this may work (but will not +authenticate the server):
-poll MYSERVER port 993 plugin "openssl s_client -connect %h:%p"
+poll MYSERVER port 993 plugin "openssl s_client -connect %h:%p"
protocol imap username MYUSERNAME password MYPASSWORD
+You should note that SSL is only secure against a "man-in-the-middle" +attack if the client is able to verify that the peer's public key is the +correct one, and has not been substituted by an attacker. fetchmail can do +this in one of two ways: by verifying the SSL certificate, or by checking +the fingerprint of the peer's public key.
+ +There are three parts to SSL certificate verification: checking that the +domain name in the certificate matches the hostname you asked to connect to; +checking that the certificate expiry date has not passed; and checking that +the certificate has been signed by a known Certificate Authority (CA). This +last step takes some preparation, as you need to install the root +certificates of all the CA's which you might come across.
+ +The easiest way to do this is using the root CA keys supplied in the +OpenSSL distribution, which means you need to download and unpack the +source tarball from www.openssl.org. Once you have done that:
+ +mkdir /etc/ssl/certscp *.pem /etc/ssl/certs/$dir="/etc/ssl"Now in .fetchmailrc, set option sslcertpath to point to this +directory:
+ ++poll pop3.example.com proto pop3 uidl no dns + user foobar@example.com password xyzzy is foobar ssl sslcertpath /etc/ssl/certs ++ +
If the server certificate has not been signed by a known CA (e.g. it is a +self-signed certificate), then this certificate validation will always +fail.
+ +Certificate verification is always attempted. If it fails, by default a +warning is printed but the connection carries on (which means you are not +protected against attack). If your server's certificate has been properly +set up and verifies correctly, then add the "sslcertck" option to enforce +validation. If your server doesn't have a valid certificate though (e.g. it +has a self-signed certificate) then it will never verify, and the only way +you can protect yourself is by checking the fingerprint.
+ +To check the peer fingerprint: first use fetchmail -v once to connect to +the host, at a time when you are pretty sure that there is no attack in +progress (e.g. you are not traversing any untrusted network to reach the +server). Make a note of the fingerprint shown. Now embed this in your +.fetchmailrc using the sslfingerprint option: e.g.
+ ++poll pop3.example.com proto pop3 uidl no dns + user foobar@example.com password xyzzy is foobar + ssl sslfingerprint "67:3E:02:94:D3:5B:C3:16:86:71:37:01:B1:3B:BC:E2" ++ +
When you next connect, the public key presented by the server will be +verified against the fingerprint given. If it's different, it may mean that +a man-in-the-middle attack is in progress - or it might just mean that the +server changed its key. It's up to you to determine which has happened.
+ +Some servers advertise STLS (POP3) or STARTTLS (IMAP), and fetchmail +will automatically attempt TLS negotiation if SSL was enabled at compile +time. This can however cause problems if the upstream didn't configure +his certificates properly.
+ +In order to prevent fetchmail from trying TLS (STLS, STARTTLS) +negotiation, add this option:
+ +sslproto ssl23+ +
This restricts fetchmail's SSL/TLS protocol choice from the default +"SSLv2, SSLv3, TLSv1" to the two SSL variants, disabling TLSv1. Note +however that this causes the connection to be unencrypted unless an +encrypting "plugin" is used or SSL is requested explicitly.
+Fetchmail itself is probably working, but your SMTP port 25 listener is down or inaccessible.
The first thing to check is if you can telnet to port 25 on your -smtp host (which is normally `localhost' unless you've specified an +smtp host (which is normally 'localhost' unless you've specified an smtp option in your .fetchmailrc or on the command line) and get a greeting line from the listener. If the SMTP host is inaccessible or the listener is down, fix that first.
@@ -2205,7 +2260,7 @@ most benign and typical problem is that the listener had a momentary seizure due to resource exhaustion while fetchmail was polling it -- process table full or some other problem that stopped the listener process from forking. If your SMTP host is not -`localhost' or something else in /etc/hosts, the fetchmail glitch +'localhost' or something else in /etc/hosts, the fetchmail glitch could also have been caused by transient nameserver failure.Try running fetchmail -v again; if it succeeds, you had one of @@ -2262,7 +2317,6 @@ Linux distributions the libc bind library version works better.
library is linked only if it is actually needed. So under Linux it won't be, and this particular cause should go away. -Try sending yourself test mail and retrieving it using the
-command-line options `-k -m cat'. This will dump
+command-line options '-k -m cat'. This will dump
exactly what fetchmail retrieves to standard output (plus the
Received line fetchmail itself adds to the headers).
Note that this bug should no longer occur when using prepackaged +fetchmail versions or installing unmodified original tarballs, since +these ship with a proper parser .c file.
+This is usually reported from AIX or Ultrix, but has even been
known to happen on Linuxes without a recent version of
flex installed. The problem appears to be a result of
@@ -2291,31 +2348,14 @@ building with an archaic version of lex.
Workaround: fix the syntax of your .fetchmailrc file.
Fix: build and install the latest version of flex from the Free -Software Foundation. An FSF mirror site -will help you get it faster.
- -We've had this reported to us under Linux using libc-5.4.17 and -gcc-2.7.2. It does not occur with libc-5.3.12 or earlier -versions.
+ href="http://flex.sourceforge.net/">flex. -Workaround: link with GNU malloc rather than the stock C library -malloc.
+We're told there is some problem with the malloc() code in that -version which makes it fragile in the presence of multiple free() -calls on the same pointer (the malloc arena gets corrupted). -Unfortunately it appears from doing gdb traces that whatever free() -calls producing the problem are being made by the C library itself, -not the fetchmail code (they're all from within fclose, and not an -fclose called directly by fetchmail, either).
+The information that used to be here referred to bugs in Linux libc5 + systems, which are deemed obsolete by now.
-If this happens, you have a specific portability problem with the code in daemon.c that detaches and backgrounds the daemon @@ -2345,7 +2385,6 @@ child of PID 1). This is important when you start fetchmail interactively and than quit interactive shell. The line above makes sure fetchmail lives after that!
-This is probably a general networking issue. Sending a "RETR" command will cause the server to start sending large amounts of data, which means large packets. If your networking layer has a -packet-fragmentation problem, that's where you'll see it.
- -This probably means you have an mda option. Your
-MDA is croaking while being passed a message. Best fix is to remove
-the mda option and pass mail to your port 25 SMTP
-listener.
If for some reason you are invoking sendmail via the -mda option (rather than delivering to port 25 via smtp), -don't forget to include the -i switch. Otherwise you will -occasionally get mysterious delivery failures with a SIGPIPE as the -sendmail instance dies. The problem is messages with a single dot -at start of a text line.
+Fetchmail 6.3.5 and newer block SIGPIPE, and many older versions have + already handled this signal, so you shouldn't be seeing SIGPIPE +at all.
-Your POP3 server is broken. You can work around this with the declaration auth password in your .fetchmailrc.
-/etc/services file (or other
+ services database) contains the necessary service entries. If you
+ cannot fix the services database, use the --service option and give the
+ numeric port address. Common port addresses are:| service | port |
|---|---|
| IMAP | 143 |
| IMAP+SSL | 993 |
| POP3 | 110 |
| POP3+SSL | 995 |
Non-fatal signals (such as timers set by fetchmail itself) can +interrupt long-running functions and will then be reported as +"Interrupted system call". These can sometimes be timeouts.
+ +If the upgrade you did encompassed an upgrade to OpenSSL 1.0.0 or newer, you
+may need to run c_rehash on your certificate directories,
+particularly if you are using local certs directories (f. i. through fetchmail's --sslcertpath option).
Reason: OpenSSL 1.0.0, relative to earlier versions, uses a different hash
+for the symbolic links (symlinks) in its certs/ directory, so you
+need to recreate the symlinks by running c_rehash
+ /etc/ssl/certs (adjust this to where your installation keeps its
+certificates), and you cannot easily share this certs directory with
+applications linked against older OpenSSL versions.
Note: OpenSSL's c_rehash script is broken in several versions,
+which can cause malfunction if several OpenSSL tools versions are installed in
+parallel in separate directories. In such cases, you may need a workaround to
+get things going. Assuming your OpenSSL 1.0.0 is installed in
+/opt/openssl1.0.0 and your certificates are in
+/home/hans/certs, you'd do this (the corresponding fetchmail
+option is --sslcertpath /home/hans/certs on the commandline and
+sslcertpath /home/hans/cert in the rcfile):
+env PATH=/opt/openssl1.0.0/bin /opt/openssl1.0.0/bin/c_rehash /home/hans/certs ++ +
First, try upgrading to fetchmail 6.3.18 or newer. Release 6.3.18 has +received a considerable number of bug fixes for the authentication +feature (AUTH, AUTHENTICATE, SASL). Most notably, fetchmail aborts SASL +authentication attempts properly with an asterisk if it detects that it +cannot make progress with a particular authentication scheme. This fixes +issues where GSSAPI-enabled fetchmail cannot authenticate against +Microsoft Exchange 2007 and 2010. Note that this is a +bug in old fetchmail versions!
+ +Fetchmail by default attempts to authenticate using various schemes. +Fetchmail tries these schemes in order of descending security, meaning +the most secure schemes are tried first.
+ +However, sometimes the server offers a secure authentication scheme +that is not properly configured, or an authentication scheme such as +GSSAPI that requires credentials to be acquired externally. In some +situations, fetchmail cannot know that the scheme will fail beforehand, +without trying it. In most cases, fetchmail should proceed to the next +authentication scheme automatically, but this sometimes does not +work.
+ +Solution: Configure the right authentication scheme
+explicitly, for instance, with --auth cram-md5 or --auth
+ password on the command line or auth "cram-md5" or
+ auth "password" in the rcfile. Details can be found
+ in the manual page.
+ Note that auth password should only be used
+ across secure links (see the sslcertck and ssl/sslproto options).
+
Your problem may be with pppd's `demand' option. We have a +
Your problem may be with pppd's 'demand' option. We have a report that fetchmail doesn't play well with it, but works with -pppd if `demand' is turned off. We have no idea why this is.
+pppd if 'demand' is turned off. We have no idea why this is. -
FEATURE(nodns)
@@ -2475,7 +2586,7 @@ configuration of sendmail. You must enable the 'nodns' and
# m4 sendmail-mine.cf > /etc/sendmail.cf
@@ -2488,11 +2599,10 @@ configuration of sendmail. You must enable the 'nodns' and
For more details consult the file
/usr/share/sendmail-cf/README.
-
H3. Fetchmail hangs while fetching
mail.
-The symption: 'fetchmail -v' retrieves the first few messages,
+
Symptom: 'fetchmail -v' retrieves the first few messages,
but hangs returning:
@@ -2511,6 +2621,7 @@ TCP wrappers.
this problem.
+Disappearing mail
D1. I think I've set up fetchmail
correctly, but I'm not getting any mail.
@@ -2533,38 +2644,25 @@ following line
make sure that 'localuser' does exist and can receive mail.
-
D2. All my mail seems to disappear after a
dropped connection.
One POP3 daemon used in the Berkeley Unix world that reports
itself as POP3 version 1.004 actually throws the queue away. 1.005
fixed that. If you're running this one, upgrade immediately. (It
-also truncates long lines at column 1024)
+also truncates long lines at column 1024.)
Many POP servers, if an interruption occurs, will restore the
-whole mail queue after about 10 minutes. Others will restore it
+whole mail queue after about 10 minutes. Better ones will restore it
right away. If you have an interruption and don't see it right
away, cross your fingers and wait ten minutes before retrying.
-Some servers (such as Microsoft's NTMail) are mis-designed to
-restore the entire queue, including messages you have deleted. If
-you have one of these and it flakes out on you a lot, try setting a
-small --fetchlimit value. This will result in more IP
-connects to the server, but will mean it actually executes changes
-to the queue more often.
-
-Qualcomm's qpopper, used at many BSD Unix sites, is better
-behaved. If its connection is dropped, it will first execute all
-DELE commands as though you had issued a QUIT (this is a technical
-violation of the POP3 RFCs, but a good idea in a world of flaky
-phone lines). Then it will re-queue any message that was being
-downloaded at hangup time. Still, qpopper may require a noticeable
-amount of time to do deletions and clean up its queue. (Fetchmail
-waits a bit before retrying in order to avoid a `lock busy'
-error.)
+Good servers are designed to restore the entire queue, including
+messages you have deleted. If you have one of these and it flakes out on
+you a lot, try setting a small --fetchlimit value. This
+will result in more IP connects to the server, but will mean it actually
+executes changes to the queue more often.
-
D3. Mail that was being fetched when I
interrupted my fetchmail seems to have been vanished.
@@ -2575,49 +2673,44 @@ description of the antispam> option) from the
listener. No interrupt can cause it to lose mail.
However, IMAP2bis has a design problem in that its normal fetch
-command marks a message `seen' as soon as the fetch command to get
+command marks a message 'seen' as soon as the fetch command to get
it is sent down. If for some reason the message isn't actually
delivered (you take a line hit during the download, or your port 25
listener can't find enough free disk space, or you interrupt the
-delivery in mid-message) that `seen' message can lurk invisibly in
+delivery in mid-message) that 'seen' message can lurk invisibly in
your server mailbox forever.
-Workaround: add the `fetchall' keyword to your
+
Workaround: add the 'fetchall' keyword to your
fetch options.
-Solution: switch to an IMAP4
+
Solution: switch to an IMAP4
server.
+Multidrop-mode problems
M1. I've declared local names, but all my
multidrop mail is going to root anyway.
Somehow your fetchmail is never recognizing the hostname part of
-recipient names it parses out of To/Cc/envelope-header lines as
-matching the name of the mailserver machine. To check this, run
+recipient names it parses out of Envelope-header lines (or these are
+improperly configured) as
+matching a name within the designated domains. To check this, run
fetchmail in foreground with -v -v on. You will probably see a lot
-of messages with the format ``line rejected, %s is not an alias of
-the mailserver'' or ``no address matches; forwarding to %s.''
-
-These errors usually indicate some kind of DNS configuration
-problem either on the server or your client machine.
+of messages with the format "line rejected, %s is not an alias of
+the mailserver" or "no address matches; forwarding to %s."
-The easiest workaround is to add a `via' option (if
-necessary) and add enough aka declarations to cover all of your
-mailserver's aliases, then say `no dns'. This will
-take DNS out of the picture (though it means mail may be
-uncollected if it's sent to an alias of the mailserver that you
-don't have listed).
+These errors usually indicate some kind of configuration
+problem.
-It would be better to fix your DNS, however. DNS problems can
-hurt you in lots of ways, for example by making your machines
-intermittently or permanently unreachable to the rest of the
-net.
+The easiest workaround is to add a 'via' option (if
+necessary) and add enough 'aka' declarations to cover all
+of your mailserver's aliases, then say 'no dns'. This will
+take DNS out of the picture (though it means mail may be uncollected if
+it's sent to an alias of the mailserver that you don't have listed).
Occasionally these errors indicate the sort of header-parsing
problem described in M7.
-
M2. I can't seem to get fetchmail to route
to a local domain properly.
@@ -2636,8 +2729,11 @@ setting up a UUCP feed.
If neither of these alternatives is available, multidrop mode
may do (though you are going to get hurt by some mailing
list software; see the caveats under THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP
-MAILBOXES on the man page). If you want to try it, the way to do it
-is with the `localdomains' option.
+MAILBOXES on the man page, and check what is needed at Matthias
+ Andree's "Requisites for working multidrop
+ mailboxes"). If you want to try it, the way to do it is
+with the 'localdomains' option.
In general, if you use localdomains you need to make sure of two
other things:
@@ -2645,12 +2741,12 @@ other things:
1. You've actually set up your .fetchmailrc entry to
invoke multidrop mode.
-Many people set a `localdomains' list and then
+
Many people set a 'localdomains' list and then
forget that fetchmail wants to see more than one name (or the
-wildcard `*') in a `here' list before it will do
+wildcard '*') in a 'here' list before it will do
multidrop routing.
-2. You may have to set `no envelope'.
+2. You may have to set 'no envelope'.
Normally, multidrop mode tries to deduce an envelope address
from a message before parsing the To/Cc/Bcc lines (this enables it
@@ -2659,15 +2755,16 @@ recipient address in the To lines).
Some ways of accumulating a whole domain's messages in a single
server mailbox mean it all ends up with a single envelope address
-that is useless for rerouting purposes. You may have to set
-`no envelope' to prevent fetchmail from being
-bamboozled by this.
+that is useless for rerouting purposes. In this particular case, sell
+your ISP a clue. If that does not work, you may have to set
+'no envelope' to prevent fetchmail from being
+bamboozled by this, but a missing envelope makes multidrop routing
+unreliable.
Check also answer T1 on a reliable way to do
multidrop delivery if your ISP (or your mail redirection provider)
is using qmail.
-
M3. I tried to run a mailing list using
multidrop, and I have a mail loop!
@@ -2679,38 +2776,28 @@ chop the host part off any local addresses in the list.
If you use sendmail, you can check the list expansion with
sendmail -bv.
-
-M4. My multidrop fetchmail seems to be
-having DNS problems.
-
-We have one report from a Linux user (not the same one as in R1!) who solved this problem by removing the
-reference to -lresolv from his link line and relinking. Apparently
-in some older Linux distributions the libc5 bind library version
-works better.
+M4. My multidrop fetchmail seems to be
+having DNS problems.
-As of 2.2, the configure script has been hacked so the bind
-library is linked only if it is actually needed. So under Linux it
-won't be, and this problem should go away.
+The answer that used to be here no longer applies to
+ fetchmail.
-
M5. I'm seeing long DNS delays before each
message is processed.
-Use the `aka' option to pre-declare as many of your
+
Use the 'aka' option to pre-declare as many of your
mailserver's DNS names as you can. When an address's host part
matches an aka name, no DNS lookup needs to be done to check
it.
If you're sure you've pre-declared all of your mailserver's DNS
-names, you can use the `no dns' option to prevent
+names, you can use the 'no dns' option to prevent
other hostname parts from being looked up at all.
Sometimes delays are unavoidable. Some SMTP listeners try to
call DNS on the From-address hostname as a way of checking that the
address is valid.
-
M6. How do I get multidrop mode to work
with majordomo?
@@ -2762,7 +2849,6 @@ default ISP user+domain and service about 30 mail accounts +
majordomo on my inside pop3 server with fetchmail and sendmail
8.83
-
M7. Multidrop mode isn't parsing envelope
addresses from my Received headers as it should.
@@ -2780,11 +2866,11 @@ mailserver's theory of who the message was addressed to.
Some (unusual) mailserver configurations will generate extra
Received lines which you need to skip. To arrange this, use the
-optional skip prefix argument of the `envelope' option; you may
-need to say something like `envelope 1 Received' or
-`envelope 2 Received'.
+optional skip prefix argument of the 'envelope' option; you may
+need to say something like 'envelope 1 Received' or
+'envelope 2 Received'.
-The `by' clause doesn't contain a mailserver alias:
+The 'by' clause doesn't contain a mailserver alias:
When fetchmail parses a Received line that looks like
@@ -2794,13 +2880,12 @@ Received: from send103.yahoomail.com (send103.yahoomail.com [205.180.60.92])
for <ksturgeon@fbceg.org>; Wed, 9 Sep 1998 17:01:59 -0700
-it checks to see if `iserv.ttns.net' is a DNS alias of your
-mailserver before accepting `ksturgeon@fbceg.org' as an envelope
+
it checks to see if 'iserv.ttns.net' is a DNS alias of your
+mailserver before accepting 'ksturgeon@fbceg.org' as an envelope
address. This check might fail if your DNS were misconfigured, or
-if you were using `no dns' and had failed to declare iserv.ttns.net
+if you were using 'no dns' and had failed to declare iserv.ttns.net
as an alias of your server.
-
M8. Users are getting multiple copies of
messages.
@@ -2824,7 +2909,12 @@ that matches a seen mail ID. The trouble is that this is an O(N**2)
operation that might significantly slow down the retrieval of large
mail batches.
+The real solution however is to make sure that fetchmail can find the
+envelope recipient properly, which will reliably prevent this message
+duplication.
+
+Mangled mail
X1. Spurious blank lines are appearing in
the headers of fetched mail.
@@ -2838,10 +2928,9 @@ delivery) is failing to recognize it as a header.
installing a current version of deliver. If this doesn't
work, try to figure out which other program in your mail path is
inserting the blank line and replace that. If you can't do either
-of these things, pick a different MDA (such as procmail) and
-declare it with the `mda' option.
+of these things, pick a different MDA (such as maildrop) and
+declare it with the 'mda' option.
-
X2. My mail client can't see a Subject
line.
@@ -2855,9 +2944,8 @@ process X- headers correctly. If this is your problem, all I can
suggest is replacing IDA sendmail, because it's broken and not
RFC822 conformant.
-
-X3. Messages containing "From" at start of
-line are being split.
+X3. Messages containing "From" at the start of
+ line are being split.
If you know the messages aren't split in your server mailbox,
then this is a problem with your POP/IMAP server, your client-side
@@ -2869,7 +2957,7 @@ messages on From lines. We have one report that the 2.1 version of
the BSD popper program (as distributed on Solaris 2.5 and
elsewhere) is broken this way.
-You can test this. Declare an mda of `cat' and send yourself one
+
You can test this. Declare an mda of 'cat' and send yourself one
piece of mail containing "From" at start of a line. If you see a
split message, your POP/IMAP server is at fault. Upgrade to a more
recent version.
@@ -2890,13 +2978,12 @@ sendmail.cf file. There will likely be a line something like
Mlocal, P=/usr/bin/procmail, F=lsDFMShP, S=10, R=20/40, A=procmail -Y -d $u
-describing your local delivery agent. Try inserting the `E' +
describing your local delivery agent. Try inserting the 'E' option in the flags part (the F= string). This will make sendmail turn each dangerous start-of-line From into a >From, preventing programs further downstream from acting up.
-This may happen in versions of fetchmail after 4.4.1 and before -4.4.8. Versions after 4.4.1 use POP3's TOP command rather than -RETR, in order to avoid marking the message seen (leaving it unseen -is helpful for later recovery if you lose your connection in the -middle of a retrieval).
- -Versions of fetchmail from 4.4.2 through 4.4.7 had a bad -interaction with Eudora qpopper versions 2.3 and later. The TOP -bounds check was fooled by an overflow condition in the TOP -argument. Decrementing the TOP argument in 4.4.7 fixed this.
+Fix: Upgrade to a later version of fetchmail.
+The information that used to be here pertained to fetchmail 4.4.7 or + older, which should not be used. Use a recent fetchmail version.
-Workaround: set the fetchall option. Under POP3
-this has the side effect of forcing RETR use.
Fetchmail doesn't discard attachments; fetchmail doesn't have any idea that attachments are there. Fetchmail treats the body of each message as an uninterpreted byte stream and passes it through without alteration. -If you are not receiving attachments through fetchmail, it is because +If you are not receiving attachments through fetchmail, it is because your mailserver is not sending them to you.
The fix for this is to replace your mailserver with one that works. @@ -3021,10 +3093,10 @@ seem especially prone to mangle attachments. If you are running one of these, replacing your server with a Unix machine is probably the only effective solution.
-We've had sporadic reports of problems with Microsoft Exchange and -Outlook servers. These sometimes randomly fail to ship +
We've had sporadic reports of problems with Microsoft Exchange and +Outlook servers. These sometimes randomly fail to ship attachments to your client. This is a known bug, acknowledged by -Microsft.
+Microsoft.They may also mangle the attachments they do pass through. If you see unreadable attachments with a ContentType of "application/x-tnef", @@ -3048,7 +3120,7 @@ generates MIME Content-type headers (observed on Lotus Domino Messenger and other clients use a FETCH BODY[] to grab the whole message. When fetchmail uses FETCH RFC822.HEADER and FETCH RFC822.TEXT to get first the header and then the body, Domino -generates different Boundary tags for each part, .e.g. one tag is +generates different Boundary tags for each part, e.g. one tag is declared in the Content-type header and another is used to separate the MIME parts in the body. This doesn't work. (I have heard a rumor that this bug is scheduled to be fixed in Domino release 6; @@ -3140,13 +3212,11 @@ world doesn't understand its attachments, so it really shouldn't be used at all), and make sure dtmail is set to use MIME rather than mailtool's format.
-This isn't fetchmail's problem either; fetchmail doesn't know -anything about mail attachments and doesn't treat them any -differently from plain message data.
+Fetchmail doesn't know anything about mail attachments and doesn't +treat them any differently from plain message data.
The most usual cause of this problem seems to be bugs in your network transport layer's capability to handle the very large @@ -3164,75 +3234,104 @@ malfunctioning path-MTU discovery on the mailserver. Or, if there's a modem in the link, it may be because the attachment contains the Hayes mode escape "+++".
-Blame it on that rancid pile of dung and offal called Microsoft -Exchange. Due to the problem described in S2, the -IMAP support in fetchmail cannot follow the IMAP protocol 100%. +
Due to the problem described in S2, the +IMAP support in fetchmail cannot follow the IMAP protocol 100 %. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but if you combine it with an SMTP server that behaves unusually, you'll get a spurious ) at -message end.
+the message end.One piece of software that can trigger this is the Interchange mail server, as used by, e.g., mailandnews.com. Here's what happens:
-1. Someone sends mail to your account. The last line of the +
2. The SMTP handler sees the final "\r\n.\r\n" and recognizes +
3. Fetchmail, or some other IMAP client, asks for the message. +
- ....blahblah)...-
where the ')' is from IMAP.
+where the ')' is from IMAP.
4. Fetchmail only deals with complete lines, and can't trust the -stated message size because Microsoft Exchange fscks it up.
+5. As a result, fetchmail takes the final 'blahblah)' and puts +
There is no fix for this.
+ +Domino 6 IMAP was found by Anthony Kim in February 2006 to +erroneously omit the "Content-Transfer-Encoding" header in messages +downloaded through IMAP, causing messages to display improperly. This +happened with Domino's incoming mail format configured to "Prefers +MIME". Solution: switch Domino to "Keep in Sender's format".
+ +Reference: Anthony + Kim's list post +
+ +There is no fix for this. The nuke mentioned in S2 looks more tempting all the time.
+Fetchmail is sometimes reported to deliver partial messages. This +is usually related to network outages that occur while fetchmail is +downloading a message body. In such cases, fetchmail has downloaded a +complete header, so your header will be intact. The message body will be +truncated, and fetchmail will later attempt to redownload the +message (providing the server is standards conformant).
+ +The reason for the truncation is that fetchmail streams the body +directly from the POP3/IMAP server into the SMTP/LMTP server or MDA (in +order to save memory), so fetchmail has already written a part of the +message before it notices it will be incomplete, and fetchmail cannot +abort a transaction it has started, and it's unclear if it ever will be +able to, because this is not standardized and the outcome will depend on +the receiving software (be it SMTP/LMTP or MDA).
This is a feature, not a bug. It's in line with normal practice for system daemons and allows you to suppress logging by removing -the log, without hacking potentially fragile startup scripts. To -get around it, just touch(1) the logfile before you run fetchmail -(this will have no effect on the contents of the logfile if it -already exists).
+the log file, without hacking potentially fragile startup scripts. +To get around it, just touch(1) the logfile before you run fetchmail +(this will have no effect on the contents of the logfile if it already +exists). -Fetchmail uses the local sendmail to perform final delivery, -which Netscape and other clients doesn't do; the announcement of +which Mozilla and other clients don't do; the announcement of new messages is done by a daemon that sendmail pokes. There should -be a ``biff'' command to control this. Type
+be a "biff" command to control this. Typebiff n @@ -3241,12 +3340,12 @@ biff n-Change this to +Change this toto turn it off. If this doesn't work, try the command
-chmod -x `tty` +chmod -x $(tty)which is essentially what
+doesn't work, comment out any reference to "comsat" in your +/etc/inetd.conf file and reload (or restart) inetd.biff -nwill do. If this -doesn't work, comment out any reference to ``comsat'' in your -/etc/inetd.conf file and restart inetd.In Slackware Linux distributions, the last line in /etc/profile is
@@ -3255,49 +3354,39 @@ is biff y
biff n-to solve the problem system-wide. +to solve the problem system-wide. -
No, but versions 5.2.2 and later will notice when you modify -your rc file and restart, reading it.
+your rc file and restart, reading it. Note that this causes troubles if +you need to provide a password via the console, unless you're running in +--nodetach mode. -Because you're using a POP3 other than Qualcomm qpopper, or an -IMAP with a long expunge interval.
-According to the POP3 RFCs, deletes aren't actually performed until you issue the end-of-session QUIT command. Fetchmail cannot -fix this, because doing it right takes cooperation from the server. -There are two possible remedies:
- -One is to switch to qpopper (the free POP3 server from Qualcomm, -the Eudora people). The qpopper software violates the POP3 RFCs by -doing an expunge (removing deleted messages) on a line hangup, as -well as on processing a QUIT command.
+fix this, but there is a workaround: use the --expunge option with a +reasonably low figure that works for you. Try 10 for a start. -The other (which we recommend) is to switch to IMAP. IMAP has an explicit expunge -command and fetchmail normally uses it to delete messages -immediately after they are downloaded.
+IMAP is less susceptible to this problem, because the "deleted" +message marks are persistent, but they aren't in POP3. Note that the +--expunge default for IMAP is different than the default for POP3.
If you get very unlucky, you might take a line hit in the window between the delete and the expunge. If you've set a longer expunge interval, the window gets wider. This problem should correct itself the next time you complete a successful query.
-Your resolver configuration may be causing one of these lookups
-to fail and time out. Check /etc/resolv.conf and
-/etc/hosts file. Make sure your hostname and
-fully-qualified domain name are both in /etc/hosts,
-and that hosts is looked at before DNS is queried. You probably
-also want your remote mail server(s) to be in the hosts file.
/etc/resolv.conf,
+/etc/host.conf, /etc/nsswitch.conf (if you
+have the latter two) and you /etc/hosts files. Make sure
+your hostname and fully-qualified domain name are both in
+/etc/hosts, and that hosts is looked at before DNS is
+queried. You probably also want your remote mail server(s) to be in the
+hosts file.
-You can suppress the startup-time lookup if need to by
-reconfiguring with FEATURE(nodns).
You can suppress the startup-time lookup if need to by reconfiguring
+with FEATURE(nodns).
Configuring your bind library to cache DNS lookups locally may help, and is a good idea for speeding up other services as well. -Switching to a faster MTA like qmail or exim might help.
+Switching to a faster MTA like Postfix might help. -Re-ordering messages is a user-agent function, anyway.
-First, check to see that you haven't enabled the keep and fetchall option. If you have, -turn keep off.
- -There are various forms of lossage involving the POP3 UIDL -feature that can lead to all your old messages being seen again -after a line drop. I have given up trying to fix these, as the UIDL -code breaks worse every time I touch it. The problem is -fundamental; maintaining and garbage-collecting the right kind of -client-side state is just hard. Whoever put UIDLs in RFC1725 and -removed LAST should be hung up by his thumbs and whipped with -scorpions. The right answers are either (a) live with the -occasional breakage, (b) switch to IMAP4, or (c) fix the code -yourself and send me a patch. Unless you choose (c), I don't want -to hear about it.
+turn one of them off - which one, depends on why they have been set in +the first place, and to a lesser degree on the upstream server.This can also happen when some other mail client is logged in to your mail server, if it uses a simple exclusive-locking scheme (and @@ -3401,47 +3478,17 @@ is write-locked by the other instance yours can neither mark messages seen or delete them. The solution is to either (a) wait for the other client to finish, or (b) terminate it.
-James Stevens <James.Stevens at kyzo.com> writes:
- -We had a Linux box dialing the Net and collecting mail from -an NT POP3 server. Fetchmail was correctly collecting and deleting -each e-mail one by one. However,the dial-up connection was very -unreliable and would often just drop out in the middle of a -session.
+Interestingly, unless the TCP POP3 connection was terminated -normally (I guess with a POP3 "QUIT" command) NT would then roll -back all the deletes !!!
+The answer that used to be here made no sense and was dropped.
-This meant if the first e-mail was very large it might just -end up continuously collecting it, basically jamming the queue. Or, -if the queue became very full itmight never get a long enough phone -connection to retrieve the entire mailbox, and NT would roll back -any deletes, so it would end up collecting (and delivering) the -first few e-mails again and again. As the POP3 mailbox became -fuller and fuller the chances of getting a connection long enough -to collect theentire mailbox became smaller and smaller.
- -Our solution was to make fetchmail only collect a few (say 5 -or 10) e-mails at atime, thus trying to ensure that the POP3 -connection is terminated correctly.
- -Unfortunately, this is exactly the way POP3 servers are supposed -to behave on a line drop, according to the RFCs. I recommend -switching to IMAP and using a short expunge interval.
- -This is a design choice in your MTA, not fetchmail. It's taking -the received date from the last Received header.
- -This is your server barfing on the CAPA probe that fetchmail sends.
+This is your server barfing on the CAPA probe that fetchmail sends. +Because some servers like to drop the connection after that probe, +fetchmail will re-poll immediately with this probe defeated.
If you run fetchmail in daemon mode (say "set daemon 600"), you will get the message only once per run.
@@ -3449,7 +3496,6 @@ get the message only once per run.If you set an authentication method explicitly (say, with
auth password), you will never get the message.
This is a feature, not a bug.
@@ -3466,39 +3512,118 @@ not keen on checking the sender addresses. This problem typically occurs if your mail server is not checking the sender addresses, but your local server is. -Or you could declare antispam 451.
Or you could declare antispam 451, which is not
+recommended though, as it may cause mail loss.
Or, you could check your nameserver configuration and query logs for dns errors.
All these issues are not related to fetchmail directly.
-Write a preconnect command in your configuration file that
-does something like "date >> $HOME/Procmail/fetchmail.log".
Use --limitflush (available since release 6.3.0) to
+delete oversized mails along with the --limit option. If
+you are already having flush in your rcfile to delete
+oversized mails, replace it with limitflush to
+avoid losing mails unintentionally.
The --flush option is primarily designed to delete
+mails which have been read/downloaded but not deleted yet. This option
+cannot be overloaded to delete oversized mails as it cannot be guessed
+whether the user wants to delete only read/downloaded mails or only
+oversized mails or both when a user specifies both
+--limit and --flush. Hence, a separate
+--limitflush has been added to resolve the ambiguity.
This happens when fetchmail sees an "X-IMAP:" header in the very +first message in your mailbox. This usually stems from a message like +the one shown below, which is automatically created on your server. This +message shows up if the University of Washington IMAP or PINE software +is used on the server together with a POP2 or POP3 daemon that is not +aware of these messages, such as some versions of Qualcomm Popper +(QPOP):
+ ++++From MAILER-DAEMON Wed Nov 23 11:38:42 2005 +Date: 23 Nov 2005 11:38:42 +0100 +From: Mail System Internal Data <MAILER-DAEMON@imap.example.org> +Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA +Message-ID: <1132742322@imap.example.org> +X-IMAP: 1132742306 0000000001 +Status: RO + +This text is part of the internal format of your mail folder, and is not +a real message. It is created automatically by the mail system software. +If deleted, important folder data will be lost, and it will be re-created +with the data reset to initial values. ++
As this message does not contain useful information, fetchmail is not +retrieving it. And deleting it might slow down the server if you are +keeping messages on the server, and the server would recreate it +anyways, that's why fetchmail does not bother to delete it either.
+ +All the world uses ISO-216:1975 "A4" paper except for North America. +Using A4 format reaches far more people than (formerly known as DIN A4, +from DIN 476) format. Besides that, A4 paper is available in North +America. +For further information on the Letter-vs-A4 story, see:
+ + +Offering the document formatted for two different paper sizes would +bloat the package beyond reason, and formatting in a way that fits A4 +and Letter paper formats would be a waste of paper in most parts of the +world. For that reason, fetchmail only ships with an A4 formatted PDF +document.
+ +To create a letter-sized PDF, install HTMLDOC, edit
+fetchmail-FAQ.book in the source directory with your
+favorite text editor, replace --size A4 by --size
+ letter, and type:
+
+make fetchmail-FAQ.pdf ++ +
That's in fact a bug in Linux kernels around the late 2.6.2X versions, +rather than fetchmail. Fetchmail has no race bugs around MSG_PEEK, +as of version 6.3.9. The message can safely be ignored.
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