'\" t
.\" ** The above line should force tbl to be used as a preprocessor **
.\"
-.\" Man page for fetchmail
+.\" Manual page in man(7) format with tbl(1) macros for fetchmail
.\"
.\" For license terms, see the file COPYING in this directory.
+.\"
.TH fetchmail 1
.SH NAME
fetchmail \- fetch mail from a POP, IMAP, ETRN, or ODMR-capable server
.PP
If
.I fetchmail
-is used with a POP or an IMAP server, it has two fundamental modes of
+is used with a POP or an IMAP server, it has two fundamental modes of
operation for each user account from which it retrieves mail:
\fIsingledrop\fR- and \fImultidrop\fR-mode. In singledrop-mode,
.I fetchmail
must attempt to deduce the proper "envelope recipient" from the mail
headers of each message. In this mode of operation
.I fetchmail
-almost resembles an MTA, however it is important to note that neither
+almost resembles an MTA, however it is important to note that neither
the POP nor IMAP protocols were intended for use in this fashion, and
hence envelope information is not directly available. Instead,
.I fetchmail
.PP
Each server name that you specify following the options on the
command line will be queried. If you don't specify any servers
-on the command line, each `poll' entry in your
+on the command line, each `poll' entry in your
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
file will be queried.
.PP
To facilitate the use of
.I fetchmail
-in scripts and pipelines, it returns an appropriate exit code upon
+in scripts and pipelines, it returns an appropriate exit code upon
termination -- see EXIT CODES below.
.PP
The following options modify the behavior of \fIfetchmail\fR. It is
working \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file set up.
.PP
Almost all options have a corresponding keyword which can be used to
-declare them in a
+declare them in a
.I .fetchmailrc
file.
.PP
.SS General Options
.TP
.B \-V | \-\-version
-Displays the version information for your copy of
+Displays the version information for your copy of
.IR fetchmail .
No mail fetch is performed.
Instead, for each server specified, all the option information
suppress actual error messages). The --verbose option overrides this.
.TP
.B \-v | \-\-verbose
-Verbose mode. All control messages passed between
+Verbose mode. All control messages passed between
.I fetchmail
and the mailserver are echoed to stdout. Overrides --silent.
Doubling this option (-v -v) causes extra diagnostic information
-to be printed.
+to be printed.
.SS Disposal Options
.TP
.B \-a | \-\-all
.TP
.B \-k | \-\-keep
(Keyword: keep)
-Keep retrieved messages on the remote mailserver. Normally, messages
+Keep retrieved messages on the remote mailserver. Normally, messages
are deleted from the folder on the mailserver after they have been retrieved.
-Specifying the
-.B keep
+Specifying the
+.B keep
option causes retrieved messages to remain in your folder on the
mailserver. This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.
.TP
.TP
.B \-p <proto> | \-\-protocol <proto>
(Keyword: proto[col])
-Specify the protocol to use when communicating with the remote
+Specify the protocol to use when communicating with the remote
mailserver. If no protocol is specified, the default is AUTO.
-.I proto
+.I proto
may be one of the following:
.RS
.IP AUTO
.TP
.B \-P <portnumber> | \-\-port <portnumber>
(Keyword: port)
-The port option permits you to specify a TCP/IP port to connect on.
+The port option permits you to specify a TCP/IP port to connect on.
This option will seldom be necessary as all the supported protocols have
well-established default port numbers.
.TP
The principal option permits you to specify a service principal for
mutual authentication. This is applicable to POP3 or IMAP with Kerberos
authentication.
-.TP
-.B \-t <seconds> | -\-timeout <seconds>
+.TP
+.B \-t <seconds> | \-\-timeout <seconds>
(Keyword: timeout)
The timeout option allows you to set a server-nonresponse
timeout in seconds. If a mailserver does not send a greeting message
\fIfetchmail\fR will hang up on it. Without such a timeout
\fIfetchmail\fR might hang up indefinitely trying to fetch mail from a
down host. This would be particularly annoying for a \fIfetchmail\fR
-running in background. There is a default timeout which fetchmail -V
-will report. If a given connection receives too many timeouts in
+running in background. There is a default timeout which fetchmail\~-V
+will report. If a given connection receives too many timeouts in
succession, fetchmail will consider it wedged and stop retrying,
the calling user will be notified by email if this happens.
.TP
.sp
This option can be used with ODMR, and will make fetchmail a relay
between the ODMR server and SMTP or LMTP receiver.
-.TP
+.TP
.B \-\-fetchdomains <hosts>
(Keyword: fetchdomains)
In ETRN or ODMR mode, this option specifies the list of domains the
server should ship mail for once the connection is turned around. The
-default is the FQDN of the machine running
+default is the FQDN of the machine running
.IR fetchmail .
.TP
.B \-D <domain> | \-\-smtpaddress <domain>
this is not specified.
.TP
.B \-\-smtpname <user@domain>
-(Keyword: smtpname)
+(Keyword: smtpname)
Specify the domain and user to be put in RCPT TO lines shipped to SMTP.
The default user is the current local user.
.TP
.B \-Z <nnn> | \-\-antispam <nnn[, nnn]...>
-(Keyword: antispam)
+(Keyword: antispam)
Specifies the list of numeric SMTP errors that are to be interpreted
as a spam-block response from the listener. A value of -1 disables
this option. For the command-line option, the list values should
down upon your head. Also, do \fInot\fR try to combine multidrop
mode with an MDA such as procmail that can only accept one address;
you will lose mail.
-.TP
+.TP
.B \-\-lmtp
(Keyword: lmtp)
Cause delivery via LMTP (Local Mail Transfer Protocol). A service
This option works with POP3 only.
.TP
.B \-e <count> | \-\-expunge <count>
-(keyword: expunge)
+(keyword: expunge)
Arrange for deletions to be made final after a given number of
messages. Under POP2 or POP3, fetchmail cannot make deletions final
without sending QUIT and ending the session -- with this option on,
.B \-u <name> | \-\-username <name>
(Keyword: user[name])
Specifies the user identification to be used when logging in to the mailserver.
-The appropriate user identification is both server and user-dependent.
-The default is your login name on the client machine that is running
+The appropriate user identification is both server and user-dependent.
+The default is your login name on the client machine that is running
.IR fetchmail .
See USER AUTHENTICATION below for a complete description.
.TP
The field after the second slash is a mask which specifies a range of
IP addresses to accept. If no mask is present 255.255.255.255 is
assumed (i.e. an exact match). This option is currently only supported
-under Linux and FreeBSD. Please see the
-.B monitor
+under Linux and FreeBSD. Please see the
+.B monitor
section for below for FreeBSD specific information.
.TP
-.B \-M <interface> | --monitor <interface>
+.B \-M <interface> | \-\-monitor <interface>
(Keyword: monitor)
Daemon mode can cause transient links which are automatically taken down
after a period of inactivity (e.g. PPP links) to remain up
skipped. However, when fetchmail is woken up by a signal, the
monitor check is skipped and the poll goes through unconditionally.
This option is currently only supported under Linux and FreeBSD.
-For the
-.B monitor
-and
+For the
+.B monitor
+and
.B interface
options to work for non root users under FreeBSD, the fetchmail binary
must be installed SGID kmem. This would be a security hole, but
.SS Miscellaneous Options
.TP
.B \-f <pathname> | \-\-fetchmailrc <pathname>
-Specify a non-default name for the
+Specify a non-default name for the
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
run control file. The pathname argument must be either "-" (a single
dash, meaning to read the configuration from standard input) or a
.B \-i <pathname> | \-\-idfile <pathname>
(Keyword: idfile)
Specify an alternate name for the .fetchids file used to save POP3
-UIDs.
+UIDs.
.TP
.B \-n | \-\-norewrite
(Keyword: no rewrite)
.I fetchmail
edits RFC-822 address headers (To, From, Cc, Bcc, and Reply-To) in
fetched mail so that any mail IDs local to the server are expanded to
-full addresses (@ and the mailserver hostname are appended). This enables
+full addresses (@ and the mailserver hostname are appended). This enables
replies on the client to get addressed correctly (otherwise your
mailer might think they should be addressed to local users on the
client machine!). This option disables the rewrite. (This option is
.TP
.B \-E <line> | \-\-envelope <line>
(Keyword: envelope; Multidrop only)
-This option changes the header
+This option changes the header
.I fetchmail
assumes will carry a copy of the mail's envelope address. Normally
this is `X-Envelope-To' but as this header is not standard, practice
The string prefix assigned to this option will be removed from the user
name found in the header specified with the \fIenvelope\fR option
(\fIbefore\fR doing multidrop name mapping or localdomain checking,
-if either is applicable). This option is useful if you are using
+if either is applicable). This option is useful if you are using
.I fetchmail
to collect the mail for an entire domain and your ISP (or your mail
redirection provider) is using qmail.
This is what this option is for.
.TP
.B --configdump
-Parse the
+Parse the
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
file, interpret any command-line options specified, and dump a
configuration report to standard output. The configuration report is
a data structure assignment in the language Python. This option
-is meant to be used with an interactive
+is meant to be used with an interactive
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
-editor like
+editor like
.IR fetchmailconf ,
written in Python.
.SH USER AUTHENTICATION AND ENCRYPTION
All modes except ETRN require authentication of the client to the server.
-Normal user authentication in
+Normal user authentication in
.I fetchmail
-is very much like the authentication mechanism of
+is very much like the authentication mechanism of
.IR ftp (1).
The correct user-id and password depend upon the underlying security
-system at the mailserver.
+system at the mailserver.
.PP
-If the mailserver is a Unix machine on which you have an ordinary user
-account, your regular login name and password are used with
+If the mailserver is a Unix machine on which you have an ordinary user
+account, your regular login name and password are used with
.IR fetchmail .
If you use the same login name on both the server and the client machines,
-you needn't worry about specifying a user-id with the
+you needn't worry about specifying a user-id with the
.B \-u
option \-\- the default behavior is to use your login name on the
client machine as the user-id on the server machine. If you use a
with the
.B \-u
option. e.g. if your login name is 'jsmith' on a machine named 'mailgrunt',
-you would start
-.I fetchmail
+you would start
+.I fetchmail
as follows:
.IP
fetchmail -u jsmith mailgrunt
.PP
-The default behavior of
+The default behavior of
.I fetchmail
is to prompt you for your mailserver password before the connection is
-established. This is the safest way to use
+established. This is the safest way to use
.I fetchmail
and ensures that your password will not be compromised. You may also specify
your password in your
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
-file. This is convenient when using
+file. This is convenient when using
.I fetchmail
in daemon mode or with scripts.
+.SS Using netrc files
.PP
If you do not specify a password, and
.I fetchmail
cannot extract one from your
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
-file, it will look for a
+file, it will look for a
.I ~/.netrc
file in your home directory before requesting one interactively; if an
entry matching the mailserver is found in that file, the password will
.IR ftp (1)
man page for details of the syntax of the
.I ~/.netrc
-file. (This feature may allow you to avoid duplicating password
-information in more than one file.)
+file. To show a practical example, a .netrc might look like
+this:
+.IP
+.nf
+machine hermes.example.org
+login joe
+password topsecret
+.fi
+.PP
+You can repeat this block with different user information if you need to
+provide more than one password.
.PP
-On mailservers that do not provide ordinary user accounts, your user-id and
-password are usually assigned by the server administrator when you apply for
-a mailbox on the server. Contact your server administrator if you don't know
+This feature may allow you to avoid duplicating password
+information in more than one file.
+.PP
+On mailservers that do not provide ordinary user accounts, your user-id and
+password are usually assigned by the server administrator when you apply for
+a mailbox on the server. Contact your server administrator if you don't know
the correct user-id and password for your mailbox account.
+.SS POP3 variants
.PP
Early versions of POP3 (RFC1081, RFC1225) supported a crude form of
independent authentication using the
RFC1460 introduced APOP authentication. In this variant of POP3,
you register an APOP password on your server host (the program
to do this with on the server is probably called \fIpopauth\fR(8)). You
-put the same password in your
+put the same password in your
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
-file. Each time
+file. Each time
.I fetchmail
logs in, it sends a cryptographically secure hash of your password and
the server greeting time to the server, which can verify it by
-checking its authorization database.
+checking its authorization database.
+.SS Alternate authentication forms
.PP
-If your \fIfetchmail\fR was built with Kerberos support and you specify
+If your \fIfetchmail\fR was built with Kerberos support and you specify
Kerberos authentication (either with --auth or the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
option \fBauthenticate kerberos_v4\fR) it will try to get a Kerberos
ticket from the mailserver at the start of each query. Note: if
using the standard \fB--user\fR command or by the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR
option \fBuser\fR.
.PP
-If your IMAP daemon returns the PREAUTH response in its greeting line,
+If your IMAP daemon returns the PREAUTH response in its greeting line,
fetchmail will notice this and skip the normal authentication step.
This can be useful, e.g. if you start imapd explicitly using ssh.
In this case you can declare the authentication value `ssh' on that
capability response. Specify a user option 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.
+.SS Secure Socket Layers (SSL)
.PP
You can access SSL encrypted services by specifying the --ssl option.
You can also do this using the "ssl" server option in the .fetchmailrc
http://www.monkey.org/~dugsong/dsniff/). Use of an ssh tunnel (see
below for some examples) is preferable if you care seriously about the
security of your mailbox.
+.SS SMTP AUTH
.PP
.B fetchmail
also supports authentication to the ESMTP server on the client side
defaults to the username of the calling user.
.SH DAEMON MODE
-The
+The
.B \-\-daemon <interval>
or
.B \-d <interval>
-option runs
+option runs
.I fetchmail
in daemon mode. You must specify a numeric argument which is a
polling interval in seconds.
.PP
-In daemon mode,
+In daemon mode,
.I fetchmail
puts itself in background and runs forever, querying each specified
host and then sleeping for the given polling interval.
.IP
fetchmail -d 900
.PP
-will, therefore, poll all the hosts described in your
+will, therefore, poll all the hosts described in your
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
file (except those explicitly excluded with the `skip' verb) once
every fifteen minutes.
.PP
-It is possible to set a polling interval
+It is possible to set a polling interval
in your
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
file by saying `set daemon <interval>', where <interval> is an
wake-up signal to the daemon, forcing it to poll mailservers
immediately. (The wake-up signal is SIGHUP if fetchmail is running as
root, SIGUSR1 otherwise.) The wake-up action also clears any `wedged'
-flags indicating that connections have wedged due to failed
+flags indicating that connections have wedged due to failed
authentication or multiple timeouts.
.PP
The option
.B --quit
will kill a running daemon process instead of waking it up (if there
-is no such process,
+is no such process,
.I fetchmail
notifies you). If the --quit option is the only command-line option,
that's all there is to it.
file are still written to stderr, or to the specified log file.
The
.B \-\-nosyslog
-option turns off use of
+option turns off use of
.IR syslog (3),
-assuming it's turned on in the
-.I ~/.fetchmailrc
+assuming it's turned on in the
+.I ~/.fetchmailrc
file, or that the
.B \-L
or
.B \-\-logfile <file>
option was used.
.PP
-The
+The
.B \-N
or --nodetach option suppresses backgrounding and detachment of the
daemon process from its control terminal. This is useful
next poll cycle. (The IMAP logic doesn't delete messages until
they're delivered, so this problem does not arise.)
.PP
-If you touch or change the
-.I ~/.fetchmailrc
-file while fetchmail is running in daemon mode, this will be detected
+If you touch or change the
+.I ~/.fetchmailrc
+file while fetchmail is running in daemon mode, this will be detected
at the beginning of the next poll cycle. When a changed
-.I ~/.fetchmailrc
+.I ~/.fetchmailrc
is detected, fetchmail rereads it and restarts from scratch (using
exec(2); no state information is retained in the new instance). Note also
that if you break the
-.I ~/.fetchmailrc
+.I ~/.fetchmailrc
file's syntax, the new instance will softly and silently vanish away
on startup.
.SH ADMINISTRATIVE OPTIONS
.PP
-The
+The
.B \-\-postmaster <name>
option (keyword: set postmaster) specifies the last-resort username to
which multidrop mail is to be forwarded if no matching local recipient
-can be found. Normally this is just the user who invoked
+can be found. Normally this is just the user who invoked
.IR fetchmail .
If the invoking user is root, then the default of this option is
the user `postmaster'. Setting postmaster to the empty string causes
.PP
The
.B \-\-nobounce
-option suppresses the normal action of bouncing errors back to the
+option suppresses the normal action of bouncing errors back to the
sender in an RFC1894-conformant error message. If nobounce is on, the
message will go to the postmaster instead.
.PP
-The
+The
.B \-\-invisible
option (keyword: set invisible) tries to make fetchmail invisible.
Normally, fetchmail behaves like any other MTA would -- it generates a
the MTA it forwards to into thinking it came directly from the
mailserver host.
.PP
-The
+The
.B \-\-showdots
option (keyword: set showdots) forces fetchmail to show progress dots
even if the current tty is not stdout (for example logfiles).
-Starting with fetchmail version 5.3.0,
+Starting with fetchmail version 5.3.0,
progress dots are only shown on stdout by default.
.PP
By specifying the
example, occur if you have an account on the same server running a
mailing list, and are subscribed to the list using that account). The
default is not adding any such header. In
-.IR .fetchmailrc ,
+.IR .fetchmailrc ,
this is called `tracepolls'.
.SH RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES
The well-known
.IR procmail (1)
program is like this; so are most programs designed as mail transport
-agents, such as
+agents, such as
.IR sendmail (1),
and
.IR exim (1).
triggers this feature will elicit an SMTP response which
(unfortunately) varies according to the listener.
.PP
-Newer versions of
+Newer versions of
.I sendmail
return an error code of 571.
.PP
may reject code with a 500 response (followed by an enhanced status
code that contains more information).
.PP
-Return codes which
+Return codes which
.I fetchmail
treats as antispam responses and discards
the message can be set with the `antispam' option. This is one of the
.I fetchmail
is fetching from an IMAP server, the antispam response will be detected and
the message rejected immediately after the headers have been fetched,
-without reading the message body. Thus, you won't pay for downloading
+without reading the message body. Thus, you won't pay for downloading
spam message bodies.
.PP
By default, the list of antispam responses is empty.
When there is a conflict between the command-line arguments and the
arguments in this file, the command-line arguments take precedence.
.PP
-To protect the security of your passwords,
+To protect the security of your passwords,
your \fI~/.fetchmailrc\fR may not normally have more than 0600 (u=rw,g=,o=) permissions;
.I fetchmail
will complain and exit otherwise (this check is suppressed when
--version is on).
.PP
-You may read the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file as a list of commands to
-be executed when
+You may read the \fI.fetchmailrc\fR file as a list of commands to
+be executed when
.I fetchmail
is called with no arguments.
.SS Run Control Syntax
.SS Poll vs. Skip
The `poll' verb tells fetchmail to query this host when it is run with
no arguments. The `skip' verb tells
-.I fetchmail
+.I fetchmail
not to poll this host unless it is explicitly named on the command
line. (The `skip' verb allows you to experiment with test entries
safely, or easily disable entries for hosts that are temporarily down.)
Here are the legal options. Keyword suffixes enclosed in
square brackets are optional. Those corresponding to command-line
options are followed by `-' and the appropriate option letter.
-If option is only relevant to a single mode of operation, it is noted
+If option is only relevant to a single mode of operation, it is noted
as `s' or `m' for singledrop- or multidrop-mode, respectively.
Here are the legal global options:
Keyword Opt Mode Function
_
user[name] -u \& T{
-Set remote user name
-(local user name if name followed by `here')
+Set remote user name
+(local user name if name followed by `here')
T}
is \& \& T{
Connect local and remote user names
.PP
The `via' option is for if you want to have more
than one configuration pointing at the same site. If it is present,
-the string argument will be taken as the actual DNS name of the
+the string argument will be taken as the actual DNS name of the
mailserver host to query.
This will override the argument of poll, which can then simply be a
distinct label for the configuration (e.g. what you would give on the
The `interval' option (which takes a numeric argument) allows you to poll a
server less frequently than the basic poll interval. If you say
\&`interval N' the server this option is attached to will only be
-queried every N poll intervals.
+queried every N poll intervals.
.PP
The `is' or `to' keywords associate the following local (client)
name(s) (or server-name to client-name mappings separated by =) with
your username on the client machine is different from your name on the
mailserver. When there is only a single local name, mail is forwarded
to that local username regardless of the message's Received, To, Cc,
-and Bcc headers. In this case
+and Bcc headers. In this case
.I fetchmail
never does DNS lookups.
.PP
they're polled using an alias.
When such a server is polled, checks to extract the envelope address
fail, and
-.IR fetchmail
-reverts to delivery using the To/Cc/Bcc headers (See below
-`Header vs. Envelope addresses').
+.IR fetchmail
+reverts to delivery using the To/Cc/Bcc headers (See below
+`Header vs. Envelope addresses').
Specifying this option instructs
-.IR fetchmail
+.IR fetchmail
to retrieve all the IP addresses associated with both the poll name
and the name used by the remote MTA and to do a comparison of the IP
addresses. This comes in handy in situations where the remote server
while processing a multidrop mailbox, grovels through message headers
looking for names of the mailserver, pre-declaring common ones can
save it from having to do DNS lookups. Note: the names you give
-as arguments to `aka' are matched as suffixes -- if you specify
+as arguments to `aka' are matched as suffixes -- if you specify
(say) `aka netaxs.com', this will match not just a hostname
-netaxs.com, but any hostname that ends with `.netaxs.com'; such as
+netaxs.com, but any hostname that ends with `.netaxs.com'; such as
(say) pop3.netaxs.com and mail.netaxs.com.
.PP
The `localdomains' option allows you to declare a list of domains
The `preconnect' keyword allows you to specify a shell command to be
executed just before each time
.I fetchmail
-establishes a mailserver connection. This may be useful if you are
+establishes a mailserver connection. This may be useful if you are
attempting to set up secure POP connections with the aid of
.IR ssh (1).
If the command returns a nonzero status, the poll of that mailserver
given CRLF termination before forwarding. Strictly speaking RFC821
requires this, but few MTAs enforce the requirement it so this option
is normally off (only one such MTA, qmail, is in significant use at
-time of writing).
+time of writing).
.PP
The `stripcr' option controls whether carriage returns are stripped
out of retrieved mail before it is forwarded. It is normally not
.PP
The `pass8bits' option exists to cope with Microsoft mail programs that
stupidly slap a "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit" on everything. With
-this option off (the default) and such a header present,
+this option off (the default) and such a header present,
.I fetchmail
declares BODY=7BIT to an ESMTP-capable listener; this causes problems for
messages actually using 8-bit ISO or KOI-8 character sets, which will
be garbled by having the high bits of all characters stripped. If
-\&`pass8bits' is on,
+\&`pass8bits' is on,
.I fetchmail
is forced to declare BODY=8BITMIME to any ESMTP-capable listener. If
the listener is 8-bit-clean (as all the major ones now are) the right
inserted by some buggy POP servers are unconditionally discarded.)
.PP
The `dropdelivered' option controls whether Delivered-To headers will
-be kept in fetched mail (the default) or discarded. These headers are
+be kept in fetched mail (the default) or discarded. These headers are
added by Qmail and Postfix mailservers in order to avoid mail loops but
may get in your way if you try to "mirror" a mailserver within the same
domain. Use with caution.
.PP
.SS Miscellaneous Run Control Options
The words `here' and `there' have useful English-like
-significance. Normally `user eric is esr' would mean that
+significance. Normally `user eric is esr' would mean that
mail for the remote user `eric' is to be delivered to `esr',
but you can make this clearer by saying `user eric there is esr here',
or reverse it by saying `user esr here is eric there'
.SH INTERACTION WITH RFC 822
When trying to determine the originating address of a message,
-fetchmail looks through headers in the following order:
+fetchmail looks through headers in the following order:
.sp
.nf
Return-Path:
Basic format is:
.nf
- poll SERVERNAME protocol PROTOCOL username NAME password PASSWORD
+ poll SERVERNAME protocol PROTOCOL username NAME password PASSWORD
.fi
.PP
Example:
poll other.provider.net proto pop2 user "John.Smith" pass "My^Hat"
.fi
-Here's a version of those two with more whitespace and some noise words:
+Here's a version of those two with more whitespace and some noise words:
.nf
poll pop.provider.net proto pop3
runs of messages may be generated when copies of a message addressed
to multiple users are delivered to a multidrop box.
-.SS Header vs. Envelope addresses
+.SS Header vs. Envelope addresses
The fundamental problem is that by having your mailserver toss several
peoples' mail in a single maildrop box, you may have thrown away
potentially vital information about who each piece of mail was
header addresses in the RFC822 To/Cc/Bcc headers). This `envelope
address' is the address you need in order to reroute mail properly.
.PP
-Sometimes
+Sometimes
.I fetchmail
can deduce the envelope address. If the mailserver MTA is
.I sendmail
but the program has no way to know that that's actually the right thing.
.SS Bad Ways To Abuse Multidrop Mailboxes
-Multidrop mailboxes and
+Multidrop mailboxes and
.I fetchmail
serving multiple users in daemon mode do not mix. The problem, again, is
mail from mailing lists, which typically does not have an individual
-recipient address on it. Unless
+recipient address on it. Unless
.I fetchmail
can deduce an envelope address, such mail will only go to the account
running fetchmail (probably root). Also, blind-copied users are very
likely never to see their mail at all.
.PP
-If you're tempted to use
-.I fetchmail
+If you're tempted to use
+.I fetchmail
to retrieve mail for multiple users from a single mail drop via POP or
IMAP, think again (and reread the section on header and envelope
addresses above). It would be smarter to just let the mail sit in the
to haunt you.
.SS Speeding Up Multidrop Checking
-Normally, when multiple users are declared
+Normally, when multiple users are declared
.I fetchmail
extracts recipient addresses as described above and checks each host
part with DNS to see if it's an alias of the mailserver. If so, the
-name mappings described in the to ... here declaration are done and
+name mappings described in the "to ... here" declaration are done and
the mail locally delivered.
.PP
-This is the safest but also slowest method. To speed it up,
-pre-declare mailserver aliases with `aka'; these are checked before
-DNS lookups are done. If you're certain your aka list contains
+This is a convenient but also slow method. To speed
+it up, pre-declare mailserver aliases with `aka'; these are checked
+before DNS lookups are done. If you're certain your aka list contains
.B all
-DNS aliases of the mailserver (and all MX names pointing at it)
+DNS aliases of the mailserver (and all MX names pointing at it)
you can declare `no dns' to suppress DNS lookups entirely and
\fIonly\fR match against the aka list.
.SH EXIT CODES
-To facilitate the use of
+To facilitate the use of
.I fetchmail
in shell scripts, an exit code is returned to give an indication
of what occurred during a given connection.
.PP
-The exit codes returned by
+The exit codes returned by
.I fetchmail
are as follows:
.IP 0
just treat this as an 'unrecoverable error'. This error can also be
because a protocol fetchmail wants to use is not listed in /etc/services.
.IP 3
-The user authentication step failed. This usually means that a bad
-user-id, password, or APOP id was specified. Or it may mean that you
+The user authentication step failed. This usually means that a bad
+user-id, password, or APOP id was specified. Or it may mean that you
tried to run fetchmail under circumstances where it did not have
standard input attached to a terminal and could not prompt for a
missing password.
.IP 4
Some sort of fatal protocol error was detected.
.IP 5
-There was a syntax error in the arguments to
+There was a syntax error in the arguments to
.IR fetchmail .
.IP 6
The run control file had bad permissions.
.I fetchmail
timed out while waiting for the server.
.IP 8
-Client-side exclusion error. This means
+Client-side exclusion error. This means
.I fetchmail
either found another copy of itself already running, or failed in such
a way that it isn't sure whether another copy is running.
talking to qpopper or other servers that can respond with "lock busy"
or some similar text containing the word "lock".
.IP 10
-The
+The
.I fetchmail
run failed while trying to do an SMTP port open or transaction.
.IP 11
~/.fetchmail.pid
lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (non-root mode).
.TP 5
-~/.netrc
+~/.netrc
your FTP run control file, which (if present) will be searched for
passwords as a last resort before prompting for one interactively.
.TP 5
whichever of these is appropriate to wake it up.
.SH BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
+The assumptions that the DNS and in particular the checkalias options
+make are not often sustainable. For instance, it has become uncommon for
+an MX server to be a POP3 or IMAP server at the same time.
+.PP
The mda and plugin options interact badly. In order to collect error
status from the MDA, fetchmail has to change its normal signal
handling so that dead plugin processes don't get reaped until the end
If you modify a
.I ~/.fetchmailrc
while a background instance is running and break the syntax, the
-background instance will die silently. Unfortunately, it can't
+background instance will die silently. Unfortunately, it can't
die noisily because we don't yet know whether syslog should be enabled.
On some systems, fetchmail dies quietly even if there is no syntax
error; this seems to have something to do with buggy terminal ioctl
.SH AUTHOR
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>. Too many other people to
-name here have contributed code and patches.
-This program is descended from and replaces
-.IR popclient ,
-by Carl Harris <ceharris@mal.com>; the internals have become quite different,
+name here have contributed code and patches.
+This program is descended from and replaces
+.IR popclient ,
+by Carl Harris <ceharris@mal.com>; the internals have become quite different,
but some of its interface design is directly traceable to that
ancestral program.
.PP
projects / ~andy / fetchmail / commitdiff