[gentoo-user] running fetchmail/procmail as a service

[gentoo-user] running fetchmail/procmail as a service

[Robert Persson]

I want to run fetchmail as a service and I am confused about how this works. I 
simply want to have something that will quietly fetch and deliver mail to 
maildirs to users' home directories, but that can also be disabled easily 
when I need that bit of extra performance for something.

I assume that fetchmail will first look at /etc/fetchmailrc. Will it then look 
at each user's $HOME/.fetchmailrc? If so, can I assume that it will deal with 
each user's .procmailrc suid that user?

If not, what do I need to do instead?

Many thanks
Robert
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Robert Persson
That's MISTER Scum to you.
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Re: [gentoo-user] running fetchmail/procmail as a service

[Jean Magnan de Bornier]

Le 21 juin à 00:42:33 Robert Persson <ireneshusband@yahoo.co.uk> écrit notamment:

| I want to run fetchmail as a service and I am confused about how this works. I 
| simply want to have something that will quietly fetch and deliver mail to 
| maildirs to users' home directories, but that can also be disabled easily 
| when I need that bit of extra performance for something.

To enable fetchmail as demon:
# /etc/init.d/fetchmail start

To have fetchmail start automatically at boot:
# rc-update add fetchmail default

To suspend fetchmail:
# /etc/init.d/fetchmail stop
>
| I assume that fetchmail will first look at /etc/fetchmailrc. Will it then look 
| at each user's $HOME/.fetchmailrc? 

Yes



| If so, can I assume that it will deal with each user's .procmailrc suid
| that user?



Yes; have a look at the fetchmail manual (-mda command)

regards

-- 
  Jean Magnan de Bornier             |        Cours Victor Hugo
  e-mots: jean at bornier.net        |        13980 Alleins   France
  T 08 70 39 34 03                   |        P 06 09 17 35 87

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Re: [gentoo-user] running fetchmail/procmail as a service

[Robert Persson]

On Tuesday 20 June 2006 22:49 Jean Magnan de Bornier was like:
> Yes

Thanks! That's what I needed to know.

-- 
Robert Persson

That's MISTER Scum to you.
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Re: [gentoo-user] running fetchmail/procmail as a service

[Robert Persson]

Jean Magnan de Bornier wrote:
> Le 21 juin à 00:42:33 Robert Persson <ireneshusband@yahoo.co.uk> écrit notamment:
>
> | I want to run fetchmail as a service and I am confused about how this works. I 
> | simply want to have something that will quietly fetch and deliver mail to 
> | maildirs to users' home directories, but that can also be disabled easily 
> | when I need that bit of extra performance for something.
>
> To enable fetchmail as demon:
> # /etc/init.d/fetchmail start
>
> To have fetchmail start automatically at boot:
> # rc-update add fetchmail default
>
> To suspend fetchmail:
> # /etc/init.d/fetchmail stop
>   
> | I assume that fetchmail will first look at /etc/fetchmailrc. Will it then look 
> | at each user's $HOME/.fetchmailrc? 
>
> Yes
>
>
>
> | If so, can I assume that it will deal with each user's .procmailrc suid
> | that user?
>
>
>
> Yes; have a look at the fetchmail manual (-mda command)
>
> regards
>
>   
When I tried it, this didn't seem to work for me. I tried using an empty 
/etc/fetchmailrc because I wanted fetchmail to go straight to the 
~/.fetchmailrc's, but it complained that no server was specified.

I'm not panicked about this any more because I have decided to use  the 
relatively painless webmin to configure the ~/.fetchmailrc's and 
schedule cron jobs. even though it isn't exactly what I wanted. That 
said, if anyone knows what I should have done to get the fetchmail 
service to use the ~/.fetchmailrc's rather than /etc/fetchmailrc I would 
appreciate it.

Many thanks.
Robert
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Re: [gentoo-user] running fetchmail/procmail as a service

[Robert Persson]

Robert Persson wrote:
> I'm not panicked about this any more because I have decided to use  
> the relatively painless webmin to configure the ~/.fetchmailrc's and 
> schedule cron jobs. even though it isn't exactly what I wanted. That 
> said, if anyone knows what I should have done to get the fetchmail 
> service to use the ~/.fetchmailrc's rather than /etc/fetchmailrc I 
> would appreciate it.
>
Actually, scratch all that. Fetchmail lost some mails. That's really 
bad. So I ditched it and have set up getmail instead. Seems to be 
working so far. And it's much easier to configure. Has an option to 
leave mail on server so many days after collecting it, which will help 
if it decides to lose mails as well.

No daemon mode, so need to run it as a cron job.

Robert
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Re: [gentoo-user] running fetchmail/procmail as a service

[Jean Magnan de Bornier]

Le 25 juin à 08:18:20 Robert Persson <ireneshusband@yahoo.co.uk> écrit notamment:

| Jean Magnan de Bornier wrote:
| > Le 21 juin à 00:42:33 Robert Persson <ireneshusband@yahoo.co.uk> écrit notamment:
| >
| > | I want to run fetchmail as a service and I am confused about how
| > this works. I | simply want to have something that will quietly
| > fetch and deliver mail to | maildirs to users' home directories, but
| > that can also be disabled easily | when I need that bit of extra
| > performance for something.
| >
| > To enable fetchmail as demon:
| > # /etc/init.d/fetchmail start
| >
| > To have fetchmail start automatically at boot:
| > # rc-update add fetchmail default
| >
| > To suspend fetchmail:
| > # /etc/init.d/fetchmail stop
| >   | I assume that fetchmail will first look at
| > /etc/fetchmailrc. Will it then look | at each user's
| > $HOME/.fetchmailrc? 
| >
| > Yes
| >
| >
| >
| > | If so, can I assume that it will deal with each user's .procmailrc suid
| > | that user?
| >
| >
| >
| > Yes; have a look at the fetchmail manual (-mda command)
| >
| > regards
| >
| >   
| When I tried it, this didn't seem to work for me. I tried using an
| empty /etc/fetchmailrc because I wanted fetchmail to go straight to
| the ~/.fetchmailrc's, but it complained that no server was specified.

There is this option in /etc/init.d/fetchmail which says that the config
file is /etc/fetchmailrc: -f /etc/fetchmailrc (it is in the middle of the
file); but if you remove it I think only /root/.fetchmailrc would be
searched, and I guess you don't have it and it's not your problem.

>
| I'm not panicked about this any more because I have decided to use
| the relatively painless webmin to configure the ~/.fetchmailrc's
| and
| schedule cron jobs. even though it isn't exactly what I wanted.

That's a good solution, I don't think running fetchmail as a daemon is
superior, it's just more straightforward for a system where a centralized
fetchmailrc is possible.  

| That said, if anyone knows what I should have done to get the fetchmail
| service to use the ~/.fetchmailrc's rather than /etc/fetchmailrc I would
| appreciate it.

Well, you could imagine a cron job to copy the content of all ~/.fetchmailrc
in /etc/fetchmailrc (cat would do that), say every two hours, and run
fetchmail as daemon... but is worth it?

regards
-- 
  Jean Magnan de Bornier             |        Cours Victor Hugo
  e-mots: jean at bornier.net        |        13980 Alleins   France
  T 08 70 39 34 03                   |        P 06 09 17 35 87

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