Re: [PLUG] Mail setup questions

[epike@isinet.com]

> I would like to set up a simple, text based email client (like Mutt, Pine, 
> Emacs, etc) to send and retrieve my email.  I am not at all familiar with 
> any type of Mail transfer agent, sendmail, fetchmail, etc. 


Hi..this email is being sent using elm!

I dont know if you want to configure an MTA, but here how I would
do it..

Assuming sendmail, the first thing you do is make sure sendmail
works correctly.  Perhaps other people here can advice on this
area.

FETCHMAIL - since you have to fetch mail by POP you can configure
fetchmail to check the mail, say every 300 seconds:

   1.  Write a configuration file in ~/.fetchmailrc that
       looks like:

       poll mailerver.xxx.xxx.home.com proto pop3
            user username with password passwd
            is \username here

       
       OR what I have right now is:

       .fetchmailrc
       ------------------------------------------
       poll mailserver.....com  proto imap
       user epike is \epike here;
       ------------------------------------------

       .netrc
       ------------------------------------------
       machine mailserver...com login epike password passwd
       ------------------------------------------

       The file .fetchmailrc is checked by fetchmail
       on startup. 

       note that many protocols are possible, like
       "pop3" and "imap" (depends on the mailserver).
       We are windows-centric in the office so the
       mailservers are imap.

       \username is your local login name.  What fetchmail
       will do is forward the mail to the local login
       user.

       you can split the config file into .fetchmailrc
       and .netrc that way you can store passwords
       in a separate file.  .netrc is also understood
       by telnet, ftp, and other network commands.


   2.  use fetchmail:

       fetchmail -d 300  -k 

       This is what I always use, it puts fetchmail in daemonm
       mode and wakes up every 300 seconds, plus it doesnt
       delete the mail on the mailserver.

       You can put somethign like this on the startup file
       /etc/rc.d/rc.local so it runs at boot...If you do this
       I would suggest

       su - username -c "fetchmail -d 300 -k"

       instead of running it as root.


       fetchmail -F -v

       command-line, will fetch AND erase your mail on the
       mailserver.

       some other fetchmail options are possible..


Regards elm, it has its own configuration files too..that depends
on the email client of your choice.   You want more details for
elm?  I'm not expert there but I have the config file setup here
that works for me.

The advantage of using fetchmail/sendmail is that most of the
text utils such as "mail" and some programs you write in
shell, or maybe perl, will work correctly, since the config
is at the MTA level.

Disadvantage is that you poll the mailserver every so seconds.
So incoming mail is not instantaneous.   You did say a
remote POP account.

later...


e pike / JondZ



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