Fetchmail and aliases

Geoff · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 66

Sorry for the longish question and ignorance of e-mail protocols which it
reveals.

For a long time my ISP has allowed e-mail accounts such that where my
username is somename RemoveThis @isp.com I can have aliases - eg
geoff RemoveThis @somename.isp.com, wife RemoveThis @somename.isp.com. A POP3 login in the form
(eg) geoff+somename.isp.com from any of these would deliver only mail
waiting for me.

I had things nicely set up so that my wife collected her mail on her
Windows laptop using Outlook Express and I got everything else into linux
using fetchmail / procmail / bogofilter and then on to my MUA (sylpheed).

As of Monday the ISP is changing things so that all mail will be mapped to
somename RemoveThis @isp.com and it will be the responsibility of the MUA to do any
filtering. Apparently the old "x+y@isp.co.uk" format will not be
supported and users will simply log on as, eg geoff RemoveThis @somename.isp.com. If
the MUA does not do the filtering, then everything in the queue will be
sent to whatever alias logs on. Apparently all this is to "bring us into
line with industry standards."

I can see that there is a filter setting in Outlook Express which can
direct it to collect only mail for wife RemoveThis @somename.isp.com - but I am not
sure how fetchmail should be set up to deal with the new arrangements. I
I use my own account for work and I am very anxious not to lose any mail
while I experiment.

My existing fetchmailrc has a stanza :

poll pop.isp.com
no dns
proto pop3
user "geoff+somename.isp.com"
password "XXXXXX"
options fetchall
mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d %s"

I am wondering how to change this to deal with the new situation.

I can obviously change the user to "geoff@somename.isp.com", but I don't
want to find that I am downloading all the mail in the queue whenever I
log on. Is this now a multidrop mailbox, so that I should use something
like the following?

poll pop.isp.com
no dns
proto pop3
user somename maildrop with pass XXXX to geoff
options fetchall
mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d %s"

TIA

Geoff

Chris Davies · External Since: Apr 13, 2004 Posts: 284

Geoff <capsthorne.DeleteThis@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> For a long time my ISP has allowed e-mail accounts such that where my
> username is somename.DeleteThis@isp.com I can have aliases - eg
> geoff.DeleteThis@somename.isp.com, wife.DeleteThis@somename.isp.com. A POP3 login in the form
> (eg) geoff+somename.isp.com from any of these would deliver only mail
> waiting for me.

> As of Monday the ISP is changing things so that all mail will be mapped
> to somename.DeleteThis@isp.com and it will be the responsibility of the MUA to do
> any filtering. Apparently the old "x+y@isp.co.uk" format will not be
> supported and users will simply log on as, eg geoff.DeleteThis@somename.isp.com
> [...]

I don't see how it's possible to filter downloads within the POP3
protocol. Maybe by "filtering" they mean that users will have to have
their MUA read the To:/Cc: lines and drop the email into an appropriate
folder. How that works for mailing lists and Bcc lines is anybody's guess,
of course...

> I am wondering how to change this to deal with the new situation.

Mmm. Way back when I used to use fetchmail, I only ever had it
configured to use multidrop. This worked well with Demon, Freeserve,
and then PlusNet.

Digging through my archives, it appears that something like this used
to work with Freeserve, and the receipe was similar for PlusNet and Demon
(you may need to tweak the antispam lines):

| poll plusnet
| via mail.plus.net
| proto POP3
| timeout 60
| tracepolls
|
| localdomains
| MY.ISP.LOGIN.NAME.plus.com
| roaima.co.uk
| A.N.OTHER.DOMAIN.org.uk
| envelope 'Envelope-to'
| user 'MY.ISP.LOGIN.NAME' there is * here
| password 'DONT.EVEN.THINK.ABOUT.IT'
| # keep
| # antispam 571 501 554

I suspect you're going to have to wait and see how your ISP identifies
the envelope recipient. Hopefully they'll be using one of the headers
that fetchmail can (easily) recognise.

Chris

Tony Houghton · External Since: Jul 22, 2006 Posts: 113

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:45:53 +0000
Chris Davies <chris-usenet.TakeThisOut@roaima.co.uk> wrote:

> I don't see how it's possible to filter downloads within the POP3
> protocol. Maybe by "filtering" they mean that users will have to have
> their MUA read the To:/Cc: lines and drop the email into an appropriate
> folder. How that works for mailing lists and Bcc lines is anybody's guess,
> of course...

Usually there's an extra header such as "X-Original-To" or
"X-Envelope-To", but the ISP's line about "Industry Standard" sounds
ominously like Microsoft spin. It's not so bad for Linux users, but can
Outlook Express forward to other Windows accounts on the same box?

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk

Geoff · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 66

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:45:53 +0000, Chris Davies wrote:

<snip>

Many thanks for the reply Chris

> I don't see how it's possible to filter downloads within the POP3
> protocol. Maybe by "filtering" they mean that users will have to have
> their MUA read the To:/Cc: lines and drop the email into an appropriate
> folder. How that works for mailing lists and Bcc lines is anybody's
> guess, of course...
>

That seems to be the way Outlook Express does it. One sets a filter rule
not to download from the server e-mails whose To:/Cc contain a specified
string.

<snip>

> Digging through my archives, it appears that something like this used to
> work with Freeserve, and the receipe was similar for PlusNet and Demon
> (you may need to tweak the antispam lines):
>
> | poll plusnet
> | via mail.plus.net
> | proto POP3
> | timeout 60
> | tracepolls
> |
> | localdomains
> | MY.ISP.LOGIN.NAME.plus.com
> | roaima.co.uk
> | A.N.OTHER.DOMAIN.org.uk
> | envelope 'Envelope-to'
> | user 'MY.ISP.LOGIN.NAME' there is * here | password
> 'DONT.EVEN.THINK.ABOUT.IT' | # keep
> | # antispam 571 501 554
>
>
> I suspect you're going to have to wait and see how your ISP identifies
> the envelope recipient. Hopefully they'll be using one of the headers
> that fetchmail can (easily) recognise.

That is very helpful. The key may well be the use of the envelope. I know
that I could get sylpheed to act in a way similar to Outlook Express, but
I am comfortable with my fetchmail setup, which reads some other mailboxes
at the same time as this one and (via procmail). lets me do smore
sophisticated spam blocking than sylpheed alone can achieve.

Geoff

Geoff · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 66

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:22:54 +0000, Tony Houghton wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:45:53 +0000
> Chris Davies <chris-usenet RemoveThis @roaima.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I don't see how it's possible to filter downloads within the POP3
>> protocol. Maybe by "filtering" they mean that users will have to have
>> their MUA read the To:/Cc: lines and drop the email into an appropriate
>> folder. How that works for mailing lists and Bcc lines is anybody's
>> guess, of course...
>
> Usually there's an extra header such as "X-Original-To" or
> "X-Envelope-To", but the ISP's line about "Industry Standard" sounds
> ominously like Microsoft spin. It's not so bad for Linux users, but can
> Outlook Express forward to other Windows accounts on the same box?

Thanks Tony,

I don't think that Outlook Express could do further forwarding, but I have
as little as possible to do with the damned thing. So long as my wife
gets her mail and does not download mine I do not need or intend to mess
with it further. I will obviously have to look hard at the headers when e-
mails begin to arrive on Monday.

Geoff

Will Kemp · External Since: Jan 13, 2009 Posts: 16

Chris Davies wrote:
> Geoff <capsthorne.RemoveThis@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> For a long time my ISP has allowed e-mail accounts such that where
>> my username is somename.RemoveThis@isp.com I can have aliases - eg
>> geoff.RemoveThis@somename.isp.com, wife.RemoveThis@somename.isp.com. A POP3 login in the
>> form (eg) geoff+somename.isp.com from any of these would deliver
>> only mail waiting for me.
>
>> As of Monday the ISP is changing things so that all mail will be
>> mapped to somename.RemoveThis@isp.com and it will be the responsibility of the
>> MUA to do any filtering. Apparently the old "x+y@isp.co.uk" format
>> will not be supported and users will simply log on as, eg
>> geoff.RemoveThis@somename.isp.com [...]
>
> I don't see how it's possible to filter downloads within the POP3
> protocol. Maybe by "filtering" they mean that users will have to have
> their MUA read the To:/Cc: lines and drop the email into an
> appropriate folder. How that works for mailing lists and Bcc lines is
> anybody's guess, of course...

It doesn't, of course. I believe it's what's known (by fetchmail, at
least) as "multi-drop". From the fetchmail man page:

> With multidrop-mode, fetchmail is not able to assume that there is
> only a single recipient, but rather that the mail server account
> actually contains mail intended for any number of different
> recipients. Therefore, fetchmail must attempt to deduce the proper
> "envelope recipient" from the mail headers of each message. In
> this mode of operation, fetchmail 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 often not directly available. Instead, fetchmail must resort to a
> process of informed guess-work in an attempt to discover the true
> envelope recipient of a message, unless the ISP stores the envelope
> information in some header (not all do). Even if this information
> is present in the headers, the process can be error-prone and is
> dependent upon the specific mail server used for mail retrieval.
> Multidrop-mode is used when more than one local user is specified for
> a particular server account in the configuration file.

So configuring fetchmail for multi-drop is probably the only way to do
this - but it's unlikely to work properly 100% of the time.

However, i think you may find that fetchmail will want to download all
the mail - and deliver some to one user and some to another. If a user
doesn't have an account on the local machine, i dunno what happens.

Another reason not to use your ISP for email - and probably a good time
to shift your email somewhere else!

--
http://NovemberEchoRomeoDelta.com

Chris Davies · External Since: Apr 13, 2004 Posts: 284

Geoff <capsthorne RemoveThis @yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> That is very helpful. The key may well be the use of the envelope.

Assuming that the ISP does indeed bother to record the envelope recipient,
that's exactly what you need to key on. Your own email address may not
even appear in the To/Cc lines.

> I am comfortable with my fetchmail setup, which reads some other
> mailboxes at the same time as this one and (via procmail). lets me do
> smore sophisticated spam blocking than sylpheed alone can achieve.

Ah yes. Thanks to a sensible ISP and a static IP address, I switched
across to running my own mail server a number of years ago, and I haven't
looked back. Spam? What spam? I get very little spam that I actually see,
even though my email address (above) is valid.

Chris

Robert Harris · External Since: Aug 14, 2005 Posts: 174

Geoff wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:22:54 +0000, Tony Houghton wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:45:53 +0000
>> Chris Davies <chris-usenet.TakeThisOut@roaima.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't see how it's possible to filter downloads within the POP3
>>> protocol. Maybe by "filtering" they mean that users will have to have
>>> their MUA read the To:/Cc: lines and drop the email into an appropriate
>>> folder. How that works for mailing lists and Bcc lines is anybody's
>>> guess, of course...
>> Usually there's an extra header such as "X-Original-To" or
>> "X-Envelope-To", but the ISP's line about "Industry Standard" sounds
>> ominously like Microsoft spin. It's not so bad for Linux users, but can
>> Outlook Express forward to other Windows accounts on the same box?
>
> Thanks Tony,
>
> I don't think that Outlook Express could do further forwarding, but I have
> as little as possible to do with the damned thing. So long as my wife
> gets her mail and does not download mine I do not need or intend to mess
> with it further. I will obviously have to look hard at the headers when e-
> mails begin to arrive on Monday.
>
> Geoff

I think you need to run your own POP3 or IMAP server for your wife and
possibly you as well. That isn't difficult but your server needs to run
at least whenever your wife wants access to her email. She can then
download her mail from your server.

Robert

Simon J. Rowe · External Since: Aug 03, 2005 Posts: 98

I've used fetchmail in multi-drop mode. It took some tinkering to get it to
work.

set postmaster "srowe"
set no bouncemail
set syslog
poll mail.isp.co.uk proto pop3 localdomains my.domain: envelope Envelope-to:
user "me@isp.co.uk" pass "topsecret" is * here with options fetchall
mda "/usr/local/sbin/bogo-deliver.sh -f %F %T"

You have have to find a header to demultiplex off for the envelope param.

Simon

alexd · External Since: Dec 15, 2005 Posts: 52

Tony Houghton wrote:

> can Outlook Express forward to other Windows accounts on the same box?

I think you'll find it's called 'Microsoft Exchange' in that mode of
operation Wink

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEsNpEaTm@ale.cx)
19:22:15 up 98 days, 21:33, 3 users, load average: 0.14, 0.12, 0.04
Sexy ladies, and nasty boys, all freaky freakin', to the robot noise

Martin Gregorie · External Since: Jan 23, 2009 Posts: 14

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:43:30 +0000, Will Kemp wrote:

> Chris Davies wrote:
>> Geoff <capsthorne.RemoveThis@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>> For a long time my ISP has allowed e-mail accounts such that where my
>>> username is somename.RemoveThis@isp.com I can have aliases - eg
>>> geoff.RemoveThis@somename.isp.com, wife.RemoveThis@somename.isp.com. A POP3 login in the
>>> form (eg) geoff+somename.isp.com from any of these would deliver only
>>> mail waiting for me.
>>
>>> As of Monday the ISP is changing things so that all mail will be
>>> mapped to somename.RemoveThis@isp.com and it will be the responsibility of the
>>> MUA to do any filtering. Apparently the old "x+y@isp.co.uk" format
>>> will not be supported and users will simply log on as, eg
>>> geoff.RemoveThis@somename.isp.com [...]
>>
>> I don't see how it's possible to filter downloads within the POP3
>> protocol. Maybe by "filtering" they mean that users will have to have
>> their MUA read the To:/Cc: lines and drop the email into an
>> appropriate folder. How that works for mailing lists and Bcc lines is
>> anybody's guess, of course...
>
> It doesn't, of course. I believe it's what's known (by fetchmail, at
> least) as "multi-drop". From the fetchmail man page:
>
>> With multidrop-mode, fetchmail is not able to assume that there is only
>> a single recipient, but rather that the mail server account actually
>> contains mail intended for any number of different recipients.
>> Therefore, fetchmail must attempt to deduce the proper "envelope
>> recipient" from the mail headers of each message. In this mode of
>> operation, fetchmail 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 often not
>> directly available. Instead, fetchmail must resort to a process of
>> informed guess-work in an attempt to discover the true envelope
>> recipient of a message, unless the ISP stores the envelope information
>> in some header (not all do). Even if this information is present in
>> the headers, the process can be error-prone and is dependent upon the
>> specific mail server used for mail retrieval. Multidrop-mode is
>> used when more than one local user is specified for a particular server
>> account in the configuration file.
>
> So configuring fetchmail for multi-drop is probably the only way to do
> this - but it's unlikely to work properly 100% of the time.
>
> However, i think you may find that fetchmail will want to download all
> the mail - and deliver some to one user and some to another. If a user
> doesn't have an account on the local machine, i dunno what happens.
>
> Another reason not to use your ISP for email - and probably a good time
> to shift your email somewhere else!
>
....or you could back-end fetchmail with Postfix and a POP3/IMAP server
like Dovecot.

If you go this way, use Postfix rather than sendmail. Postfix is much
easier to configure and just as stable - at least that's my experience.

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Andrzej Adam Filip · External Since: Sep 01, 2006 Posts: 22

Geoff <capsthorne RemoveThis @yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Sorry for the longish question and ignorance of e-mail protocols which it
> reveals.
>
> For a long time my ISP has allowed e-mail accounts such that where my
> username is somename RemoveThis @isp.com I can have aliases - eg
> geoff RemoveThis @somename.isp.com, wife RemoveThis @somename.isp.com. A POP3 login in the form
> (eg) geoff+somename.isp.com from any of these would deliver only mail
> waiting for me.
>
> I had things nicely set up so that my wife collected her mail on her
> Windows laptop using Outlook Express and I got everything else into linux
> using fetchmail / procmail / bogofilter and then on to my MUA (sylpheed).
>
> As of Monday the ISP is changing things so that all mail will be mapped to
> somename RemoveThis @isp.com and it will be the responsibility of the MUA to do any
> filtering. Apparently the old "x+y@isp.co.uk" format will not be
> supported and users will simply log on as, eg geoff RemoveThis @somename.isp.com. If
> the MUA does not do the filtering, then everything in the queue will be
> sent to whatever alias logs on. Apparently all this is to "bring us into
> line with industry standards."
>
> I can see that there is a filter setting in Outlook Express which can
> direct it to collect only mail for wife RemoveThis @somename.isp.com - but I am not
> sure how fetchmail should be set up to deal with the new arrangements. I
> I use my own account for work and I am very anxious not to lose any mail
> while I experiment.
>
> My existing fetchmailrc has a stanza :
>
> poll pop.isp.com
> no dns
> proto pop3
> user "geoff+somename.isp.com"
> password "XXXXXX"
> options fetchall
> mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d %s"
>
> I am wondering how to change this to deal with the new situation.
>
> I can obviously change the user to "geoff@somename.isp.com", but I don't
> want to find that I am downloading all the mail in the queue whenever I
> log on. Is this now a multidrop mailbox, so that I should use something
> like the following?
>
> poll pop.isp.com
> no dns
> proto pop3
> user somename maildrop with pass XXXX to geoff
> options fetchall
> mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d %s"
>
> TIA
>
> Geoff

Do you have computer with permanent Internet access?

Standard advice is to implement "splitting" on such computer:
download from old mailbox and sort into new mailboxes elsewhere.

--
[pl>en Andrew] Andrzej Adam Filip : anfi RemoveThis @onet.eu : anfi RemoveThis @xl.wp.pl
Tcl long ago fell into the Forth trap, and is now trying desperately to
extricate itself (with some help from Sun's marketing department).
-- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756 RemoveThis @wall.org>

Geoff · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 66

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:43:30 +0000, Will Kemp wrote:

<snip>
>
> It doesn't, of course. I believe it's what's known (by fetchmail, at
> least) as "multi-drop". From the fetchmail man page:
>
>> With multidrop-mode, fetchmail is not able to assume that there is only
>> a single recipient, but rather that the mail server account actually
>> contains mail intended for any number of different recipients.
>> Therefore, fetchmail must attempt to deduce the proper "envelope
>> recipient" from the mail headers of each message. In this mode of
>> operation, fetchmail 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 often not
>> directly available. Instead, fetchmail must resort to a process of
>> informed guess-work in an attempt to discover the true envelope
>> recipient of a message, unless the ISP stores the envelope information
>> in some header (not all do). Even if this information is present in
>> the headers, the process can be error-prone and is dependent upon the
>> specific mail server used for mail retrieval. Multidrop-mode is
>> used when more than one local user is specified for a particular server
>> account in the configuration file.
>
> So configuring fetchmail for multi-drop is probably the only way to do
> this - but it's unlikely to work properly 100% of the time.
>
> However, i think you may find that fetchmail will want to download all
> the mail - and deliver some to one user and some to another. If a user
> doesn't have an account on the local machine, i dunno what happens.

Thanks Will,

This was what prompted my original post. I could not make out from the
man page whether fetchmail in multidrop mode would selectively download
only mail addressed the aliases I tell it to, leaving my wife's stuff
untouched.

> Another reason not to use your ISP for email - and probably a good time
> to shift your email somewhere else!

I know, I know ...... The problem is that I have had this address for a
long time. It is woven into my business and I have given it as my e-mail
address for all really important purposes - HMRC etc. I have been wimping
out of disentangling myself from it for ages.

Geoff

Geoff · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 66

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:46:07 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:

<snip>

Thanks Martin,

> ...or you could back-end fetchmail with Postfix and a POP3/IMAP server
> like Dovecot.
>
> If you go this way, use Postfix rather than sendmail. Postfix is much
> easier to configure and just as stable - at least that's my experience.

This kind of approach had occured to me but (even though my wife uses my
box for printing via samba), I have fought shy of making her any more
dependant on it. She has zero linux knowledge and if I go under the
proverbial bus I would like her at least to be able to read her mail
without worrying about the linux aspect.

Geoff

Geoff · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 66

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:15:55 +0000, Simon J. Rowe wrote:

> I've used fetchmail in multi-drop mode. It took some tinkering to get it
> to work.
>
> set postmaster "srowe"
> set no bouncemail
> set syslog
> poll mail.isp.co.uk proto pop3 localdomains my.domain: envelope
> Envelope-to: user "me@isp.co.uk" pass "topsecret" is * here with options
> fetchall mda "/usr/local/sbin/bogo-deliver.sh -f %F %T"
>
> You have have to find a header to demultiplex off for the envelope
> param.

Thanks Simon, - this is very useful guidance.

It is a quite a while since I was active in this group. It is great to
see that the expertise and helpfulness of all who have responded remains
at such a very high level.

Geoff

Geoff · External Since: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 66

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:06:09 +0000, Robert Harris wrote:
<snip>

> I think you need to run your own POP3 or IMAP server for your wife and
> possibly you as well. That isn't difficult but your server needs to run
> at least whenever your wife wants access to her email. She can then
> download her mail from your server.
>

Thanks Robert,

For some reason I saw this after my reply to Martin Gregorie, but as I
said there, whilst I understand the logic of this, I would like to leave
her as independent as possible.

Geoff

Will Kemp · External Since: Jan 13, 2009 Posts: 16

Geoff wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:43:30 +0000, Will Kemp wrote:
>
> <snip>
>> It doesn't, of course. I believe it's what's known (by fetchmail, at
>> least) as "multi-drop". From the fetchmail man page:
>>
>>> With multidrop-mode, fetchmail is not able to assume that there is only
>>> a single recipient, but rather that the mail server account actually
>>> contains mail intended for any number of different recipients.
>>> Therefore, fetchmail must attempt to deduce the proper "envelope
>>> recipient" from the mail headers of each message. In this mode of
>>> operation, fetchmail 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 often not
>>> directly available. Instead, fetchmail must resort to a process of
>>> informed guess-work in an attempt to discover the true envelope
>>> recipient of a message, unless the ISP stores the envelope information
>>> in some header (not all do). Even if this information is present in
>>> the headers, the process can be error-prone and is dependent upon the
>>> specific mail server used for mail retrieval. Multidrop-mode is
>>> used when more than one local user is specified for a particular server
>>> account in the configuration file.
>> So configuring fetchmail for multi-drop is probably the only way to do
>> this - but it's unlikely to work properly 100% of the time.
>>
>> However, i think you may find that fetchmail will want to download all
>> the mail - and deliver some to one user and some to another. If a user
>> doesn't have an account on the local machine, i dunno what happens.
>
> Thanks Will,
>
> This was what prompted my original post. I could not make out from the
> man page whether fetchmail in multidrop mode would selectively download
> only mail addressed the aliases I tell it to, leaving my wife's stuff
> untouched.
>
>> Another reason not to use your ISP for email - and probably a good time
>> to shift your email somewhere else!
>
> I know, I know ...... The problem is that I have had this address for a
> long time. It is woven into my business and I have given it as my e-mail
> address for all really important purposes - HMRC etc. I have been wimping
> out of disentangling myself from it for ages.

The sooner you start, the sooner you'll be disentangled. Your life will
be easier in the long run. You can register your own domain and have
your email (with as many different addresses as you want) hosted
somewhere decent for a quid a week all up - including web space if you
want to use it.

--
http://NovemberEchoRomeoDelta.com

Chris Davies · External Since: Apr 13, 2004 Posts: 284

Martin Gregorie <martin.TakeThisOut@see.sig.for.address.invalid> wrote:
> ...or you could back-end fetchmail with Postfix and a POP3/IMAP server
> like Dovecot.

Exim4 (with SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and Greylisting), and Dovecot (with
Sieve). Add Squirrelmail for bonus points.

Works for me Very Happy

Chris

Chris Davies · External Since: Apr 13, 2004 Posts: 284

Geoff <capsthorne DeleteThis @yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> However, i think you may find that fetchmail will want to download all
> the mail - and deliver some to one user and some to another. If a user
> doesn't have an account on the local machine, i dunno what happens.

It will either bounce, get delivered to a specific (single) recipient, or
both, depending on what you've specified in the fetchmail configuration.

I omitted to provide these "global" parameters from my fetchmailrc that
I posted earlier:

# Global options
#
set postmaster "postmaster@roaima.co.uk"
set no bouncemail
set no spambounce
set syslog
set daemon 3600

This tells fetchmail to deliver undeliverable messages to postmaster,
without notifying the sender that they used a bad address. I can't
remember the meaning of spambounce, but it'll be in the man page I'm sure.

If you find you need to discuss actual specifics of your implementation,
you may want to drop me a line and I'll try to help. (Use the reply-to
address, please, for more reliable delivery. The chris-usenet has a high
spamassassin score loading.)

Chris

Will Kemp · External Since: Jan 13, 2009 Posts: 16

Andrzej Adam Filip wrote:
> Geoff <capsthorne.DeleteThis@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Sorry for the longish question and ignorance of e-mail protocols which it
>> reveals.
>>
>> For a long time my ISP has allowed e-mail accounts such that where my
>> username is somename.DeleteThis@isp.com I can have aliases - eg
>> geoff.DeleteThis@somename.isp.com, wife.DeleteThis@somename.isp.com. A POP3 login in the form
>> (eg) geoff+somename.isp.com from any of these would deliver only mail
>> waiting for me.
>>
>> I had things nicely set up so that my wife collected her mail on her
>> Windows laptop using Outlook Express and I got everything else into linux
>> using fetchmail / procmail / bogofilter and then on to my MUA (sylpheed).
>>
>> As of Monday the ISP is changing things so that all mail will be mapped to
>> somename.DeleteThis@isp.com and it will be the responsibility of the MUA to do any
>> filtering. Apparently the old "x+y@isp.co.uk" format will not be
>> supported and users will simply log on as, eg geoff.DeleteThis@somename.isp.com. If
>> the MUA does not do the filtering, then everything in the queue will be
>> sent to whatever alias logs on. Apparently all this is to "bring us into
>> line with industry standards."
>>
>> I can see that there is a filter setting in Outlook Express which can
>> direct it to collect only mail for wife.DeleteThis@somename.isp.com - but I am not
>> sure how fetchmail should be set up to deal with the new arrangements. I
>> I use my own account for work and I am very anxious not to lose any mail
>> while I experiment.
>>
>> My existing fetchmailrc has a stanza :
>>
>> poll pop.isp.com
>> no dns
>> proto pop3
>> user "geoff+somename.isp.com"
>> password "XXXXXX"
>> options fetchall
>> mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d %s"
>>
>> I am wondering how to change this to deal with the new situation.
>>
>> I can obviously change the user to "geoff@somename.isp.com", but I don't
>> want to find that I am downloading all the mail in the queue whenever I
>> log on. Is this now a multidrop mailbox, so that I should use something
>> like the following?
>>
>> poll pop.isp.com
>> no dns
>> proto pop3
>> user somename maildrop with pass XXXX to geoff
>> options fetchall
>> mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d %s"
>>
>> TIA
>>
>> Geoff
>
> Do you have computer with permanent Internet access?
>
> Standard advice is to implement "splitting" on such computer:
> download from old mailbox and sort into new mailboxes elsewhere.

And if you need access from outside your local network but don't want to
run a pop3 server that the whole world can access, you could set up
forwards to gmail accounts and pop the mail off from there.

--
http://NovemberEchoRomeoDelta.com