Fetchmail dumps emails in /tmp -- how do I change this?

Makar · 10-18-2008, 01:17 PM

HI. I'm completely new to setting up email (used pine for many years and didn't have to think about it). I have fetchmail working but it dumps each msg in /tmp and each one disappears when complete. I've been through the manual but can't see how I direct the output. Here's the .fetchmailrc

set logfile "/home/khave/fetchmail.log"
set postmaster "khave"
set bouncemail
set no spambounce
set properties ""
poll imap.univ.ac.uk via imap.univ.ac.uk
with proto IMAP
user 'xyz' there with password 'xxxx' is 'khave' here options keep fetchall stripcr sslproto "TLS1"
mda '/usr/bin/mutt'

I get files with names like mutt-machinename-1000-11241-0 in /tmp.

The log file shows (extract)

fetchmail: (4292179 body octets) (log message incomplete)fetchmail: IMAP< )
fetchmail: IMAP< A0249 OK Completed (0.070 sec)
No recipients were specified.
fetchmail: MDA returned nonzero status 1
fetchmail: not flushed
fetchmail: IMAP> A0250 FETCH 122 RFC822.HEADER
fetchmail: IMAP< * 122 FETCH (RFC822.HEADER {1328}

But mutt itself seems to be ok.

I guess this is a silly question but I'm completely stumped.

This is fetchmail 6.3.8.8 on Ubuntu 7.10.

Thanks ...

zmanea · 10-18-2008, 06:42 PM

It looks like the issue is related to mutt. Fetchmail is simply downloading the email and passing it to mutt, since you have mutt defined as the mda. If you have an MTA (IE: sendmail) running on the box then you could take mutt out of the config and fetchmail would deliver it via SMTP. I hope that helps and maybe you can answer a question from me: Any reason why you prefer pine/mutt to read email?

Makar · 10-19-2008, 03:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zmanea

It looks like the issue is related to mutt. Fetchmail is simply downloading the email and passing it to mutt, since you have mutt defined as the mda. If you have an MTA (IE: sendmail) running on the box then you could take mutt out of the config and fetchmail would deliver it via SMTP.

Thanks. I'll look at the muttrc again. I don't have sendmail up -- I've always heard that it is fiendish to work with.

Quote:

I hope that helps and maybe you can answer a question from me: Any reason why you prefer pine/mutt to read email?

I went to pine originally because I prefer the command line. I have poor sight and working with mice is too fiddly. I've finally abandoned it because my filters were getting too complicated and also because al/pine doesn't offer forwarding/bouncing as an option to a filter.

Actually I find I have to have a clearout of habits every few years, or I go stale. So I'm aiming for fetchmail/procmail/mutt and I'm leaving procmail until I get the other two working.

Was your question critical, ie, `Why the hell do you prefer pine/mutt?' ?

billymayday · 10-19-2008, 03:34 AM

Ignoring your options and the mda part, for my .fetchmailrc

Code:

poll imap.univ.ac.uk via imap.univ.ac.uk
with proto IMAP
user 'xyz' there with password 'xxxx' is 'khave' here

would be

Code:

poll imap.univ.ac.uk via imap.univ.ac.uk
     proto IMAP
     user "xyz"
     pass "xxxx"
     is khave here

However, looking at the man page (I have an MTA running all the time, so don't use the mda), I'd expect you to need something like

mda /usr/bin/mutt %T

To pass the To address to mutt.

Edit - question - why "imap.univ.ac.uk via imap.univ.ac.uk" rather than just "imap.univ.ac.uk"

Makar · 10-19-2008, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by billymayday

However, looking at the man page (I have an MTA running all the time, so don't use the mda), I'd expect you to need something like

mda /usr/bin/mutt %T

To pass the To address to mutt.

Thanks a lot.

Quote:

Edit - question - why "imap.univ.ac.uk via imap.univ.ac.uk" rather than just "imap.univ.ac.uk"

Ummm, this came from fetchmailconf and I left it in. I'll take it out.

Strange that there isn't much on the mutt pages about using Maildir. Lots of rc models but none of them I think use Maildir.