Fetchmail/Sendmail problems - some domains don't resolve (and other problems)
 

Hi people, I have set up Fetchmail to check and download my mail from my mail provider's POP3 server, so I can read it with Pine. The mail gets delivered to my "local" mailbox via Sendmail. This sort of works OK, but I'm having a few problems:

1. Some messages don't get downloaded because the domains don't resolve. Here's an example from my fetchmaillog:

fetchmail: reading message ***@******:1 of 1 (22511 octets)
fetchmail: SMTP error: 451 4.1.8 Domain of sender address RealTimeEmail+USRT--n
3EUaIcPBq@bounces.amazon.com does not resolve
fetchmail: not flushed

I've put stars where my username and the hostname should be. I've read that this is not to do with Fetchmail itself, but with Sendmail. What can I do to force it to download the messages?

2. Every time I switch my machine on, I run Fetchmail manually in daemon mode. I've found that it's possible to get it to run automatically on boot, by putting it in /etc/rc.d/rc.local. If I do this, it'll run as root and so will my mail still be delivered to my regular user's mailbox, or root's. I would hope the former, because of the following lines that are in my ~/.fetchmailrc:

poll ********** with proto POP3
user '******' there with password '*******' is 'nick' here

If I do want it started at boot, do I just need to put it in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, telling it which fetchmailrc to use?

3. Sometimes (actually, this happens quite a lot), when mail does get downloaded, I don't get a notification in the terminal saying, "You have mail in /var/mail/nick". If I just happen to run Pine for the sake of it, that's when I know I have mail. The notifications would be nice! Any ideas? Obviously I know that you have to "use" the terminal and can't just leave it open and expect the notifications to come.

All help appreciated.

The following works:

dnl# Turn this feature on if you don't always have DNS, or enjoy junk mail:
dnl FEATURE(`accept_unresolvable_domains')dnl

It's in /usr/share/sendmail/cf/cf/sendmail-slackware.mc. The config file obviously has to be regenerated from that mc file.

Any ideas about the other questions?

Thanks.

Hmm, if I add the line

/usr/bin/fetchmail -f /home/nick/.fetchmailrc

to my /etc/rc.d/rc.local, I get the following message when I start Slack:

fetchmail: WARNING: Running as root is discouraged.
File /home/nick/.fetchmailrc must be owned by you.

What can I do?

Actually, I think the notifications are working OK, so it's just starting Fetchmail on boot that's the problem now.