Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 15:03:54 +0200 From: Erik Trulsson <ertr1013@student.csd.uu.se> To: "Duke Normandin" <dnormandin@freewwweb.com> Cc: "'freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org'" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Re: Help! ppp/fetchmail/sendmail Message-ID: <20000517150353.A19463@student.csd.uu.se> In-Reply-To: <004e01bfbff7$5c1a0660$b1dba7d1@dnormandinfreewwweb.com>; from dnormandin@freewwweb.com on Wed, May 17, 2000 at 05:59:28AM -0600 References: <004e01bfbff7$5c1a0660$b1dba7d1@dnormandinfreewwweb.com>
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On Wed, May 17, 2000 at 05:59:28AM -0600, Duke Normandin wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 16, 2000 1:04 PM Erik Trulsson <ertr1013@student.csd.uu.se>
> wrote:
>
>
> >On Mon, May 15, 2000 at 09:15:45PM -0600, Duke Normandin wrote:
> >> How do I get fetchmail to drop the 2 POP3 accounts to user:dnormandin
>
>
> >Just run fetchmail as that user. It works for me at least.
>
>
> I just discovered (learning all about "the Unix way") that I need to install
> a MDA -- procmail was suggested in the tutorial I was reading today. Is this
> what you use as well? If I understand this correctly, fetchmail only
> "fetches" --
> an MDA has to "fill the mailboxes" -- sendmail only delivers to my maildrops,
> i.e. ISPs. Am I close?
Not quite. The sequence of events when you get mail is bascially:
fetchmail reads from the POP3 account at your ISP.
fetchmail delivers the mail to the SMTP port at your machine
sendmail (or some other MTA) reads mail that comes in vis SMTP
sendmail tries to figure out what it should do with the mail.
If the mail is to be delivered to some local address sendmail invokes the
appropriate program (MDA) to put it into the users mailbox.
Otherwise sendmail either sends the mail along or bounces it back to the
sender depending on how sendmail is configured.
(Yes, sendmail only delivers to your maildrops but that can include your own
machine. :-)
(For sending mail the sequence is simpler:
Your mail program invokes sendmail which sends the mail along to the
correct adress via SMTP.)
I think sendmail normally uses mail.local (which is included in the system)
as the MDA but procmail can also be used. So you don't *have* to install
anything else.
The advantage of procmail is that you can sort the incoming mail depending
on the contents.
(For example, having mail from a mailing list end up in its own mailbox
instead of being mixed with other mail.)
My guess is that you haven't managed to tell sendmail which
addresses/domains are to be considered 'local' and so sendmail will just
send the mail on.
> >I think that sendmail is primarily meant to be used on machines that are
> >connected all the time and with a working DNS setup.
> >It can probably be made to work in your case too, but don't ask *me* how :-)
(replace 'sendmail' with 'the default configuration of sendmail' for a more
correct statement)
>
> Thanks for the `qmail` recommendation! It's very tempting, but I'm
> inclined to learn sendmail, so that I can dive deeper in learning
> "the Unix way". It's got to be do-able! *After* I get
> sendmail/fetchmail/procmail all working properly, then I'll smile and kick
> sendmail in the ass, and replace it with qmail ;^) If I go the easy route
> now I'll never learn a thing -- or maybe I'm just a sucker for punishment?
If you get sendmail working you shouldn't change anything. (Unless you are
just in it for the learning experience and don't care if things go wrong. :-))
("If it ain't broke, don't fix it.")
There isn't actually anything *wrong* with sendmail, it is just that it can
be non-trivial to configure correctly.
--
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013@student.csd.uu.se
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