Chapter 15. Email

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15.4.1. Fetchmail Configuration Options

Although it is possible to pass all options on the command line necessary to check for email on a

remote server when executing Fetchmail, using a

.fetchmailrc

file is much easier. All of your

configuration options go in the

.fetchmailrc

file, but you can override them at the time Fetchmail

is run by specifying that option on the command line.

A user's

.fetchmailrc

file is divided into three particular types of configuration options:

global options   Gives Fetchmail instructions that control the operation of the program or provide

settings for every connection that checks for email.

server options   Specifies necessary information about the server being polled, such as the host 

name, as well as preferences you would like to see enforced with a particular email server, such as

the port to check or number of seconds to wait before timing out. These options affect every user

option used with that server.

user options   Contains information, such as username and password, necessary to authenticate

and check for email using a particular email server.

Global options go at the top of the

.fetchmailrc

file, followed by one or more server options,

each of which designate a different email server that Fetchmail should check. User options follow

server options for each user account you would like to check on that email server. Like server options,

multiple user options may be specified for use with a particular server, such as when you would like

to check multiple email accounts on the same server.

Server options are called into service in the

.fetchmailrc

file by the use of a special option verb,

poll

or

skip

, that precedes any of the server information. The

poll

action tells Fetchmail to use

this server option when it is run, which actually checks it for email using the various user options.

Any server options after a

skip

action, however, are not checked unless you specify this server's

hostname when Fetchmail is invoked. The

skip

option allows you to set up test configurations in

.fetchmailrc

and only check using that server when specifically desired, without affecting any

currently working configurations.

A sample

.fetchmailrc

file looks like this:

set postmaster "user1"

set bouncemail

poll pop.domain.com proto pop3

user 'user1' there with password 'secret' is user1 here

poll mail.domain2.com

user 'user5' there with password 'secret2' is user1 here

user 'user7' there with password 'secret3' is user1 here

In this example, the global are options set so the user is sent email as a last resort (

postmaster

option) and all email errors are sent to the postmaster instead of the sender (

bouncemail

option).

The

set

action tells Fetchmail that this line contains a global option. Then, two email servers are

specified, one set to check using POP3, and the other for trying various protocols to find one that

works. Two users are checked using the second server option, but all email found for any users is

sent to user1's mail spool. This allows multiple mailboxes to be checked on multiple servers, while

appearing in a single MUA inbox. Each user's specific information begins with the

user

action.

Note

You do not have to place your password in the .fetchmailrc file. You can omit the with pass 

word ' password ' section. Fetchmail will then ask for your password when it is started with the

fetchmail command.