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How to set-up fetchmail

• Audience: Advanced E-Mail setup
• Requires: MacPorts >= 1.6, mail/fetchmail, shells/zsh

Introduction

This How-to is part of the Fetchmail -> Postfix -> Dovecot advanced e-Mail set-up.

​fetchmail fetchmail is program used to collect e-mail from ​internet service provider and transfers them to the local ​mail transfer agent for further distribution.

​fetchmail can collect mail from various sources and for multiple users. With the setup described here the user does not need to start an ​Email_Client for collection to happen. In fact the user does not even need to be logged in.

Installation

First set-up a mail storage and a ​mail transfer agent . See Dovecot and Postfix a possible set-up. Fetchmail will not work without and you can lose your mail if those components are not set-up properly.

Z-Shell

Install Z-Shell if you are planning to use the attached command files:

sudo port install zsh

Fetchmail

Then install fetchmail with

sudo port install fetchmail +fetchmailconf +ssl 

Some older OSX version may come preinstalled with fetchmail (OSX 10.5).

Configuration

Note: Do not use any of the attached files without checking / changing them with your favorite text editor. You will need to chmod +x the attached files in order to execute them.

Step 1: create user

Fetchmail does not need root or normal user privileges to run so it is suggested to create an unprivileged user and group for daemon based fetchmail configurations. You can use the Make_Fetchmail_User.command​ to do so. This attached shell script also has instructions to view and undo all the commands.

Step 2: create directories

Dovecot need two directories to work with - one to store the run status, one for the log files. You can use the Make_Fetchmail_Directories.command​ to create the directories.

Depending on which fetchmail (macports or OSX) is used you might want to change the path names to better reflect you system set-up.

Note:

• The directory /var/run (also /opt/local/var/run ?) is wiped every boot. I suggest using (/opt/local)/var/fetchmail instead of (/opt/local)/var/run/fetchmail.

Step 3: set-up configuration

Next you need to set up fetchmailrc​. You find the file in /opt/local/etc (macports) or /private/etc. The file should be owned by _fetchmail:_fetchmail and only be readable to _fetchmail an no one else.

sudo chown _fetchmail:_fetchmail /private/etc/fetchmailrc

As a starting point you can use fetchmailrc​. You will need to add all your mail source to fetchmailrc​.

Note:

• The "ID-file" is used to store the message IDs of messages already downloaded. If you use the keep option with one of your mail sources to not delete messages on the server after downloading them the ID-file is used to prevent downloading these messages again on the next run of fetchmail. Do not put this file in a directory under (/opt/local)/var/run as suggested in fetchmailrc​ as it will be deleted the next time your machine (re)boots which will result in duplicating your emails!

Step 4: starting the daemon

Fetchmail is started using launchd which is controlled by the attached org.macports.fetchmail.plist.

Depending on which fetchmail (macports or OSX) is used you might want to change the path names to better reflect you system setup.

The attached Restart_Fetchmail.command​ command will stop and restart fetchmail which forces a re-read of the configuration files and triggers an immediate mail collection - quite helpful while debugging the system.

Note:

• The logfile defined in fetchmailrc​ can only be used without --nodetach (see ​man fetchmail). With the configuration currently presented here everything will be logged to the system log.

Step 5: testing the deamon

Before using fetchmail you should collect all your mail by conventional means.

After starting fetchmail you should check if the start was successful by checking the syslog:

$ syslog
Thu Jun  5 21:20:42 macpro sudo[42916] <Notice>:   martin : TTY=ttys001 ; PWD=/opt/local/Applications/Utilities ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.fetchmail.plist
Thu Jun  5 21:20:42 macpro sudo[42917] <Notice>:   martin : TTY=ttys001 ; PWD=/opt/local/Applications/Utilities ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.fetchmail.plist
Thu Jun  5 21:20:42 macpro sudo[42919] <Notice>:   martin : TTY=ttys001 ; PWD=/opt/local/Applications/Utilities ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/launchctl start org.macports.fetchmail
Thu Jun  5 21:20:42 macpro org.macports.fetchmail[42918] <Notice>: fetchmail: starting fetchmail 6.3.8 daemon 
Thu Jun  5 21:20:48 macpro org.macports.fetchmail[42918] <Notice>: fetchmail: sleeping at Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:20:48 +0200 (CEST) for 1800 seconds

Last you send yourself a mail and trigger a mail collection with Restart_Fetchmail.command​ and then check if the mail arrived in your local mail storage.

Optional Parts

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