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authorMatthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de>2005-11-27 19:27:57 +0000
committerMatthias Andree <matthias.andree@gmx.de>2005-11-27 19:27:57 +0000
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Remove excess <hr/> spam.
Remove some rude answers. Update some answers to questions where ESR said 'no'. Revise header nesting. svn path=/trunk/; revision=4483
Diffstat (limited to 'fetchmail-FAQ.html')
-rw-r--r--fetchmail-FAQ.html253
1 files changed, 83 insertions, 170 deletions
diff --git a/fetchmail-FAQ.html b/fetchmail-FAQ.html
index 8565fc14..e10d7715 100644
--- a/fetchmail-FAQ.html
+++ b/fetchmail-FAQ.html
@@ -1,6 +1,17 @@
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
+<!--
+
+##########################################################################
+WARNING!
+
+Be sure that <h1> tags are in the leftmost column so that the awk
+postprocessor can skip the Contents section that HTMLDOC will insert
+in a much better way.
+##########################################################################
+
+-->
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>The Fetchmail FAQ</title>
@@ -35,7 +46,9 @@ this FAQ list, file it to one of the trackers at <a
project site</a> or post to one of the fetchmail mailing lists (see
below).</p>
-<h1>General questions:</h1>
+<h1>Contents</h1>
+
+<h2>General problems</h2>
<a href="#G1">G1. What is fetchmail and why should I bother?</a><br/>
<a href="#G2">G2. Where do I find the latest FAQ and fetchmail sources?</a><br/>
@@ -55,21 +68,21 @@ below).</p>
<a href="#G16">G16. How will fetchmail perform under heavy loads?</a><br/>
-<h1>Build-time problems:</h1>
+<h2>Build-time problems</h2>
-<a href="#B1">B1. Make coughs and dies when building on FreeBSD.</a><br/>
+<a href="#B1"><strike>B1. Make coughs and dies when building on FreeBSD.</strike></a><br/>
<a href="#B2">B2. Lex bombs out while building the fetchmail lexer.</a><br/>
<a href="#B3">B3. I get link failures when I try to build fetchmail.</a><br/>
<a href="#B4">B4. I get build failures in the intl directory.</a><br/>
-<h1>Fetchmail configuration file grammar questions:</h1>
+<h2>Fetchmail configuration file grammar questions</h2>
<a href="#F1">F1. Why does my old .fetchmailrc no longer work?</a><br/>
<a href="#F2">F2. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept my all-numeric user name.</a><br/>
<a href="#F3">F3. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept my host or username beginning with 'no'.</a><br/>
<a href="#F4">F4. I'm getting a 'parse error' message I don't understand.</a><br/>
-<h1>Configuration questions:</h1>
+<h2>Configuration questions</h2>
<a href="#C1">C1. Why do I need a .fetchmailrc when running as root
on my own machine?</a><br/>
@@ -87,7 +100,7 @@ from an init script.</a><br/>
host?.</a><br/>
-<h1>How to make fetchmail play nice with various MTAs:</h1>
+<h2>How to make fetchmail play nice with various MTAs</h2>
<a href="#T1">T1. How can I use fetchmail with sendmail?</a><br/>
<a href="#T2">T2. How can I use fetchmail with qmail?</a><br/>
@@ -98,7 +111,7 @@ host?.</a><br/>
<a href="#T7">T7. How can I use fetchmail with Courier IMAP?</a><br/>
<a href="#T8">T8. How can I use fetchmail with vbmailshield?</a><br/>
-<h1>How to make fetchmail work with various servers:</h1>
+<h2>How to make fetchmail work with various servers</h2>
<a href="#S1">S1. How can I use fetchmail with qpopper?</a><br/>
<a href="#S2">S2. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft Exchange?</a><br/>
@@ -108,7 +121,7 @@ host?.</a><br/>
<a href="#S6">S6. How can I use fetchmail with MailMax?</a><br/>
<a href="#S7">S7. How can I use fetchmail with FTGate?</a><br/>
-<h1>How to fetchmail work with specific ISPs:</h1>
+<h2>How to fetchmail work with specific ISPs</h2>
<a href="#I1">I1. How can I use fetchmail with Compuserve RPA?</a><br/>
<a href="#I2">I2. How can I use fetchmail with Demon Internet's SDPS?</a><br/>
@@ -119,8 +132,8 @@ host?.</a><br/>
<a href="#I7">I7. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?</a><br/>
<a href="#I8">I8. How can I use fetchmail with comcast.net?</a><br/>
-<h1>How to set up well-known security and authentication
-methods:</h1>
+<h2>How to set up well-known security and authentication
+methods</h2>
<a href="#K1">K1. How can I use fetchmail with SOCKS?</a><br/>
<a href="#K2">K2. How can I use fetchmail with IPv6 and IPsec?</a><br/>
@@ -130,7 +143,7 @@ methods:</h1>
<a href="#K6">K6. How can I tell fetchmail not to try TLS if the server
advertises it?</a><br/>
-<h1>Runtime fatal errors:</h1>
+<h2>Runtime fatal errors</h2>
<a href="#R1">R1. Fetchmail isn't working, and -v shows 'SMTP
connect failed' messages.</a><br/>
@@ -152,7 +165,8 @@ messages but before deleting them</a><br/>
<a href="#R11">R11. My server is hanging or emitting errors on CAPA.</a><br/>
<a href="#R12">R12. Fetchmail isn't working and reports getaddrinfo
errors.</a>
-<h1>Hangs and lockups:</h1>
+
+<h2>Hangs and lockups</h2>
<a href="#H1">H1. Fetchmail hangs when used with pppd.</a><br/>
<a href="#H2">H2. Fetchmail hangs during the MAIL FROM
@@ -160,7 +174,7 @@ exchange.</a><br/>
<a href="#H3">H3. Fetchmail hangs while fetching mail.</a><br/>
-<h1>Disappearing mail:</h1>
+<h2>Disappearing mail</h2>
<a href="#D1">D1. I think I've set up fetchmail correctly, but I'm
not getting any mail.</a><br/>
@@ -170,7 +184,7 @@ connection.</a><br/>
fetchmail seems to have been vanished.</a><br/>
-<h1>Multidrop-mode problems:</h1>
+<h2>Multidrop-mode problems</h2>
<a href="#M1">M1. I've declared local names, but all my multidrop
mail is going to root anyway.</a><br/>
@@ -190,7 +204,7 @@ from my Received headers as it should.</a><br/>
messages.</a><br/>
-<h1>Mangled mail:</h1>
+<h2>Mangled mail</h2>
<a href="#X1">X1. Spurious blank lines are appearing in the headers
of fetched mail.</a><br/>
@@ -209,7 +223,7 @@ fetchmail.</a><br/>
<a href="#X8">X8. A spurious ) is being appended to my
messages.</a><br/>
-<h1>Other problems:</h1>
+<h2>Other problems</h2>
<a href="#O1">O1. The --logfile option doesn't work if the logfile
doesn't exist.</a><br/>
@@ -240,9 +254,9 @@ immediately" in my logs.</a><br/>
<a href="#O15">O15. Fetchmail always retains the first message in the
mailbox.</a><br/>
-<h1>Answers:</h1>
<hr/>
+<h1>General problems</h1>
<h2><a id="G1" name="G1">G1. What is fetchmail and why should I
bother?</a></h2>
@@ -274,7 +288,6 @@ License</a>.</p>
<p>If you found this FAQ in the distribution, see the README for
fetchmail's full feature list.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G2" name="G2">G2. Where do I find the latest FAQ and
fetchmail sources?</a></h2>
@@ -289,11 +302,15 @@ POP mail tools directory on Sunsite</a>.</p>
distribution. Because it freezes at distribution release time, it
may not be completely current.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G3" name="G3">G3. I think I've found a bug. Will you fix
it?</a></h2>
-<p>Yes I will, provided you include enough diagnostic information
+<p>The first thing you should to is to upgrade to the newest version of
+fetchmail, and then see if the problem reproduces. So you'll probably
+save us both time if you upgrade and test with <a href="#G2">the latest
+ version</a> <em>before</em> sending in a bug report.</p>
+
+<p>I will fix bugs, provided you include enough diagnostic information
for me to go on. Send bugs to <a
href="mailto:fetchmail-users@lists.berlios.de">fetchmail-users</a>.
When reporting bugs, please include the following:</p>
@@ -320,12 +337,6 @@ command-line options you used.</li>
any suspicion that the bug was triggered by a particular message,
please include a copy of the message that triggered the bug.</p>
-<p>Often, the first thing I will do when you report a bug is tell
-you to upgrade to the newest version of fetchmail, and then see if
-the problem reproduces. So you'll probably save us both time if you
-upgrade and test with the latest version <em>before</em> sending in
-a bug report.</p>
-
<p>If your bug is something that used to work but stopped working
when you upgraded, then you can help pin the bug down by trying <a
href="http://download.berlios.de/fetchmail/">intermediate versions
@@ -400,15 +411,11 @@ tested that the easy bugs have long since been found). So if you
want your bug fixed rapidly, it is not just sufficient but nearly
<em>necessary</em> that you give me a way to reproduce it.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G4" name="G4">G4. I have this idea for a neat feature.
Will you add it?</a></h2>
-<p>Probably not. Most of the feature suggestions I get are for ways
-to set various kinds of administrative policy or add more spam
-filtering (the most common one, which I used to get about four
-million times a week and got <em>really</em> tired of, is for
-tin-like kill files).</p>
+<p>If it's reasonable for fetchmail and cannot be solved with reasonable
+effort outside of fetchmail, perhaps.</p>
<p>You can do spam filtering better with procmail or maildrop on
the server side and (if you're the server sysadmin) sendmail.cf
@@ -421,10 +428,9 @@ client side, use a <code>preconnect</code> command to call
it's a prime-time-vs.-non-prime-time issue, ask yourself whether a
wrapper script called from crontab would do the job.</p>
-<p>I'm not going to do these; fetchmail's job is transport, not
-policy, and I refuse to change it from doing one thing well to
-attempting many things badly. One of my objectives is to keep
-fetchmail simple so it stays reliable.</p>
+<p>fetchmail's first job is transport though, and it should do this
+well. If a feature would cause fetchmail to deteriorate in other
+respects, the feature will probably not be added.</p>
<p>For reasons fetchmail doesn't have other commonly-requested
features (such as password encryption, or multiple concurrent polls
@@ -433,16 +439,6 @@ href="esrs-design-notes.html">ESR's design
notes</a>. Note that this document is partially obsoleted by the
<a href="design-notes.html">updated design notes.</a></p>
-<p>Fetchmail is a mature project, no longer in constant active
-development. It is no longer my top project, and I am going to be
-quite reluctant to add features that might either jeopardize its
-stability or involve me in large amounts of coding.</p>
-
-<p>All that said, if you have a feature idea that really is about a
-transport problem that can't be handled anywhere but fetchmail, lay
-it on me. I'm very accommodating about good ideas.</p>
-
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G5" name="G5">G5. I want to make fetchmail behave like
Outlook Express.</a></h2>
@@ -452,13 +448,9 @@ from a maildrop after N days, typically to be used with the
<code>keep</code> option as a sort of poor man's newsgroup
facility. Microsoft's Outlook Express supports this.</p>
-<p>This feature won't be added either. Repeat after me: fetchmail's
-job is transport, not policy. If you want this, write a Perl or
-Python script, to be run from a cron job, that deletes old messages
-off your maildrop. Send it to me and I'll put it in the contrib
-directory.</p>
+<p>This feature is not yet implemented. It may be at a future date,
+spare time of developers permitting.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G6" name="G6">G6. Is there a mailing list for exchanging
tips?</a></h2>
@@ -475,7 +467,6 @@ There is also an announcements-only list,
fetchmail-announce@lists.berlios.de, which you can sign up for at <a
href="http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/fetchmail-announce">http://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/fetchmail-announce</a>.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G7" name="G7">G7. So, what's this I hear about a
fetchmail paper?</a></h2>
@@ -497,7 +488,6 @@ away the source for Netscape Communicator</a>.</p>
<p>If you're reading a non-HTML dump of this FAQ, you can find the
paper on the Web with a search for that title.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G8" name="G8">G8. What is the best server to use with
fetchmail?</a></h2>
@@ -546,7 +536,6 @@ FTP site</a>. Don't use 2.5, which has a rather restrictive
license. The 2.5.2 version appears to restore the open-source
license of previous versions.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G9" name="G9">G9. What is the best mail program to use
with fetchmail?</a></h2>
@@ -570,7 +559,6 @@ by itself. You won't need its built-in POP3 support, though; most
of the mutt developers will cheerfully admit that fetchmail's is
better :-).</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G10" name="G10">G10. How can I avoid sending my password
en clair?</a></h2>
@@ -674,7 +662,6 @@ better, because this is how Craig gets his mail ;-)</p>
<p>Finally, you can use <a href="#K5">SSL</a> for complete
end-to-end encryption if you have an SSL-enabled mailserver.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G11" name="G11">G11. Is any special configuration needed
to use a dynamic IP address?</a></h2>
@@ -752,7 +739,6 @@ mailhost.) See the <a
href="http://www.lege.com/sendmail-FAQ.txt">sendmail FAQ</a> for
more details.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G12" name="G12">G12. Is any special configuration needed
to use firewalls?</a></h2>
@@ -765,7 +751,6 @@ site</a>.</p>
<p>The specific recipe for using fetchmail with a firewall is at <a
href="#K1">K1</a></p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G13" name="G13">G13. Is any special configuration needed
to <em>send</em> mail?</a></h2>
@@ -784,7 +769,6 @@ the outgoing queue. If you have set up something like pppd to
automatically dial out when your kernel is called to open a TCP/IP
connection, this will ensure that the mail gets out.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G14" name="G14">G14. Is fetchmail
Y2K-compliant?</a></h2>
@@ -796,7 +780,6 @@ aren't used for anything but log entry generation. Anyway, if you
aren't running on a 64-bit machine by then, you'll deserve to
lose.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G15" name="G15">G15. Is there a way in fetchmail to
support disconnected IMAP mode?</a></h2>
@@ -805,7 +788,6 @@ protocol gateway between POP3/IMAP servers and SMTP. Disconnected
operation requires an elaborate interactive client. It's a very
different problem.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="G16" name="G16">G16. How will fetchmail perform under
heavy loads?</a></h2>
@@ -827,34 +809,30 @@ by buying more TCP/IP capacity (which tends to improve bandwidth
but not necessarily latency).</p>
<hr/>
-<h2><a id="B1" name="B1">B1. Make coughs and dies when building on
-FreeBSD.</a></h2>
+<h1>Build-time problems</h1>
+<h2><a id="B1" name="B1"><strike>B1. Make coughs and dies when building on
+FreeBSD.</strike></a></h2>
-<p>The vendor-supplied make on FreeBSD systems can only be used
-within FreeBSD's "scope", e.g. the ports collection. Type "gmake"
-to run GNU make and better things will happen.</p>
+<p style="font-style:italic;">As of release 6.3.0, fetchmail's
+Makefile[.in] should work flawlessly with BSD's portable make used on
+FreeBSD. With older releases, use GNU make (usually installed as
+<code>gmake</code>).</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="B2" name="B2">B2. Lex bombs out while building the
fetchmail lexer.</a></h2>
-<p>In the immortal words of Alan Cox the last time this came up:
-"Take the Solaris lex and stick it up the backside of a passing
-Sun salesman, then install <a
-href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/non-gnu/flex/">flex</a> and use that.
-All will be happier."</p>
-
-<p>I couldn't have put it better myself, and ain't going to try
-now.</p>
+<p>fetchmail 6.3.0 and newer ship with the lexer and parser in .c
+formats, so you do not need to use lex unless you hacked the .l or .y
+files.</p>
-<p>(The same problem has been reported under HP-UX v10.20 and
-IRIX)</p>
+<p>fetchmail's lexer has been developed with GNU flex, and the lex tools
+shipped by some UNIX vendors (HP, SGI, Sun) are known to be incapable of
+compiling fetchmail's lexer.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="B3" name="B3">B3. I get link failures when I try to
build fetchmail.</a></h2>
-<p>If you get errors resembling these</p>
+<p>If you get errors resembling these:</p>
<pre>
mxget.o(.text+0x35): undefined referenceto '__res_search'
@@ -868,7 +846,7 @@ make: *** [fetchmail] Error 1
Makefile once you have installed the 'bind' package.</p>
<p>If you get link errors involving <tt>dcgettext</tt>, like
-this:</p>
+these:</p>
<pre>
rcfile_y.o: In function 'yyparse':
@@ -881,21 +859,17 @@ rcfile_y.o(.text+0xcc8): undefined reference to 'dcgettext__'
rcfile_y.o(.text+0xdf9): more undefined references to 'dcgettext__' follow
</pre>
-<p>reconfigure with <tt>configure --with-included-gettext</tt>.
-This is due to some brain-damage in the GNU internationalization
-libraries.</p>
+<p>install an up to date version of GNU gettext, reconfigure and rebuild
+fetchmail. If that does not help, reconfigure with '--disable-nls' added
+to the "./configure" command and rebuild.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="B4" name="B4">B4. I get build failures in the intl
directory.</a></h2>
<p>Reconfigure with <tt>--disable-nls</tt> and recompile.</p>
-<p>GNU gettext is an overengineered, fragile pile of crap. I have
-teetered on the brink of removing support for it entirely several
-times.</p>
-
<hr/>
+<h1>Fetchmail configuration file grammar questions</h1>
<h2><a id="F1" name="F1">F1. Why does my old .fetchmailrc file no
longer work?</a></h2>
@@ -1023,7 +997,6 @@ options, like '<code>protocol</code>'.</p>
<p>Do similarly for any '<code>monitor</code>' or
'<code>batchlimit</code>' options.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="F2" name="F2">F2. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept
my all-numeric user name.</a></h2>
@@ -1038,7 +1011,6 @@ class.</p>
<p>The lexical analyzer in 5.0.6 and beyond is smarter and assumes
any token following "username" or "password" is a string.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="F3" name="F3">F3. The .fetchmailrc parser won't accept
my host or username beginning with 'no'.</a></h2>
@@ -1050,7 +1022,6 @@ rewrite' etc.) and the older style run-on syntax ('nokeep',
<p>Upgrade to a 5.0.6 or later fetchmail, or put string quotes
around your token.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="F4" name="F4">F4. I'm getting a 'parse error' message I
don't understand.</a></h2>
@@ -1064,6 +1035,7 @@ Unfortunately, they're necessary in order to allow the 'defaults'
feature to work.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>Configuration questions</h1>
<h2><a id="C1" name="C1">C1. Why do I need a .fetchmailrc when
running as root on my own machine?</a></h2>
@@ -1121,7 +1093,6 @@ about ways to tinker with the mapping rules, you'll quickly find
that all the alternatives to the present default are worse or
unacceptably more complicated or both.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="C2" name="C2">C2. How can I arrange for a fetchmail
daemon to get killed when I log out?</a></h2>
@@ -1142,7 +1113,6 @@ profiles that will accomplish this. Thank James Laferriere
<p>Some people start up and shut down fetchmail using the ppp-up
and ppp-down scripts of pppd.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="C3" name="C3">C3. How do I know what interface and
address to use with --interface?</a></h2>
@@ -1221,7 +1191,6 @@ dynamic address pool is 255 addresses ranging from 205.164.136.1 to
interface "sl0/205.164.0.0/255.255.0.0"
</pre>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="C4" name="C4">C4. How can I set up support for
sendmail's anti-spam features?</a></h2>
@@ -1269,7 +1238,6 @@ fetchmail will flush and delete it.</p>
your reject file. You <strong>will</strong> lose mail if you do
this!!!</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="C5" name="C5">C5. How can I poll some of my mailboxes
more/less often than others?</a></h2>
@@ -1288,7 +1256,6 @@ mainsite.example.com is polled, which with a polling interval of
every 5 minutes means that secondary.example.com will be polled
every 30 minutes.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="C6" name="C6">Fetchmail works OK started up manually,
but not from an init script.</a></h2>
@@ -1302,7 +1269,6 @@ fetchmail at startup can't find the .fetchmailrc.</p>
-f option to point fetchmail at it. That should solve the
problem.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="C7" name="C7">C7. How can I forward mail to another
host?</a></h2>
@@ -1311,6 +1277,7 @@ fetchmail on, use the <code>smtphost</code> or
<code>smtpname</code> option. See the manual page for details.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>How to make fetchmail play nice with various MTAs</h1>
<h2><a id="T1" name="T1">T1. How can I use fetchmail with
sendmail?</a></h2>
@@ -1397,7 +1364,6 @@ occasionally get mysterious delivery failures with a SIGPIPE as the
sendmail instance dies. The problem is messages with a single dot
at start of a text line.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="T2" name="T2">T2. How can I use fetchmail with
qmail?</a></h2>
@@ -1479,7 +1445,6 @@ the alias mechanism described above, you can use the option
'<code>qvirtual "mbox-userstr-"</code>' in your fetchmail config
file to strip the prefix from the local user name.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="T3" name="T3">T3. How can I use fetchmail with
exim?</a></h2>
@@ -1528,7 +1493,6 @@ this will result in such messages having an incorrect domain name
attached to their return address (your SMTP listener's hostname
rather than that of the remote mail server).</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="T4" name="T4">T4. How can I use fetchmail with
smail?</a></h2>
@@ -1555,7 +1519,6 @@ listener <em>must</em> allow this mismatch, so smail's new behavior
to accept the "localhost" that fetchmail normally appends to
recipient addresses.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="T5" name="T5">T5. How can I use fetchmail with SCO's
MMDF?</a></h2>
@@ -1566,7 +1529,6 @@ href="http://www.aplawrence.com/Unixart/uucptofetch.html">MMDF
recipe</a> that describes replacing a UUCP link with fetchmail
feeding MMDF.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="T6" name="T6">T6. How can I use fetchmail with Lotus
Notes?</a></h2>
@@ -1574,7 +1536,6 @@ Notes?</a></h2>
convert \n to \r\n, but its rules are not the intuitive and
correct-for-RFC822 ones. Use 'forcecr'.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="T7" name="T7">T7. How can I use fetchmail with Courier
IMAP?</a></h2>
@@ -1582,7 +1543,6 @@ IMAP?</a></h2>
<code>someone@localhost</code>. Work around this with an
<code>smtphost</code> or <code>smtpaddress</code>.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a name="T8">T8. How can I use fetchmail with vbmailshield?</a></h2>
<p>vbmailshield's SMTP interpreter is broken. It doesn't understand RSET.</p>
@@ -1590,6 +1550,7 @@ IMAP?</a></h2>
<p>As a workaround, you can set batchlimit to 1 so RSET is never used.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>How to make fetchmail work with various servers</h1>
<h2><a id="S1" name="S1">S1. How can I use fetchmail with
qpopper?</a></h2>
@@ -1623,7 +1584,6 @@ interaction with Eudora qpopper versions 2.3 and later. See <a
href="#X5">X5</a> for details. The solution is to upgrade your
fetchmail.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="S2" name="S2">S2. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft
Exchange?</a></h2>
@@ -1758,7 +1718,6 @@ ASROC will do), pissing off a lot people who live downwind from
Redmond, and your choice of any Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, or Solaris
CD-ROM.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="S3" name="S3">S3. How can I use fetchmail with HP
OpenMail?</a></h2>
@@ -1778,7 +1737,6 @@ OpenMail's project manager claims these bugs have been fixed in
command fails, returning only one line regrardless of its argument,
on something identifying itself as "OpenMail POP3 interface".</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="S4" name="S4">S4. How can I use fetchmail with Novell GroupWise?</a></h2>
<p>The Novell GroupWise IMAP server would be better named
@@ -1791,7 +1749,6 @@ voting with your dollars for a server that isn't brain-dead. If you
stick with code as shoddy as GroupWise seems to be, you will
probably pay for it with other problems.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="S5" name="S5">S5. How can I use fetchmail with
InterChange?</a></h2>
@@ -1804,7 +1761,6 @@ them on TOP or RETR.</p>
me that their new 3.61.08 release of InterChange fixes this
problem. I don't have any reports one way or the other yet.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="S6" name="S6">S6. How can I use fetchmail with MailMax?</a></h2>
<p>You can't. At least not if you want to be able to see
@@ -1817,7 +1773,6 @@ developers have acknowledged this bug as of 4 May 2000, but there
is no fix yet. If you must use this server, force RETR with the
<tt>fetchall</tt> option.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="S7" name="S7">S7. How can I use fetchmail with FTGate?</a></h2>
<p>The FTGate V2 server (and possibly older versions as well) has a
@@ -1826,6 +1781,7 @@ weird bug. It answers OK twice to a TOP request! Use the
this bug.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>How to fetchmail work with specific ISPs</h1>
<h2><a id="I1" name="I1">I1. How can I use fetchmail with CompuServe RPA?</a></h2>
<p>First, make sure your fetchmail has the RPA support compiled in.
@@ -1864,7 +1820,6 @@ poll non-rpa.csi.com via "pop.site1.csi.com" with proto POP3 and options no dns
is LOCAL_USER here options fetchall stripcr
</pre>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="I2" name="I2">I2. How can I use fetchmail with Demon
Internet's SDPS?</a></h2>
@@ -1937,7 +1892,6 @@ address.</p>
greeting line; if you're accessing Demon Internet through a proxy
it may fail. To force SDPS mode, pick "sdps" as your protocol.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="I3" name="I3">I3. How can I use fetchmail with usa.net's
servers?</a></h2>
@@ -1962,7 +1916,6 @@ to avoid having fetched mail rejected.</p>
servers. They seem to be chronically flaky. We recommend finding
another provider.)</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="I4" name="I4">I4. How can I use fetchmail with geocities
POP3 servers?</a></h2>
@@ -1972,7 +1925,7 @@ the send to fetchmail. This can solve problems if your MUA
interprets Received continuations as body lines and doesn't parse
any of the following headers.</p>
-<p>Workaround is to use "mda" keyword or "-mda" switch:</p>
+<p>Workaround is to use "mda" keyword or "--mda" switch:</p>
<pre>
mda "sed -e '1s/^\t/Received: /' | formail | /usr/bin/procmail -d &lt;user&gt;"
@@ -1987,7 +1940,6 @@ already been read.</p>
<p>Fix: Get an email provider that doesn't suck. The pop-up ads on
Geocities are lame, you should boycott them anyway.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="I5" name="I5">I5. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail or Lycos Webmail?</a></h2>
<p>You can't directly. But you can use fetchmail with hotmail or lycos
@@ -2007,7 +1959,6 @@ poll localhost protocol pop3 tracepolls
<p>As a second option you may consider using <a
href="http://linux.cudeso.be/linuxdoc/gotmail.php">gotmail</a>.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="I6" name="I6">I6. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?</a></h2>
<p>You can't. MSN uses something that looks like POP3, except the
@@ -2022,7 +1973,6 @@ authentication. It's possible this may enable fetchmail to talk to
MSN; if so, somebody should report it so this FAQ can be
corrected.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="I7" name="I7">I7. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?</a></h2>
<p>The SpryNet POP3 servers mark a message queried with TOP as
@@ -2031,7 +1981,6 @@ may end up invisibly stuck on your mail spool. Use the
<code>fetchall</code> flag to ensure that it's recovered on the
next cycle.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="I8" name="I8">I8. How can I use fetchmail with comcast.net?</a></h2>
<p>Stock fetchmail will work with a comcast.net server...<em>but</em>
@@ -2043,6 +1992,8 @@ fetchmail bug. (Reported July 2003.)</p>
<p>Workaround: use the <tt>fetchall</tt> option.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>How to set up well-known security and authentication
+methods</h1>
<h2><a id="K1" name="K1">K1. How can I use fetchmail with SOCKS?</a></h2>
<p>Giuseppe Guerini added a --with-socks option that supports
@@ -2054,7 +2005,6 @@ directory containing the Rconnect library.</p>
<p>Alan Schmitt has added a similar --with-socks5 option that may
work better if you have a recent version of the SOCKS library.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="K2" name="K2">K2. How can I use fetchmail with IPv6 and
IPsec?</a></h2>
@@ -2075,7 +2025,6 @@ href="http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html">
http://www.bieringer.de/linux/IPv6/IPv6-HOWTO/IPv6-HOWTO.html</a></li>
</ul>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="K3" name="K3">K3. How can I get fetchmail to work with
ssh?</a></h2>
@@ -2100,7 +2049,6 @@ preauthenticated in this mode, so you'll actually have to ship your
password. It will be under ssh encryption, though, so that
shouldn't be a problem.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="K4" name="K4">K4. What do I have to do to use the
IMAP-GSS protocol?</a></h2>
@@ -2140,7 +2088,6 @@ Kerberos principal.</p>
<p>Now you don't have to worry about your password appearing in
cleartext in your .fetchmailrc, or across the network.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="K5" name="K5">K5. How can I use fetchmail with
SSL?</a></h2>
@@ -2237,7 +2184,8 @@ server). Make a note of the fingerprint shown. Now embed this in your
<pre>
poll pop3.example.com proto pop3 uidl no dns
- user foobar@example.com password xyzzy is foobar ssl sslfingerprint "67:3E:02:94:D3:5B:C3:16:86:71:37:01:B1:3B:BC:E2"
+ user foobar@example.com password xyzzy is foobar
+ ssl sslfingerprint "67:3E:02:94:D3:5B:C3:16:86:71:37:01:B1:3B:BC:E2"
</pre>
<p>When you next connect, the public key presented by the server will be
@@ -2245,7 +2193,6 @@ verified against the fingerprint given. If it's different, it may mean that
a man-in-the-middle attack is in progress - or it might just mean that the
server changed its key. It's up to you to determine which has happened.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="K6" name="K6">K6. How can I tell fetchmail not to use TLS
if the server advertises it?</a></h2>
@@ -2265,6 +2212,7 @@ however that this causes the connection to be unencrypted unless an
encrypting &quot;plugin&quot; is used or SSL is requested explicitly.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>Runtime fatal errors</h1>
<h2><a id="R1" name="R1">R1. Fetchmail isn't working, and -v shows
'SMTP connect failed' messages.</a></h2>
@@ -2343,7 +2291,6 @@ Linux distributions the libc bind library version works better.</p>
library is linked only if it is actually needed. So under Linux it
won't be, and this particular cause should go away.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R2" name="R2">R2. When I try to configure an MDA,
fetchmail doesn't work.</a></h2>
@@ -2360,7 +2307,6 @@ configure an MDA, your MDA is mangling the message. If it doesn't
match what you sent, then fetchmail or something on the server is
broken.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R3" name="R3">R3. Fetchmail dumps core when given an
invalid rc file.</a></h2>
@@ -2377,7 +2323,6 @@ Software Foundation. An FSF <a
href="http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/order/ftp.html">mirror site</a>
will help you get it faster.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R4" name="R4">R4. Fetchmail dumps core in -V mode, but
operates normally otherwise.</a></h2>
@@ -2396,7 +2341,6 @@ calls producing the problem are being made by the C library itself,
not the fetchmail code (they're all from within fclose, and not an
fclose called directly by fetchmail, either).</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R5" name="R5">R5. Running fetchmail in daemon mode
doesn't work.</a><br/>
</h2>
@@ -2426,7 +2370,6 @@ child of PID 1). This is important when you start fetchmail
interactively and than quit interactive shell. The line above makes
sure fetchmail lives after that!</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R6" name="R6">R6. Fetchmail randomly dies with socket
errors.</a></h2>
@@ -2447,7 +2390,6 @@ different poll cycles. To work around this, change the poll name
either to the real name of one of the servers in the ring or to a
corresponding IP address.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R7" name="R7">R7. Fetchmail running as root stopped
working after an OS upgrade</a></h2>
@@ -2457,7 +2399,6 @@ your .fetchmailrc or use a -f option to explicitly point at the
file. (Oddly, a similar problem has been reported from Debian
systems.)</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R8" name="R8">R8. Fetchmail is timing out after fetching
certain messages but before deleting them</a></h2>
@@ -2485,7 +2426,6 @@ least [now] I am now getting good performance and no queue
blocking.</p>
</blockquote>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R9" name="R9">R9. Fetchmail is timing out during message
fetches</a></h2>
@@ -2494,7 +2434,6 @@ command will cause the server to start sending large amounts of
data, which means large packets. If your networking layer has a
packet-fragmentation problem, that's where you'll see it.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R10" name="R10">R10. Fetchmail is dying with
SIGPIPE.</a></h2>
@@ -2510,14 +2449,12 @@ occasionally get mysterious delivery failures with a SIGPIPE as the
sendmail instance dies. The problem is messages with a single dot
at start of a text line.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R11" name="R11">R11. My server is hanging or emitting
errors on CAPA.</a></h2>
<p>Your POP3 server is broken. You can work around this with the
declaration <tt>auth password</tt> in your .fetchmailrc.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="R12" name="R12">R12. Fetchmail isn't working and reports
getaddrinfo errors.</a></h2>
<ol><li>Make sure you haven't mistyped the host name or address, and that
@@ -2526,14 +2463,18 @@ declaration <tt>auth password</tt> in your .fetchmailrc.</p>
<li>Make sure your <code>/etc/services</code> file (or other
services database) contains the necessary service entries. If you
cannot fix the services database, use the --service option and give the
- numeric port address. Common port addresses are:<table>
+ numeric port address. Common port addresses are:<table
+ summary="Common port addresses for IMAP, POP3 and their SSL
+ complements.">
<tr><th>service</th><th>port</th></tr>
<tr><td>IMAP</td><td>143</td></tr>
<tr><td>IMAP+SSL</td><td>993</td></tr>
<tr><td>POP3</td><td>110</td></tr>
<tr><td>POP3+SSL</td><td>995</td></tr>
</table></li></ol>
+
<hr/>
+<h1>Hangs and lockups</h1>
<h2><a id="H1" name="H1">H1. Fetchmail hangs when used with
pppd.</a></h2>
@@ -2541,7 +2482,6 @@ pppd.</a></h2>
report that fetchmail doesn't play well with it, but works with
pppd if 'demand' is turned off. We have no idea why this is.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="H2" name="H2">H2. Fetchmail hangs during the MAIL FROM
exchange.</a></h2>
@@ -2585,7 +2525,6 @@ configuration of sendmail. You must enable the 'nodns' and
<p>For more details consult the file
/usr/share/sendmail-cf/README.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="H3" name="H3">H3. Fetchmail hangs while fetching
mail.</a></h2>
@@ -2608,6 +2547,7 @@ TCP wrappers.</p>
this problem.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>Disappearing mail</h1>
<h2><a id="D1" name="D1">D1. I think I've set up fetchmail
correctly, but I'm not getting any mail.</a></h2>
@@ -2630,7 +2570,6 @@ following line</p>
<p>make sure that 'localuser' does exist and can receive mail.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="D2" name="D2">D2. All my mail seems to disappear after a
dropped connection.</a></h2>
@@ -2661,7 +2600,6 @@ amount of time to do deletions and clean up its queue. (Fetchmail
waits a bit before retrying in order to avoid a 'lock busy'
error.)</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="D3" name="D3">D3. Mail that was being fetched when I
interrupted my fetchmail seems to have been vanished.</a></h2>
@@ -2686,6 +2624,7 @@ fetch options.</p>
server.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>Multidrop-mode problems</h1>
<h2><a id="M1" name="M1">M1. I've declared local names, but all my
multidrop mail is going to root anyway.</a></h2>
@@ -2714,7 +2653,6 @@ net.</p>
<p>Occasionally these errors indicate the sort of header-parsing
problem described in <a href="#M7">M7</a>.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="M2" name="M2">M2. I can't seem to get fetchmail to route
to a local domain properly.</a></h2>
@@ -2764,7 +2702,6 @@ bamboozled by this.</p>
multidrop delivery if your ISP (or your mail redirection provider)
is using qmail.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="M3" name="M3">M3. I tried to run a mailing list using
multidrop, and I have a mail loop!</a></h2>
@@ -2776,7 +2713,6 @@ chop the host part off any local addresses in the list.</p>
<p>If you use sendmail, you can check the list expansion with
<code>sendmail -bv</code>.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="M4" name="M4">M4. My multidrop fetchmail seems to be
having DNS problems.</a></h2>
@@ -2790,7 +2726,6 @@ works better.</p>
library is linked only if it is actually needed. So under Linux it
won't be, and this problem should go away.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="M5" name="M5">M5. I'm seeing long DNS delays before each
message is processed.</a></h2>
@@ -2807,7 +2742,6 @@ other hostname parts from being looked up at all.</p>
call DNS on the From-address hostname as a way of checking that the
address is valid.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="M6" name="M6">M6. How do I get multidrop mode to work
with majordomo?</a></h2>
@@ -2859,7 +2793,6 @@ default ISP user+domain and service about 30 mail accounts +
majordomo on my inside pop3 server with fetchmail and sendmail
8.83</blockquote>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="M7" name="M7">M7. Multidrop mode isn't parsing envelope
addresses from my Received headers as it should.</a></h2>
@@ -2897,7 +2830,6 @@ address. This check might fail if your DNS were misconfigured, or
if you were using 'no dns' and had failed to declare iserv.ttns.net
as an alias of your server.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="M8" name="M8">M8. Users are getting multiple copies of
messages.</a></h2>
@@ -2922,6 +2854,7 @@ operation that might significantly slow down the retrieval of large
mail batches.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>Mangled mail</h1>
<h2><a id="X1" name="X1">X1. Spurious blank lines are appearing in
the headers of fetched mail.</a></h2>
@@ -2935,10 +2868,9 @@ delivery) is failing to recognize it as a header.</p>
installing a current version of <em>deliver</em>. If this doesn't
work, try to figure out which other program in your mail path is
inserting the blank line and replace that. If you can't do either
-of these things, pick a different MDA (such as procmail) and
+of these things, pick a different MDA (such as maildrop) and
declare it with the '<code>mda</code>' option.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="X2" name="X2">X2. My mail client can't see a Subject
line.</a></h2>
@@ -2952,7 +2884,6 @@ process X- headers correctly. If this is your problem, all I can
suggest is replacing IDA sendmail, because it's broken and not
RFC822 conformant.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="X3" name="X3">X3. Messages containing "From" at start of
line are being split.</a></h2>
@@ -2992,7 +2923,6 @@ option in the flags part (the F= string). This will make sendmail
turn each dangerous start-of-line From into a &gt;From, preventing
programs further downstream from acting up.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="X4" name="X4">X4.</a> <a id="generic_mangling"
name="generic_mangling">My mail is being mangled in a new and
different way</a></h2>
@@ -3081,7 +3011,6 @@ Please include the session transcript of your manual fetchmail
simulation along with the other things described in the FAQ entry
on <a href="#G3">reporting bugs</a>.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="X5" name="X5">X5. Using POP3, retrievals seems to be
fetching too much!</a></h2>
@@ -3101,7 +3030,6 @@ argument. Decrementing the TOP argument in 4.4.7 fixed this.</p>
<p>Workaround: set the <code>fetchall</code> option. Under POP3
this has the side effect of forcing RETR use.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="X6" name="X6">X6. My mail attachments are being dropped
or mangled.</a></h2>
@@ -3237,7 +3165,6 @@ world doesn't understand its attachments, so it really shouldn't be
used at all), and make sure dtmail is set to use MIME rather than
mailtool's format.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="X7" name="X7">X7. Some mail attachments are hanging
fetchmail.</a></h2>
@@ -3261,7 +3188,6 @@ malfunctioning path-MTU discovery on the mailserver. Or, if there's
a modem in the link, it may be because the attachment contains the
Hayes mode escape "+++".</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="X8" name="X8">X8. A spurious ) is being appended to my
messages.</a></h2>
@@ -3312,6 +3238,7 @@ on, you'll get a message about actual != expected.</p>
href="#S2">S2</a> looks more tempting all the time.</p>
<hr/>
+<h1>Other problems</h1>
<h2><a id="O1" name="O1">O1. The --logfile option doesn't work if
the logfile doesn't exist.</a></h2>
@@ -3322,7 +3249,6 @@ get around it, just touch(1) the logfile before you run fetchmail
(this will have no effect on the contents of the logfile if it
already exists).</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O2" name="O2">O2. Every time I get a POP or IMAP message
the header is dumped to all my terminal sessions.</a></h2>
@@ -3360,14 +3286,12 @@ biff n
to solve the problem system-wide.
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O3" name="O3">O3. Does fetchmail reread its rc file
every poll cycle?</a></h2>
<p>No, but versions 5.2.2 and later will notice when you modify
your rc file and restart, reading it.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O4" name="O4">O4. Why do deleted messages show up again
when I take a line hit while downloading?</a></h2>
@@ -3394,7 +3318,6 @@ between the delete and the expunge. If you've set a longer expunge
interval, the window gets wider. This problem should correct itself
the next time you complete a successful query.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O5" name="O5">O5. Why is fetched mail being logged with
my name, not the real From address?</a></h2>
@@ -3416,7 +3339,6 @@ on any MAIL FROM address fetchmail hands them with an @ in it!</p>
back to the calling-user ID. So if your SMTP listener isn't picky,
the log will look right.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O6" name="O6">O6. I'm seeing long sendmail delays or
hangs near the start of each poll cycle.</a></h2>
@@ -3437,7 +3359,6 @@ reconfiguring with <code>FEATURE(nodns)</code>.</p>
help, and is a good idea for speeding up other services as well.
Switching to a faster MTA like qmail or exim might help.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O7" name="O7">O7. Why doesn't fetchmail deliver mail in
date-sorted order?</a></h2>
@@ -3457,7 +3378,6 @@ it uses.</p>
<p>Re-ordering messages is a user-agent function, anyway.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O8" name="O8">O8. I'm using pppd. Why isn't my monitor
option working?</a></h2>
@@ -3470,7 +3390,6 @@ fetchmail relies upon, triggering fetchmail into polling after its
own delay interval and thus preventing the pppd link from ever
reaching its inactivity timeout.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O9" name="O9">O9. Why does fetchmail keep retrieving the
same messages over and over?</a></h2>
@@ -3527,14 +3446,12 @@ connection is terminated correctly.</em></p>
to behave on a line drop, according to the RFCs. I recommend
switching to IMAP and using a short expunge interval.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a id="O10" name="O10">O10. Why is the received date on all my
messages the same?</a></h2>
<p>This is a design choice in your MTA, not fetchmail. It's taking
the received date from the last Received header.</p>
-<hr />
<h2><a name="O11">O11. I keep getting messages that say "Repoll
immediately" in my logs.</a></h2>
@@ -3546,7 +3463,6 @@ get the message only once per run.</p>
<p>If you set an authentication method explicitly (say, with
<code>auth password</code>), you will never get the message.</p>
-<hr />
<h2><a name="O12">O12. Fetchmail no longer expunges mail on a 451 SMTP response.</a></h2>
<p>This is a feature, not a bug.</p>
@@ -3570,13 +3486,11 @@ dns errors.</p>
<p>All these issues are not related to fetchmail directly.</p>
-<hr />
<h2><a name="O13">O13. I want timestamp information in my fetchmail logs.</a></h2>
<p>Write a <code>preconnect</code> command in your configuration file that
does something like "date &gt;&gt; $HOME/Procmail/fetchmail.log".</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a name="O14">O14. Fetchmail no longer deletes oversized mails with
--flush.</a></h2>
@@ -3594,7 +3508,6 @@ oversized mails or both when a user specifies both
<code>--limit</code> and <code>--flush</code>. Hence, a separate
<code>--limitflush</code> has been added to resolve the ambiguity.</p>
-<hr/>
<h2><a name="O15">O15. Fetchmail always retains the first message in the
mailbox.</a></h2>
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