diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'fetchmail.man')
| -rw-r--r-- | fetchmail.man | 39 |
1 files changed, 26 insertions, 13 deletions
diff --git a/fetchmail.man b/fetchmail.man index 9b3e92db..bc56b958 100644 --- a/fetchmail.man +++ b/fetchmail.man @@ -579,19 +579,32 @@ be comma-separated. .B \-m <command> | \-\-mda <command> (Keyword: mda) .br -You can force mail to be passed to an MDA directly -(rather than forwarded to port 25) with the \-\-mda or \-m option. - -To -avoid losing mail, use this option only with MDAs like maildrop or -MTAs like sendmail that return a nonzero status on disk-full and other -resource-exhaustion errors; the nonzero status tells fetchmail that -delivery failed and prevents the message from being deleted off the -server. - -If \fBfetchmail\fP is running as root, it sets its user id to -that of the target user while delivering mail through an MDA. Some -possible MDAs are "/usr/sbin/sendmail \-i \-f %F \-\- %T" (\fBNote:\fP +This option lets \fBfetchmail\fP use a Message or Local Delivery Agent +(MDA or LDA) directly, rather than forward via SMTP or LMTP. + +To avoid losing mail, use this option only with MDAs like maildrop or +MTAs like sendmail that exit with a nonzero status on disk-full and other +delivery errors; the nonzero status tells fetchmail that delivery failed +and prevents the message from being deleted on the server. + +If \fBfetchmail\fP is running as root, it sets its user id while +delivering mail through an MDA as follows: First, the FETCHMAILUSER, +LOGNAME, and USER environment variables are checked in this order. The +value of the first variable from his list that is defined (even if it is +empty!) is looked up in the system user database. If none of the +variables is defined, fetchmail will use the real user id it was started +with. If one of the variables was defined, but the user stated there +isn't found, fetchmail continues running as root, without checking +remaining variables on the list. Practically, this means that if you +run fetchmail as root (not recommended), it is most useful to define the +FETCHMAILUSER environment variable to set the user that the MDA should +run as. Some MDAs (such as maildrop) are designed to be setuid root and +setuid to the recipient's user id, so you don't lose functionality this +way even when running fetchmail as unprivileged user. Check the MDA's +manual for details. + +Some possible MDAs are "/usr/sbin/sendmail \-i \-f %F \-\- %T" +(\fBNote:\fP some several older or vendor sendmail versions mistake \-\- for an address, rather than an indicator to mark the end of the option arguments), "/usr/bin/deliver" and "/usr/bin/maildrop \-d %T". Local delivery |