fetchmail README ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- * * * WARNING * * * This release contains untested features! It includes new code for Kerberos authentication and POP3 UID support, but my integration of these features required changes which have not yet been tested by the people who sent the enhancements. I'm issuing it to put paid to two minor but annoying bugs, in option processing and IMAP queries of multiple sites. For other changes, see the release notes in the NEWS file. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- fetchmail is a full-featured, robust, well-documented POP2, POP3, APOP, and IMAP batch mail retrieval/forwarding utility intended to be used over on-demand TCP/IP links (such as SLIP or PPP connections). It retrieves mail from remote mail servers and forwards it to your local (client) machine's delivery system, so it can then be be read by normal mail user agents such as elm(1) or Mail(1). The fetchmail code was developed under Linux, but should be readily portable to other Unix variants (it uses GNU autoconf). It has also been ported to QNX; to build under QNX, see the header comments in the Makefile. The fetchmail program was originally authored (under the name popclient) by Carl Harris . Eric S. Raymond, took over development in June 1996 and subsequently renamed the program `fetchmail' to reflect the addition of IMAP support. See the distribution files NEWS for detailed information on recent changes and NOTES for design notes. Before accepting responsibility for the popclient sources from Carl, I had investigated and used and tinkered with every other UNIX remote-mail forwarder I could find, including fetchpop1.9, PopTart-0.9.3, get-mail, gwpop, pimp-1.0, pop-perl5-1.2, popc, popmail-1.6 and upop. I learned from all of them, and fetchmail is a carefully-thought-out attempt to render obsolete every other program in its class. The fetchmail code appears to be stable and free of bugs affecting normal operation (that is, retrieving from POP3 or IMAP and forwarding via SMTP to sendmail). It will probably undergo substantial change only if and when support for a new retrieval protocol or authentication is added. Here are fetchmail's main features. Those unique to fetchmail are marked with **. * **POP2, POP3, **APOP, **IMAP support. ** Support for Kerberos user authentication. ** Host is auto-probed for a working server if no protocol is specified for the connection. Thus you don't need to know what servers are running on your mail host in advance; the verbose option will tell you which one succeeds. ** Delivery via via SMTP to the client machine's port 25. This means the retrieved mail automatically goes to the system default MDA as if it were normal sender-initiated SMTP mail. ** Timeout if server connection is dropped. * Easy control via command line or free-format run control file. * Daemon mode -- fetchmail can be run in background to poll one or more hosts at a specified interval. * From:, To:, Cc:, and Reply-To: headers are rewritten so that usernames relative to the fetchmail host become fully-qualified Internet addresses. This enables replies to work correctly. (Would be unique to fetchmail if I hadn't added it to fetchpop.) * Strict conformance to relevant RFCs and good debugging options. You could use fetchmail to test and debug server implementatations. * Carefully written, comprehensive and up-to-date man page describing not only modes of operation but also (**) how to interpret the most common kinds of problems and what to do about deficient servers * Rugged, simple, and well-tested code -- the author relies on it every day and it has never lost mail, not even in experimental versions. * Large user community -- fetchmail has inherited a significant user base from Carl Harris's popclient community. This means feedback is rapid, bugs get found and fixed rapidly. You can easily find the latest version of fetchmail from Eric's home page: http://www.ccil.org/~esr Just chase the link to Eric's Freeware Collection. Besides fetchmail, it includes a tasty selection of Web authoring tools, programmer's aids, graphics libraries, compilers for bizarre languages, games, and miscellaneous interesting hacks. Enjoy! -- esr