Re: avoiding mail loops in fetchmail

From: Paul Howarth (paul_at_city-fan.org)
Date: 04/11/05

  • Next message: John Swartzentruber: "Re: is there any news list for this mailing list?" 
    Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 13:37:58 +0100
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>

    Ankush Grover wrote:
    > On 4/11/05, Paul Howarth <paul@city-fan.org> wrote:
    >
    >>Ankush Grover wrote:
    >>
    >>>My fetchmail configuration file
    >>>poll mailserver localdomains domainname
    >>>user " " with pass " " to * here flush
    >>>
    >>>I am having catchall mailbox (multidrop mailbox) what happens is that
    >>>when there is mails for 2 or more users in the catchall box the mail
    >>>recieved by the user is 2 or more means if there are 4 mails then each
    >>>user will get 4 mails .I want to avoid mail loops.I have posted my
    >>>fetchmailrc above .Please have a look at it and tell me how to avoid
    >>>loops.
    >>>
    >>>I am using catchall for many users in my office and so I want to send
    >>>the mails from the catchall mailbox to the respective users.
    >>
    >>How does fetchmail know who to deliver the mail to?
    >>
    >>Are you aware of the well-known issues regarding using multidrop
    >>mailboxes like this with fetchmail (see the fetchmail man page)?
    >>Basically, unless your MTA adds a suitable header (e.g. Delivered-To:)
    >>to indicate the actual recipient of the email, or there is one already
    >>there (e.g. a To: or Cc: header), it won't work.
    >>
    >
    >
    > the mail is going to proper user it the mail is To/CC but not bcc.The
    > exact problem I am having is that the mails even send to To/Cc are
    > going to all the users.Suppor there is a single mail going to john and
    > marry then john and marry will receive 2 copies of that mail whereas
    > they should receive only 1 mail each.
    >
    > Is there any other utility or program through which i can download
    > the mails for users from the catchall mailbox without any issues or
    > problems.

    No. The underlying problem is that once the mail has been delivered to
    your POP/IMAP mailbox then (unless your MTA adds a Delivered-To: or
    equivalent header) the envelope recipient address is no longer
    available, and fetchmail or any other utility (e.g. getmail) has to
    figure out who the intended recipient was based on the mail headers. For
    Bcc'ed mail, this information simply isn't there. So it won't work. Period.

    This is described in detail in "THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP
    MAILBOXES" in "man fetchmail".

    Paul. 

    -- 
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
  • Next message: John Swartzentruber: "Re: is there any news list for this mailing list?"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: [opensuse] Procmail: Filter & Resend
      ... You may better use fetchmail. ... What's missing is the catch-all case (multi drop mailboxes). ... Procmail is a mail delivery agent. ... The problem is that there are a number of Received fields. ...
      (SuSE)
    • Re: fetchmail tip (was Re: [opensuse] Dovecot 2.0)
      ... Yes they do and no its done via crontab. ... They don't know about fetchmail or what IMAP is. ... That have mailboxes everywhere. ... It is a separate issue and nothing to do with which imap server we use. ...
      (SuSE)
    • Re: fetchmail notify on new mail
      ... I'm using fetchmail to pull emails from several accounts to my local ... imap every thirty seconds. ... configurable tool that allows multiple mailboxes ...
      (comp.os.linux.misc)
    • Re: Fetchmail and aliases
      ... recipient" from the mail headers of each message. ... In this mode of operation, fetchmail almost resembles an MTA, however it is important ... specific mail server used for mail retrieval. ... account in the configuration file. ...
      (uk.comp.os.linux)