Re: Novell SuSE Email Issues

From: R Wood (rwood_at_therandymon.com)
Date: 01/07/05 

Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 16:49:07 -0000

In article <ZFyDd.7$Y86.1004@news.uswest.net>, Godzilla wrote:
> vejahb@jrivth.com wrote:
>
>> |Some mail is going to /var/spool/mail and keeps accumulating in one
>> |contiguous file unless you go there each day to pick it up and
>> |erase the file. I have posted about this problem in several
>> |newsgroups and forums, but no one has come up with an answer.
>>
>> Please describe your mail setup.
>>
>> The maildrop in /var/spool/mail/$user is the normal Unix mailbox
>> format. It was put there by postfix (or sendmail) as a result of
>> local delivery. Question is how did it get received by postfix? Were
>> you using fetchmail?
>> --
>
> When I installed SUSE 9.2 Pro, I just accepted most of the default
> settings. As far as I can determine, it is using fetchmail.
> I normally use KMail as my email client, but have tried using
> Evolution, and had the same result. With 9.0 MOST of my mail (but not
> all) was dissapearing into /var/spool/mail/$user. Now, with 9.2 Pro,
> MOST of my mail comes into KMail, but SOME goes
> into /var/spool/mail/$user
>
> This takes me to the outer limits of my technical knowledge.
> If someone can tell us how to turn off the alternate route and receive
> all of our mail with the email client it would be highly appreciated.
>
> Godzilla

The solution is pretty simple. In Kmail, add a local spool mailbox.
Settings --> Configure Kmail --> Network --> Receiving --> Add

When you add the new mailbox from where you receive mail, select Local
Mailbox. Name: (whatever name you want to call it). Path:
/var/spool/(your user name here) and then Destination Folder: inbox, or
whatever you want.

Now when you hit "check mail" it will pull in all the mail from your local
spoolfile.

The long term solution is to turn off fetchmail. Go to YaST, mail settings,
and (I don't have SUSE running so I can't tell you exact directions here)
remove the email addresses it has there under some submenu called "local
users" or something. Alternately, edit the fetchmail file by hand. It's in
/etc/fetchmailrc I think, and you can just remove or comment out the lines
that have your email address in it. That should prevent fetchmail from
getting your mail for you. However, SUSE is configured to send system mail
to that spool file, which generates some messages when you install a new
package, for example. Again in YaST, there's an option in the mail settings
for "send system mail to" you could uncheck if that's important to you. 

-- 
Randall S. Wood
http://www.therandymon.com

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