Fetchmail dates

[dln]

I have been playing with my new set-up, and started importing old messages out of Yahoo! using Fetchmail.

In the web client, every msg is (re-)dated as today, ie either its Fetchmail date or its 'arrived into Zimbra' date.

Is there are way to preserve the original dates or use the transmission date?

Please advise,
=dn

PS the same account viewed from Thunderbird (IMAP into Zimbra a/c) displays the original sent/received date and time

[dwmtractor]

Thunderbird is actually an alternative way to handle what you're trying to do. Set up both your old account and your new Zimbra account in Thunderbird (as separate accounts) then drag your messages from the one to the other. Attributes will be preserved.

[dln]

Thanks Dan.

Apart from speed (not a big deal) this will handle the 'migration' task.

However, I was directed to use Fetchmail feeding Zimbra for everyday use between 'other servers' and Zimbra.

Not good enough if every date is going to be 'broken' in the web front-end's presentation because then users will stay with Thunderbird and thus it brings into question if there's any advantage of moving to Zimbra...

Does anyone know if it is a problem with the front-end or with Fetchmail?
(meantime I'll keep ploughing through the manuals for both...)

Regards,
=dn

[dwmtractor]

I'm confused. I have some accounts set up on my system where I use fetchmail automatically (set up in webmin outside of Zimbra) to fetch mail from a pop account and send them to my Zimbra account--these are fetched every three minutes by a crontab process. I have another account set up by allowing additional accounts within Zimbra, and this one only gets my mail when I right-click on it and choose "get external mail." Neither one shows the timestamp of when Fetchmail grabs it; both show the original.

Perhaps it would help if you post complete headers (with private information obfuscated if you prefer) so we can see the path and timestamp of a suspect message?

[dln]

Dan,

I'm wondering if it something about the Fetchmail script which is in error - at this stage I have it running from the command line with fetchmailrc script rather than from cron (until it is working properly)

Herewith a sample msg from Yahoo! themselves to my account on Yahoo.co.uk which is then fetchmail-ed into Zimbra. The two deliveries were exactly one month apart (1 July and 1 August) which is clearly visible in the headers. However in my Zimbra InBox I only see 1 August (for a download of ten or so msgs which were brought into Zimbra at the same time but which appeared on Yahoo! at different times/dates). If I use your via-Thunderbird suggestion, then the date transfers correctly.

Regards,
=dn


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Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 06:41:56 -0000
Message-ID: <g0m239xrgp4y1g144hs1008146lh75@one.yahoo-email.com>
From: =?ISO-8859-1?q?Yahoo!?= <yahoo.uk@one.yahoo-email.com>
To: creightonclose@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?q?Yahoo!_by_You_-_Summer_Edition?=
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Reply-To: =?ISO-8859-1?q?Yahoo!?= <support-g0m239xrgp4y1g144hs1008146lh75@one.yahoo-email.com>
Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=g0m239xrgp4y1g144hs1008146lh75"

--=g0m239xrgp4y1g144hs1008146lh75
Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Dear Yahoo! Mail user,

Please click this link to see your exclusive Yahoo! by You
newsletter:

Yahoo! by you

Enjoy!

The Yahoo! Mail Team
*****

[dwmtractor]

Well, instead of cron-ing that script, how about installing Webmin (Webmin) on your server, and running fetchmail from the "servers" section of webmin? Once you have it retrieve messages properly, the Webmin gui will allow you to set up the periodicity of checking for messages, and it'll add it to cron by itself.

This method has worked without a hitch for me and I've been using it ever since version 4.5.5. Haven't even had to modify it as I upgraded versions, it just worked.

I say this because I don't see anything obvious in the headers to explain the weirdness you're experiencing, but with fetchmail thru Webmin I'm consistently seeing the original time/date stamp, not the fetchmail one, in my inbox.

[dln]

Dan,

Thanks for the suggestion.
I'm working my way through the Fetchmail commands/manual (in my spare time...).
Then I'll look into Webmin...

Would you mind posting your Fetchmailrc (resampled) please?

In case I haven't explained things using correct terminology, or for your viewing pleasure, I have (worked out that the forum allows me to) attached two (cropped) screen shots showing the different date-presentations between the Zimbra web client and Thunderbird email client.

Regards,
=dn

[dwmtractor]

Would you mind posting your Fetchmailrc (resampled) please?

Sure, dn,

poll mypopdomain.com
proto pop3
user "user1"
pass "pass1"
is dest1@myzimbradomain.com
nokeep
fetchall
user "user2"
pass "pass2"
is dest2@myzimbradomain.com
nokeep
fetchall
user "user3"
pass "pass3"
is dest3@myzimbradomain.com
nokeep
fetchall

Lather, rinse, repeat!

Edit: I should add that this active .fetchmailrc is in the home directory of my webmin administrative user (in this case /home/admin) NOT in /opt/zimbra. I don't know to what extent this makes a difference but that's where webmin put it and I'm not one to mess with success!

[dln]

Dan,

My file is almost identical, excepting that at this time I am saying KEEP, and I'm running from the command line as root.
I do have a bunch of declarations at the front, but I can't see that they will make any difference:
set postmaster "me@domain.tld"
set no bouncemail
set no spambounce
set properties ""

Oh well, time to get on with the reading I mentioned earlier...

Regards,
=dn

[dln]

Dan,

I have finally found some time (and steeled myself to the task) to return to this issue...and by asking for maximum verbosity and using controlled data have isolated the data only to realise that I have been looking in the wrong place.

1 took Yahoo out of the equation by extracting msgs from my hosting service
2 altered Fetchmail to use IMAP instead of POP

What I (now see) in the SysLog (CentOS) is:
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: IMAP< * 4 FETCH (BODY[TEXT] {6}
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: (6 body octets) (log message incomplete)
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: IMAP< )
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: IMAP< A0017 OK FETCH completed.
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: SMTP>. (EOM)
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher postfix/cleanup[32351]: 0B6F430004F: message-id=<48A2EC37.9060705@yahoo.co.uk>
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher postfix/qmgr[13405]: 0B6F430004F: from=<dandeneil@yahoo.co.uk>, size=1780, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: SMTP< 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 0B6F430004F
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: not flushed
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: IMAP> A0018 STORE 4 +FLAGS (\Seen)
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: IMAP< * 4 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen))
Aug 13 15:34:19 asher fetchmail[32310]: IMAP< A0018 OK STORE completed.
...
Aug 13 15:34:55 asher postfix/lmtp[380]: 9A925300048: to=<kiwikid@danceswithmice.info>, relay=danceswithmice.info[192.168.15.20]:7025, delay=0.67, delays=0.08/0.02/0.03/0.54, dsn=2.1.5, status=sent (250 2.1.5 OK)
Aug 13 15:34:55 asher postfix/qmgr[13405]: 9A925300048: removed

Rather than that of the fetchmail transactions, it is the latter (postfix/lmtp) that is the date-time used in the webmail presentation (actually I only see "Aug 13" or whatever but this is augmented with the time "15:34:55" in the tool-tip pop-up).

Interestingly when clicking on the msg hdr to view, the header of the msg pane shows "Subject: 1506
Sent By "DL Neil" <creightonclose@yahoo.co.uk>
On: August 13, 2008 3:06 PM"
which corresponds to the transmit-time - and is the time I'd think of as most desirable!

- and yes, using Thunderbird to IMAP into the Zimbra account shows the correct datetime (IMHO) in the headers pane, the preview pane's headers, and the message window.

Given that the task is to import historical email records, I need to figure out how to correct the msg date presented by Zimbra webmail to that of the original email msg, not that of its subsequent arrival into Z/postfix...

Regards,
=dn