Getmail configuration

[kentm]

Hello,

This is my first post and I have done all manner of searching on this to no avail.

I am trying to install getmail after having issues with fetchmail and a multidrop address. This is a home/learning server running on CentOS 4.4 and Zimbra 4.0.3.

Getmail askes for the path to the MDA. I provided:

path = /opt/zimbra/postfix/sbin/postfix

But get an error:

msg 1/1 (700474 bytes), delivery error (command postfix 29696 error (1, ))
1 messages retrieved, 0 skipped

What should the path to my MDA be?

Thanks,

Kent

[myles]

I don't think you can use getmail because Zimbra dosn't have a MailDir.

[kentm]

According to the getmail docs, it will work with a good number of mail functions:

• Maildir — deliver all messages to a local qmail-style maildir
• Mboxrd — deliver all messages to a local mboxrd-format mbox file with fcntl-type locking.
• MDA_external — use an external message delivery agent (MDA) to deliver messages. Typical MDAs include maildrop, procmail, and others.
• MultiDestination — unconditionally deliver messages to multiple destinations (maildirs, mbox files, external MDAs, or other destinations).
• MultiSorter — sort messages according to the envelope recipient (requires a domain mailbox retriever) and deliver to a variety of maildirs, mbox files, external MDAs, or other destinations based on regular expressions matching the recipient address of each message. Messages not matching any of the regular expressions are delivered to a default "postmaster" destination.
• MultiGuesser — sort messages according to addresses found in the message's header fields and deliver to a variety of maildirs, mbox files, external MDAs, or other destinations based on regular expressions matching those addresses. Messages not matching any of the regular expressions are delivered to a default "postmaster" destination.
• MDA_qmaillocal — use qmail-local to deliver messages according to instructions in a .qmail file.

I am looking at the external MDA in particular, I think. Perhaps I am wrong there too. At any rate, I know getmail works with Zimbra as a search returns strings in which people have it working.

I do have it pulling the mail, just not handing it off to Zimbra like fetchmail did ***sometimes***. 8^)

Thanks,

Kent

[phoenix]

I did try getmail some while back and I got it working but for the life of me can't remember what I did. Useful, huh.

What is the problem that you're trying to solve? I'm not an expert with fetchmail but I find it hard to believe that getmail would do something fetchmail wouldn't.

[kentm]

Bill,

I am sorry to leave you hanging. I was called out of town for work at the beginning of November and had to let this rest.

I now can't recall all of the issues presented by fetchmail but it was not pulling all messages from the ISP POP3 account and delivering them accurately. After googling and reading up on the app, somewhere I saw a recommendation for Getmail and decided to give it a shot.

Do you know what the MDA path is for Postfix?

Thanks,

Kent

[phoenix]

Hi

When I had it working it sends directly to Zimbra (but uses sendmail as a fallback, IIRC, to pass mail to zimbra). There's been a change since you've been away. The next version of Zimbra now has a feature that will pull the mail from an external account and put it in your mailbox, it's on each users mailbox options. You'll probably find that easier to use than trying to set-up an external application. It's not available until the next major update to 4.5 but that's available now as a beta for the OSS version, you might like to ty thta. I've installed 4.5 and pulling from external accounts works fine.

[Ericx]

Glad to hear that 4.5 will have an external connector. I used GFI to pull mail when I used Exchange.

We have alot of storms on the East Cost and loose power a few times a year. I have backup email accounts for all my Project Managers and other VIP's. These backup accounts are the free accounts from our web hosting company (company web site.) They are limited to 10 megs, but when our power goes out email is routed to the other email server and GFI pulls them when we are back online. I was wondering how to do this with zimbra.

[kentm]

I installed 4.5 from scratch and it does indeed have the POP3 extender in each user's module.

This would be ideal for an end-user who wanted to get all of his/her Gmail, HotMail, ISP mail, etc on the work server but it requires them to enter their client and click a button to get it. I will have to figure out a way to cron it so that messages can be sent to my Blackberry as they arrive. Has anyone delved into that?

The other thing that it does not appear to handle is a catchall account. I have any mail being sent to my domain forwarded to a single mailbox. Fetchmail and Getmail were supposed to be able to grab all of that mail and deliver it to the applicable users on Zimbra.

If anybody knows the path of the MTA in Zimbra, I am still interested in trying Getmail.

Thanks,

Kent

[phoenix]

The mail collection in Zimbra runs at the same schedule that it uses for checking for new email, you don't need to cron it as it's automatically downloaded.

Zimbra can handle a catchall account, search the forums for details of how to set it up, spammers do love them.

You don't need the MTA path, getmail should forward it via port 25 to zimbra, the same way that fetchmail does.

[kentm]

Hey Bill,

I just checked again on two different clients but the external mail does not get pulled until you click "Get Mail". It will show up on the second client once it is pressed on the first but I just got two days worth.

In my initial reading of the forums on Catchall accounts, I understood that I needed Fetchmail or Getmail to enable the retrieval. Perhaps I am not using the right term. Here is a detailed example of what I am attempting to do:

• A friend sends two e-mails, one to me at kentm@mydomain.com and one to my wife at wifeno4@mydomain.com.
  
• Both of these are sent to mailbox@ispdomain.com and sit there until I retrieve them.
  
• Once they are retrieved, they are sorted into the mailboxes of the appropriate recipient.

I understand that there are going to be issues if the e-mail includes both of us in the To: field as well as if it has an undisclosed recipient list and I think that was part of the reason I was trying Getmail as I read it handles this a bit better. I do not understand how this setup would be of any benefit to spammers, however. My SMTP relay still requires authentication.

Perhaps MDA_external is not the correct option for Getmail. Maybe MultiGuesser would work. I blew it all away when I installed 4.5 so I have a fresh slate with which to play around on.

Thanks,

Kent