[Techtalk] a working MTA...a SIMPLE one!

[Staci]

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003, Mary wrote:

> <snip>
>
> > fetchmail: SMTP connect to localhost failed
>
> Why do you think this is wrong?
>
> Here's how a fetchmail/mutt setup normally works:
>
>  Incoming mail:
>   - fetchmail fetches mail from the server
>   - fetchmail connects to localhost on port 25, and passes on the
>     message, relying on the local MTA to deliver it

I finally figured that out after googling for it.
fetchmail needs a working sendmail.
However: I finally got postfix working!!  This prob is solved!

But now fetchmail won't function....somehow "sendmail" still cannot make contact
with localhost to deliver.
running it by hand gets me nothing, running it thru fetchmailconf

>  Outgoing mail:
>   - mutt calls /usr/lib/sendmail (I think) and passes the mail onto it
>   - the local MTA (which is started by /usr/lib/sendmail) delivers the
>     mail however it sees fit
>
> BUT...
>
> Really simple MTAs, like nullmailer and ssmtp, DON'T listen on port 25.
> They ONLY handle outgoing mail. So if you have one of these installed,
> then the error is expected.
>
> So, what you need to do in this case (and I can't say for sure that this
> is what is happening), is change your incoming mail setup to this
> procedure:
>
>  Incoming mail:
>   - fetchmail fetches mail from the server
>   - fetchmail passes the mail straight on to procmail rather than
>     connecting to port 25
>
> This is how my own setup works, since I use nullmailer.
>
> The way you set up fetchmail to rely on procmail directly is by doing
> something like this in your ~/.fetchmailrc
>
> poll REMOTE_IMAP_HOST with protocol imap
>     user REMOTE_USER_NAME there with password REMOTE_PASSWORD
>     options mda "/usr/bin/procmail -d LOCAL_USER_NAME"
>
> There might be some other options like "fetchall" and "nokeep" -- check
> the fetchmail man page.
>
> Alternatively, the command line equivalent of the above is:
>
> fetchmail -m "/usr/bin/procmail -d LOCAL_USER_NAME" -p imap -u REMOTE_USER_NAME REMOTE_IMAP_HOST
>
> -Mary
>