Topic: fetchmail dial-up problem

[Stefan]

Hi,

I've got a problem fetching multiple email accounts on dial-up. On my ME Server 5.1.2 is Vincent's fetchmail tool running. When I start-up the server he tries to fetch mail but nothing happens. It's the same when the server starts the job on every hour.

But when starting the 'fetchmail' script manually (the line is down at that time) everything works fine and mail is coming in.

Changing the ISP didn't change the behaviour.

I've searched the whole forum finding a solution for that problem. But every workaround I've tried could not fix the problem.

Is there any solution out there?


Regards,

Stefan

[guestHH]

Hi,

Are you using ISDN? If so, please send your logfiles to bugs@e-smith.com
with description of the problem.

In the mean time, change your /etc/crontab file and change every 'startmail' with 'fetchmail'

Regards,
guestHH

[Stefan]

Hi RequestedDeletion,

yes i'm using an ISDN-Modem contolled by AT commands. In e-smith version 5.0 everything was okay. Since using 5.12 (on the same hardware) i've got this problem.


Regards,
Stefan

[guestHH]

Hi Stefan,

Took me a while to catch up. My advise is to send your problems AND logs to bugs@e-smith.com.

I can't help any further for i just don't know. I do know that ISDN is still experimental and connections may vary from country to country, so it's hard for Mitel to keep up with all different curcomstances.

Regards,
guestHH

[Paul]

I have a problem with fetchmail.... I enter all the information the server requires to collect from a pop mail domain.

Select multi-drop, enter user name and password. I check /etc/fetchmail to make sure it iis polling the correct server. When I type fetchmail is tells me no mail server has been configured.

Please tell me what i have missed here.

Paul

[Paul]

I have a problem with fetchmail.... I enter all the information the server requires to collect from a pop mail domain.

Select multi-drop, enter user name and password. I check /etc/fetchmail to make sure it iis polling the correct server. When I type fetchmail is tells me no mail server has been configured.

Please tell me what i have missed here.

Paul

[Paul]

Hi there

After so interesting work hours and loads of help we have discovered the following bug to the startmail script

if /sbin/ifconfig | /bin/grep -q '^ippp' not if /sbin/ifconfig | /bin/grep -q '^ppp' for internal ISDN cards

the crontab was not loaded with roots cron file

run crontab /etc/crontab

We have also found that changes to the /etc/hosts to included the pop domain and IP address.

We hope this helps

[Filippo Carletti]

Please, file a bug report to bugs@e-smith.com.

[Filippo Carletti]

I don't think that modifing ^ppp in ^ippp would work.
With Sync ISDN, ippp is always present, while with standard ppp and diald, ppp appears only when connected.
The purpose of that lines in startmail is to force a connection if not connected.
But ippp0 will be present even if not connected.
A solution could be to look for "P-t-P:0.0.0.0" or /var/run/dialdseq.default containing a 0.

[Paul]

thanks for your input with regards to this problem. We have been struggling with ISDN Internal dial up.

The problem from start to finish is this:

We have installed the box as per the the manual. We configured it to collect multidrop mail. The box dials connects and thats it.....nothing else happens. On the portmaster where is connects the only request passed is for DNS.

So any and all input on this problem would be of great help.

Thanks

[Filippo Carletti]

There have been reports of no traffic at all, but I'm not sure.
Do pinging the point2point address work ?
Sync ISDN comes with debug enabled, any hint from syslog ?
Post some excerpts from /var/log/messages.

[Rob T]

Hi all,

I'm glad this thread has come to life again because I have similar (probably the same) problems with 5.1.2 as the rest of you.

In my case I use a bog standard 56k external dial-up modem connection with mail pick-ups scheduled several times a day via cron job. This is the part which seems to fail because I found (by coincidence) that if I was on line at the same time as a scheduled pick-up occurred then mail was downloaded normally but failed every time from a cold start when it had to dial the connection.

Funny thing is the connection goes quite normally
Dials, Connects, Dynamic IP change, NTPsync, but no fetchmail just an error message saying "no packets received within xx seconds closing link", I've tried extending the fetchmail timeout well beyond 30 secs but no joy.

Anyone else found this ? or

Anyone got an ideas what it does differently  from a cold start cron dial-up job ,as opposed to the link already up (like a permenant connection almost) ?

Cheers Rob Thomson

[Dean Mumby]

I had similar problems about a moonth ago I managed to fix the problem by doing a number of things , although I cannot say for certain which of these in fact solved the problem as I had no time to just experiment.
1. I craeted a template /etc/ppp/ip-up.local/ip-up.local
        and placed a line in there to send my ip address to an external account
        " /sbin/ifconfig | grep ppp mail -s IP-ADDRESS user@xxx.xxx "
2. I diabled dns look ups by fetchmail by editing the 50multipop file in /etc/fetchmail template
" under the protocal pop3 line I created an exact line saying " no dns"
3. I created my own checkfetchmailscript that checks to see if the link is up and if fetchmail is running , i dont have the scipt with me but if anyone wants it just email me and i will send it.

remeber to expand the templates after you have edited them.

I found that forcing an email out at every dialup helped with the no traffic error

Good Luck
Dean

[Rob Thomson]

Dean

Thanks for your response.
I have already used the no dns line without success, but not your other points.

I'll give them a bash over the weekend if you could kindly send me a copy of your script.

I have to reconfigure 5.1.2 as it was relegated to a test box in server only mode. 4.1.2 is doing the grunt work as it has faithfully for nearly a year.

Maybe this is was a case of "If it ain't broke"!!!

Cheers Rob,

[brian read]

i'd also like to hear what the solution to this is.  I have a customer whose dial up line only collects email when it is already online, and it is driving them (and me) mad.