Topic: fetchmail and pop3 question (I am a noob)

[joyrider]

Hi there. I have within the last hour downloaded sme server. I have had some experience with linux I am no guru but can find my way around - I am still experimenting and learning.

When I first setup SME I used the web interface http://<myserver>:/server-manager
and came to the email page. I want to simply setup a way of retrieving pop3 emails from an isp's
server and my public domain hosts servers and distribute those mails to the relevent user accounts

I am a little bit confused by the settings under "ETRN or multi-drop settings"
and just need a simple method of having a user account per email address then retrieving the email from the isp to the server and then- from my windows box - having outlook retrieve the mail from the local server.

Please can anyone help me

[william_syd]

This may help.

http://www.schirrms.net/sme/SMEFetchMail.php

Works well for me.

[joyrider]

Oh excellent! Thank you very much ! It looks like the information I need
Very quick reply much appreciated !

[CharlieBrady]

I am a little bit confused by the settings under "ETRN or multi-drop settings"
and just need a simple method of having a user account per email address then retrieving the email from the isp to the server and then- from my windows box - having outlook retrieve the mail from the local server.

If you are going to continue to have mailboxes per user stored at your ISP, then it will be simpler to just continue to have outlook retrieve the mail directly from the ISP.

[joyrider]

Thanks for the reply !
I think it would, of course, be much easier to do that, however I think I would prefer- rather than have the mails pulled direct from the isp'server by outlook and rather than face almost insurmountable difficulty setting up fetchmail with SME Server I will go back to using ClarkConnect.

Thanks for the advice, pity about that mail thing - maybe you guys can fix it one day!
I will pop back in from time to time - just to see how you are getting on !

[william_syd]

Thanks for the advice, pity about that mail thing - maybe you guys can fix it one day!

What was wrong with the contrib at the link I posted above?

There are two people here. Both have an ISP based email address. They both also have an SME based email address.

Every 15min the ISP is checked and mail is brought down to the respective user on SME.

All mail clients connect only to the SME.

[cactus]

Thanks for the reply !
I think it would, of course, be much easier to do that, however I think I would prefer- rather than have the mails pulled direct from the isp'server by outlook and rather than face almost insurmountable difficulty setting up fetchmail with SME Server I will go back to using ClarkConnect.

Thanks for the advice, pity about that mail thing - maybe you guys can fix it one day!
I will pop back in from time to time - just to see how you are getting on !

Using the smeserver-fetchmail contrib should not be that hard to setup the pop3 retrieval per user AFAIK, have you tried already? Where did you get stuck? Stating that it is unsurmountable without showing proof of trying is not really fair.

[joyrider]

Sorry - that was just my attempt at droll humour I was up till 5am and had to be awake at 9am -
The setup for the formMagick didnt work - I kept getting a error which said I needed perl-CGI-i18nlang or something like that and I tried to install that perl pack but it wasnt having it  - I am running the thing on a dell poweredge 600sc  so its not for lack of hardware

The utf fetchmail rpm loaded up alright and installed but not form magic and I was really hoping for a quick success with this stuff

Hopefully I can just edit the fetchmail config files or setup some other fetchmail gui

[william_syd]

I didn't think the additional formMagick stuff was currently needed.

I would say...

Install SMEserver 7.3

Update it with yum update

Do the commands that yum gives you at the end.

Then wget http://www.schirrms.net/files/smeserver-fetchmail-utf8-1.3.5-02.noarch.rpm

followed by

yum localinstall smeserver-fetchmail-utf8-1.3.5-02.noarch.rpm

Repeat the commands that yum gives you at the end.

Then in server manager, go to Mail retrieval under Collaboration in the left-hand menu.

[joyrider]

Thanks for that - I will let you know how it goes - I will do that right now actually - thank you very much for helping !

[joyrider]

OK - Now that's worked ! hahahah thanks very much - right OK now I am in a position to experiment with this stuff -

thanks a lot !!!!!


<edited in later>

Yeah this is exactly what I wanted -

REALLY I MEAN IT - THANK YOU !!!

[cactus]

yum localinstall smeserver-fetchmail-utf8-1.3.5-02.noarch.rpm

I would preffer installing smeserver-fetchmail from the SME Contribs repository, it is the UTF8 encoded version as well.

[joyrider]

sorry to be a pain but now I have mail working but the instructions at
http://www.schirrms.net/sme/SMEFetchMail.php
 dont work out and what I am trying to achieve now is to schedule the mail every two minutes for each user.

schirrms.net says:

Note : you cannot change the time schedule of fetchmail here. This is because fetchmail is still sharing some parts with the standard SME Fetchmail system.
If the standard schedule (every 15 minutes) doesn't suit your needs, in server manager, go on Configuration -> E-Mail and choose new schedule rules (at the bottom of the page).
But there is a trick : If your server E-mail retrieval mode (at the top of the same page) is set as Standard (SMTP), you cannot save the change !
In this case just select ETRN (SMTP with client request), do your schedule change, and click 'Save'.
Then go again in the page, select back Standard (SMTP), and save again.

[cactus]

You can not, 5 minutes is the minimum due to the SME Server architecture.

[william_syd]

I would preffer installing smeserver-fetchmail from the SME Contribs repository, it is the UTF8 encoded version as well.

It must have sneaked in while I wasn't looking.

[CharlieBrady]

You can not, 5 minutes is the minimum due to the SME Server architecture.

That's also an unreasonable burden on the ISP's mail infrastructure. If you want mail to arrive in mailboxes as soon as possible, don't use pop3 and don't use fetchmail, but have it directly delivered to your mail server via SMTP.

[william_syd]

sorry to be a pain but now I have mail working but the instructions at
http://www.schirrms.net/sme/SMEFetchMail.php
 dont work out and what I am trying to achieve now is to schedule the mail every two minutes for each user.

schirrms.net says:

Using the server-manager panel you can only select what is in the drop down box.

If you attempt to schedule mail collection too often, then one instance of fetchmail may not complete before the next one starts. Very inefficient and you end up with annoying emails to the administrator.

fetchmail: another foreground fetchmail is running at 17293.
fetchmail: another foreground fetchmail is running at 17293.

It can be done but you need to hack some code.

Yes, setting the schedule is a two-step process. You have to select ETRN and save. Set your schedule and save. Reselect Standard and save.

Edit: Look under Configuration >> E-mail >> Change e-mail reception settings

[joyrider]

That's also an unreasonable burden on the ISP's mail infrastructure. If you want mail to arrive in mailboxes as soon as possible, don't use pop3 and don't use fetchmail, but have it directly delivered to your mail server via SMTP.

Doesn't that rather depend on the volume of mail? I mean peeking into 7 or 8 mailboxes to pull down 10 or 12 emails an hour is hardly gonna bust the isp's back is it ?

I mean one way or another the isp has to transport the email

[william_syd]

Doesn't that rather depend on the volume of mail? I mean peeking into 7 or 8 mailboxes to pull down 10 or 12 emails an hour is hardly gonna bust the isp's back is it ?

Are you the ISP's only customer ?

[joyrider]

well like I said - they have to carry the email one way or another !
at some point it travels their infrastructure whether I use pop or smtp

[william_syd]

well like I said - they have to carry the email one way or another !
at some point it travels their infrastructure whether I use pop or smtp

Every time you connect to their mail sever your using resources on the machine, its not just data transferred.

How many people sit at their computer 24/7 checking their email every 2 minutes?

[CharlieBrady]

well like I said - they have to carry the email one way or another !
at some point it travels their infrastructure whether I use pop or smtp

If you use SMTP it won't touch their computers at all, packets will just pass through their routers.

[joyrider]

Ok point taken on the fact you wouldnt be hassling their servers but hey its not like they only got one mail server and there is a reason why we cant have the mail forwarded by smtp - reasons I dont want to go into here just simply because its too long to go into

The fact of the matter is people want their mail instantly. If they get a phone call and someone says "Ok I just sent it" if that mail isnt on the recipient desktop two minutes later then they think their computer is broke or something.
Take it from me - having 6 or 7 users checking their mail aint gonna break the internet in half and cause world war 3 or 4. Its just a few bytes of traffic every now and then.
The Isp we use has about 6 million customers - I doubt we are gonna be their biggest headache !
You would be better off worrying about people who send companies 10,000 emails a day as spam !!!

[CharlieBrady]

You would be better off worrying about ...

For a noob, you seem to have rather strong opinions, and be reluctant to accept the advise you have asked for.

I'm quite happy to make my own decisions about what I worry about, thanks.

Just avoid fetchmail. Your users can fetch from their ISP's mailboxes directly as often as they feel like. If they use IMAP, their mail client will be notified as soon a new message arrives.

[joyrider]

I am fairly new to linux compared to some people who are experts and geniuses at it - I consider I am just learning it. I am not new to network administration and have a lot of experience in everything from working in mainframe environments to doing what I love now which is looking after small companies. I didnt ask for advice on the ethics of collecting via pop3 just how to achieve collecting mail every coupla minutes.
I realise some people have opinions about the way networks should be run but they are just opinions after all.

To be honest maybe you guys run data centres with tens if not hundreds of connections where such considerations matter, but I just look after a few very small companies where they have a couple of servers at maximum and just want their email and accounts software running and the rest is done by telephone - its not rocket science its just the way things are done at small companies where servers go down unexpectedly because some guy thought he was unplugging his mobile ,or they decide to put a cloth over it because it makes too much noise and they tried to quieten it but it overheats etc. you know - so it makes sense to make things simple and idiot proof.  Fair play if I was talking about 30 or 40 employees at a throw or hundreds but I was talking about 5 or 6

The argument about "yeah but what if everyone did it"? dont work, because in reality not everyone does it and besides pop3 isnt practical over and above a handful of users then you would definitely need to change the mx record and have the mail relayed because of the amount of admin involved

imap and smtp dont work for them because we want the mail pulled to thge server in the office as it would be easier to maintain the mail there than on the isp mail server - and with imap only the headers are pulled
we dont want smtp because the servers sometimes go down in the summer heat because the office is situated in an old part of town (brick lane london) and the leccy is very unreliable there at the truman brewery office complex and due to the nature of their business they dont want mail bouncing they would prefer to wait than have it bounce
the fact is the server I was building was meant to be part backup mail server and part main mail server - but I went back to Suse Linux anyway - I know I know thats like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut but what the heck - lifes full of anomolies and paradoxes and paradigm shifts

[janet]

joyrider

they dont want mail bouncing they would prefer to wait than have it bounce

That 's a wrong assumption, it should be queued by the sending smtp mail server to retry the delivery later, for usually up to 7 days, depending on the mail server configuration.
See
http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Documentation:FAQ#Secondary.2FBackup_Mail_Server_Considerations

You would be better off to go with the smtp server and give everybody their own email address like name@yourdomain address, and mail will arrive very quickly then, almosty instantly in the case of local messages.

[joyrider]

That 's a wrong assumption, it should be queued by the sending smtp mail server to retry the delivery later, for usually up to 7 days, depending on the mail server configuration.

Like I said the nature of their business demands rapid access to all forms of communication the quicker the better and with the state of power round there during the summer it dont make sense. You know as well as I do that the mail queue will retry a send for the first few times within an hour or so but with powercuts lasting up to two hours it could be on a server queue for hours. I havent assumed anything at all. I got told what  they need and supply it. I dont know where you guys work but in the real world of network administration people want access to their mail any way they can get it and if it isnt instant then they blame the IT guy. Everything in the click of a finger NOW THIS SECOND or else!
so you try to go with the standards laid out out in those lovely little documents but at the end of the day its anything to get that mail to them and keep em off your back - its not like they care about those networking standards - they think thats all BS compared to the fact that they want you to deliver their mail in the best way possible and they dont want to wait hours

People who are against pop3 ignore the pragmatic day-to-day realities and shortcomings of smtp.
It's not always practical to do things your way - lovely on paper - nice ribbons and everything around the scroll - but in practice folks its get the mail now preserve it get it tro them ASAP anything it takes to keep the users happy huh ???!

[janet]

joyrider

If your server is on, then you will get mail more quickly using smtp than pop.
If your server is off, then mail will be delivered when it comes back on, and there will/may be delays with pop or smtp in that case.

If you have frequent power failures then you should really be using a large enough UPS that will keep your server on for the duration. Mail will always get through then, and that's what your users want isn't it ?
You also don't risk damaging your hardware or file system with frequent uncontrolled power outages.

[joyrider]

Like I said these people are a small company they cant afford a generator or UPS that will work for two hours that would cost literally hundreds if not thousands - believe me its a 140 quid for one big enough to handle a server with a 730wat power supply - yeah 730 watt for 6 minutes! (which is what they have now)
and theres two of em -

Oh and smtp usually works like this
can mail be delivered - no
queue for 10 mins
retry
mail delivered - no
retry in 30
mail delivered - no retry in 2 hours
mail delivered - no retry in 24 hours

NOT PRACTICAL !!!!!!

POP 3
Client attempts to get mail
power failure
client quickly moves to another device or machine not affected power failure reads mails !!
power comes back on
mail also instantly pulled to old machine - no queing for 24 hrs

[janet]

joyrider

I don't understand the great concern about getting mail immediately, when they tolerate 2 hour power fails, during which time they receive no mail at all. The attitude seems imbalanced.

A 730watt power supply does not consume 730w all the time, that's a maximum rating, power consumption will depend on what's inside the box and what it's doing.

[joyrider]

I don't understand the great concern about getting mail immediately, when they tolerate 2 hour power fails, during which time they receive no mail at all. The attitude seems imbalanced.

They dont tollerate it they go to somewhere they can use pop3 and get their mail on another machine maybe pull it in off a mobile phone or plug in to some wireless network outside the affected zone.

Thats the point they want their mail instantly even under crisis conditions and for 6 people pop3 is ideal smtp isnt

look with an isp that has at least 8 million business customers 6 people using pop3 isnt a big challenge

[CharlieBrady]

They dont tollerate it they go to somewhere they can use pop3 and get their mail on another machine maybe pull it in off a mobile phone or plug in to some wireless network outside the affected zone.

If you use fetchmail, they won't be able to do that. Their mail will have been moved from their ISP's mail server to the SME server which is down.

As I've said repeatedly - if their mail must be delivered to the ISP rather than your SME server, just configure their POP3 (or preferably IMAP) clients to directly access the mailbox at the ISP.

Alternatively, if you always know better than us, just do what you know to be best and leave us alone.

[joyrider]

If you use fetchmail, they won't be able to do that. Their mail will have been moved from their ISP's mail server to the SME server which is down.

Not if you dont want to - anyone can just choose to leave it on the server - infact that's the whole point - it means having a backup and easier management and in the event of a failure the mail is on the isp server still

and as for leaving you alone - it wasnt me that asked for a lecture on email ethics and internet politicsI just wanted to know how to achieve getting the mail every 2 minutes

It is you that took the subject off topic but I wont stand for having my ethics bashed without retaliation -
If you cant take as good as you get stop trying to tell me that my administration is wrong - it isnt - its just you dont have to deal with users on a daily basis probably

PS you are beginning to remind me of the mayor of tuttle city
http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=127
 
read the email exchange

[cactus]

PS you are beginning to remind me of the mayor of tuttle city
http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=127
 
read the email exchange

I doubt if you are assigning the roles of the participants in that story to the proper persons action in this thread... do you also have 22 years of computer experience?

I am not new to network administration and have a lot of experience in everything from working in mainframe environments to doing what I love now which is looking after small companies.

Like Charlie already stated it is a very high burden to have individual users query a server every two minutes. On top of that it is a bit contra dictionary IMHO to rely on mail coming in at the same time as it is send while on the other hand allowing power failures and consequently shutdown of servers.

If e-mail is that mission critical I think you need to have them to reconsider their infrastructure architecture and investments.

[joyrider]

Yeah well just to put an end to this:

They are moving to a better office complex in January Next year
where they will take on more staff and will invest in better infrastructure and supply a budget more appropriate to a company on its feet rather than the startup it was two years ago.

Their complaints are not with my management of their systems but with the supply of services such as electricity  etc

Say goodbye to the Mayor off Tuttle for me - I must go now as I decided to go back to Suse Enterprise !! He resigned BTW -- see ya