Topic: Retrieving e-mail over a fixed line

[Alex Wyckmans]

Hi,

Here is the problem description:

I have a permanent Internetaccess using a cablemodem. My ISP has a pop3 mailbox on one of his servers.

I installed the e-smith (v5.5) server mainly for the purpose to collect different pop3 accounts and have one interface (the IMP) to read them where ever I am.

Being new to e-smith I am a little bit confused in the way how to setup the e-mail retrieval settings. At this time the setting is 'Standard' but there is no mail been retrieved. I read a lot of documention concerning this subject (like discussion list, user manauals, etc.) and as far as I understand Multidrop would be the solution but is only for dial-up lines? Wrong or not?

Also the add-on package from dungeon.net is only speaking of dial-up situations for retrieving multiple pop3 accounts.

Is it possible anyway to retrieve multiple pop3 accounts using a fixed line to the Internet?

If there are other ways to do it, please do not hestitate to mention them. I really would like to use the e-smith server as my main point of e-mail reading.

Greeings from Belgium,

Alex Wyckmans

[Duncan]

You can use multidrop to collect mail on any type of connection (Dial up or Permanent). It will only collect from one account though.

To collect from multiple accounts you will need to do some behind the scenes magic. There are many references on how to do this in previous posts.

Regards Duncan

[Nathan Fowler]

If you want to do it the manual way, I simply:

pico -w /root/.fetchmailrc

Add the lines in the following syntax:
poll with proto POP3 user there with password is here options fetchall warnings 3600

An example would be:
poll mail.myisp.com with proto POP3 user nathan there with password mypassword is evilghost@stickit.nu here options fetchall warnings 3600

Then simply add a cron job to run /usr/bin/fetchmail

pico -w /etc/crontab

#Check for new mail every 10 minutes
*/10 * * * * root /usr/bin/fetchmail -t 60


Hope this helped, I'm sure there are contributed modules that accomplish the same thing but this is a down and dirty way of doing it.

Nathan

[Dan Brown]

...or, instead of running it as a cron job, just add this line at the top of .fetchmailrc:

set daemon 300 # poll at 5-minute intervals (300 sec.)

then you just need to make sure to run it every time you restart the machine.