Compiling a newer version than the latest .deb package

Erik Christiansen dvalin at internode.on.net
Thu Jun 6 09:35:51 UTC 2019


On 06.06.19 20:47, Frank Watt wrote:
> I thought fetchmail had nothing to do with sendmail, but that evidently
> isn't the case.  I installed nullmailer and fetchmail ceased to work.

» DESCRIPTION
 fetchmail  is  a  mail-retrieval  and  forwarding  utility;  it fetches
 mail from remote mailservers and forwards it to your local (client)
 machine's  delivery  system. «

» As each message is retrieved, fetchmail normally delivers it via SMTP
to port 25 on the machine it is running on (localhost), just as though
it were being passed in over a normal TCP/IP link. «

Here, that was sendmail 15 years ago, now postfix. AIUI, mutt can fetch
mail itself, but then where would the procmail filter go? And what would
you do for outgoing mail? (Maybe mutt can go direct in that direction too
- I haven't looked.)

> Does procmail use sendmail?

It's the other way round, going by invocation.

» procmail - autonomous mail processor
Procmail  can  also  be  used as a general purpose mail filter, i.e.,
provisions have been made to enable procmail to be invoked in a special
sendmail rule. «

For the postfix equivalent, I have run this configuration command:

# postconf -ev mailbox_command='/usr/bin/procmail -t -a $EXTENSION'

Hmmm, did I substitute $EXTENSION at that time? Let's look:

$ /usr/sbin/postconf -n | grep mailbox_command
mailbox_command = /usr/bin/procmail -t -a $EXTENSION

Nope, works as is.

So the mail path is: fetchmail -> postfix/sendmail -> procmail -> mailbox
              later: mutt <- mailbox

For a single user, that is perhaps overweight, but if that's what one is
used to setting up, then it's no bother.

Erik


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