To start out, run this command.
[timh@r2d2 timh]$ rpm -qa | grep fetchmail
fetchmail-5.7.4-5mdk
[timh@r2d2 timh]$ which fetchmailconf
which: no fetchmailconf in (SNIP)
Now that I look at it, I'm not sure why my workstation doesn't have the
daemon installed, but here's what your *should* look like.
[timh@ericekong timh]$ rpm -qa | grep fetchmail
fetchmail-daemon-5.7.4-5mdk
fetchmail-5.7.4-5mdk
fetchmailconf-5.7.4-5mdk
Now on my machine, I don't need fetchmailconf. I've worked with it
enough that I just right my own /root/.fetchmailrc and don't need the
aid of the GUI.
If you find that those are not installed, break out your CDs and
install them from there. The RPMs should be on one of the CDs.
Matter-o-fact I'm sure they are.
-- Install Disc --
[root@r2d2 RPMS] pwd
/mnt/cdrom/Mandrake/RPMS
[root@r2d2 RPMS] ls fetchm*
fetchmail-5.7.4-5mdk.i586.rpm
-- Extensions Disc --
[root@r2d2 RPMS2] ls fetchm*
fetchmail-daemon-5.7.4-5mdk.i586.rpm fetchmailconf-5.7.4-5mdk.i586.rpm
Install those and then try running your fetchmailconf to configure your
/root/.fetchmailrc. At which point I'd suggest you do two things.
1) Use the command fetchmail -d (time interval)
2) Make the interval higher then 15 seconds, and add more time for
each account you have specified.
If you have one account, a fetchmail -d 15 will do the trick for you.
But you have to keep in mind that some mail servers have issues. Not
all ISPs keep theirs updated so it may go down for a few minutes here
or there. Meanwhile fetchmail is happy to go ahead and download the
mail, but the server isn't responding. It then hasn't timed out when
it's supposed to download mail again.
As well as a lot of mail servers are *BSD machines. Some use Qmail,
and if you start the download, and then start another, it will create a
lock file. Some need to be removed manually, or give it like 10
minutes. So if a "friend" sends you a 5 MG MPEG of something, you
start to download it, and then 5 seconds later it tries again. You can
cause problems.
I only download the mail on my workstation once every 3 minutes. That
gives me plenty of time, and the personal email that's downloaded there
can wait 3 minutes for me to get ahold of it.
Our other two servers that use fetchmail to download mail from lists
and the like, usually wait about 20 seconds since there tons of lines
in our .fetchmailrc file.
Hope that helps, let me know if ya need any more help. Again I've used
fetchmail quite a lot, so I may be able to help ya.
tdh
--
T. Holmes
-----------------
UNIXTECHS.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----------------
"Real Men Us Vi!"
Uptime:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
10:10PM up 5 days, 1:16, 4 users, load averages: 0.03, 0.01, 0.00
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| I have fetchmail configured (using fetchmailconf) to fetch my email
| (typical ISP email) every 5 minutes. For about ten minutes, it worked
| great, as it always had on previous installations of Mandrake I've had
| (currently I've dropped back from 8.0 to 7.2). But for some reason, it
| stopped working. I have absolutely no idea what I did, but when I boot
| Linux, and type fetchmail, it acts like its starting, it shows up in top
| and kpm, but it doesn't actually do anything.
|
| So, I try to bring up fetchmailconf, to see if maybe something went
| wrong, and here's what I get:
|
| [rog@ool-18be8465 rog]$
| Traceback (innermost last):
| File "/usr/bin/fetchmailconf", line 1841, in ?
| hostname = socket.gethostbyaddr(socket.gethostname())[0]
| socket.error: host not found
| [rog@ool-18be8465 rog]$
|
| I really have no idea what the above is telling me, but uninstalling and
| reinstalling the rpms for fetchmail didn't work, and neither did
| updating them. I looked at the fetchmailrc file, and all looked as it
| should, but it still doesn't work. If I run the command to have it just
| see if there's any mail waiting for me on the server, that works, if
| that's any help...
|
| Any suggestions?
|
------------------------------------------------------------------
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Second Law of Business Meetings:
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Corollary:
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