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<!----><h1 id="title">getmail documentation</h1>
<p class="introduction">
This is the documentation for getmail version 4. Version 4 includes
numerous changes from version 3.x; if you are using getmail version 3,
please refer to the documentation included with that version of the
software.
</p>
<p class="about">
getmail is Copyright © 1998-2009 Charles Cazabon.
</p>
<p class="about">
getmail is licensed under the
<a href="COPYING">GNU General Public License version 2</a>
(only). If you wish to obtain a license to distribute getmail under other
terms, please contact me directly.
</p>
<h1 id="toc">Table of Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="documentation.html">getmail documentation</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="documentation.html#title">getmail documentation</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="documentation.html#features">Features</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#v4differences">Differences from previous versions</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#requirements">Requirements</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#obtaining">Obtaining getmail</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#installing">Installing getmail</a></li>
<li><a href="documentation.html#mailing-lists">getmail mailing lists</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html">getmail configuration</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#configuring">Configuring getmail</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#rcfile">Creating a getmail rc file</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#parametertypes">Parameter types and formats</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#parameter-string">string</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#parameter-integer">integer</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#parameter-boolean">boolean</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#parameter-tupleintegers">tuple of integers</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#parameter-tuple2tuples">tuple of 2-tuples</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#conf-retriever">Creating the <span class="file">[retriever]</span> section</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#conf-retriever-multidrop">What is a "multidrop" mailbox? How do I know if I have one?</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-parameters">Common retriever parameters</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-brokenpop3">BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-brokenpop3ssl">BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-simpleimapssl">SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-multidroppop3">MultidropPOP3Retriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-multidroppop3ssl">MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-multidropsdps">MultidropSDPSRetriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-multidropimap">MultidropIMAPRetriever</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-multidropimapssl">MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#retriever-examples">Retriever examples</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#conf-destination">Creating the <span class="file">[destination]</span> section</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#destination-maildir">Maildir</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#destination-mboxrd">Mboxrd</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#destination-mdaexternal">MDA_external</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#destination-multidestination">MultiDestination</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#destination-multisorter">MultiSorter</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#destination-multiguesser">MultiGuesser</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#destination-mdaqmaillocal">MDA_qmaillocal</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#conf-options">Creating the <span class="file">[options]</span> section</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#options-example"><span class="file">[options]</span> example</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#conf-filters">Creating the <span class="file">[filter-<span class="meta">something</span>]</span> sections</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#conf-filters-external">Filter_external</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#conf-filters-tmda">Filter_TMDA</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#filter-examples"><span class="file">[filter-<span class="meta">something</span>]</span> examples</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#examplerc">getmail rc file examples</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running">Running getmail</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-commandline-options">Commandline options</a></li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-mda">Using getmail as an MDA</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-mda-maildir">Using the <span class="file">getmail_maildir</span> MDA</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-mda-maildir-example">Example</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-mda-mbox">Using the <span class="file">getmail_mbox</span> MDA</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-mda-mbox-example">Example</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="configuration.html#running-fetch">Using getmail_fetch to retrieve mail from scripts</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html">getmail troubleshooting</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html#troubleshooting">Troubleshooting problems</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html#error-messages">Error messages</a></li>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html#warning-messages">Warning messages</a></li>
<li><a href="troubleshooting.html#unexpected-behaviour">Unexpected Behaviour</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="faq.html">getmail frequently-asked questions (FAQs)</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq">Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs)</a></li>
<li>
<ul>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-about">About getmail</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-configuring">Configuring getmail</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-how">How do I …</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-integrating">Using getmail with other software</a></li>
<li><a href="faq.html#faq-notabug">I think I found this bug in getmail …</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h1 id="configuring">Configuring getmail</h1>
<p>
Once getmail is
<a href="documentation.html#installing">installed</a>,
you need to configure it before you can retrieve mail with it. Follow these
steps:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
Create a data/configuration directory. The default is
<span class="file">$HOME/.getmail/</span>.
If you choose a different location, you will need to specify it on the
<a href="#running">getmail command line</a>.
In general, other users should not be able to read the contents of this
directory, so you should set the permissions on it appropriately.
<pre class="example">
mkdir -m 0700 $HOME/.getmail
</pre>
</li>
<li>
Create a configuration file in the configuration/data directory. The
default name is
<span class="file">getmailrc</span>.
If you choose a different filename, you will need to specify it on the
getmail command line. If you want to retrieve mail from more than one
mail account, you will need to create a separate rc file for each
account getmail should retrieve mail from.
</li>
</ol>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h2 id="rcfile">Creating a getmail rc file</h2>
<p>
The configuration file format is designed to be easy to understand (both for
getmail, and for the user). It is broken down into small sections of
related parameters by section headers which appear on lines by themselves,
enclosed in square brackets, like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[section name]
</pre>
<p>
Each section contains a series of parameters, declared as follows:
</p>
<pre class="example">
parameter_name = parameter_value
</pre>
<p>
A parameter value, if necessary, can span multiple lines. To indicate that
the second and subsequent lines form a continuation of the previous line,
they need to begin with leading whitespace, like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
first_parameter = value
first parameter value continues here
second_parameter = value
</pre>
<p>
You can annotate your configuration files with comments by putting them on
lines which begin with a pound sign, like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
first_parameter = value
# I chose this value because of etc.
second_parameter = value
</pre>
<p>
Each rc file requires at least two specific sections. The first is
<span class="file">retriever</span>,
which tells getmail about the mail account to retrieve messages from. The
second is
<span class="file">destination</span>,
which tells getmail what to do with the retrieved messages. There is also
an
<a href="#conf-options">optional section named
<span class="file">options</span>
</a>,
which gives getmail general configuration information (such as whether to
log its actions to a file), and other sections can be used to tell getmail
to filter retrieved messages through other programs, or to deliver messages
for particular users in a particular way.
</p>
<h3 id="parametertypes">Parameter types and formats</h3>
<p>
Several different types of parameters are used in getmail rc files:
</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#parameter-string">string</a></li>
<li><a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a></li>
<li><a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a></li>
<li><a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a></li>
<li><a href="#parameter-tupleintegers">tuple of integers</a></li>
<li><a href="#parameter-tuple2tuples">tuple of 2-tuples</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
Each parameter type has a specific format that must be used to represent it
in the getmail rc file. They are explained below. Each parameter
documented later specifies its type explicitly.
</p>
<h4 id="parameter-string">string</h4>
<p>
Specify a string parameter value with no special syntax:
</p>
<pre class="example">
parameter = my value
</pre>
<h4 id="parameter-integer">integer</h4>
<p>
Specify an integer parameter value with no special syntax:
</p>
<pre class="example">
parameter = 4150
</pre>
<h4 id="parameter-boolean">boolean</h4>
<p>
A boolean parameter is true or false; you can specify its value with the
(case-insensitive) words "true" and "false". The
values "yes", "on" and 1 are accepted as equivalent to
"true", while values "no", "off" and 0 are
accepted as equivalent to "false". Some examples:
</p>
<pre class="example">
parameter = True
parameter = false
parameter = NO
parameter = 1
</pre>
<h4 id="parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</h4>
<p>
A tuple of quoted strings is essentially a list of strings, with each string
surrounded by matching double- or single-quote characters to indicate where
it begins and ends. The list must be surrounded by open- and
close-parenthesis characters. A tuple may have to be a specific number of
strings; for instance, a "2-tuple" must consist of two quoted
strings, while a "4-tuple" must have exactly four. In most cases,
the number of strings is not required to be a specific number, and it will
not be specified in this fashion.
</p>
<p>
In general, a tuple of quoted strings parameter values should look like
this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
parameter = ('first string', 'second string',
"third string that contains a ' character")
</pre>
<p>
However, tuples of 0 or 1 strings require special treatment. The empty
tuple is specified with just the open- and close-parenthesis characters:
</p>
<pre class="example">
parameter = ()
</pre>
<p>
A tuple containing a single quoted string requires a comma to indicate it is
a tuple:
</p>
<pre class="example">
parameter = ("single string", )
</pre>
<h4 id="parameter-tupleintegers">tuple of integers</h4>
<p>
This is very similar to a tuple of quoted strings, above, minus the quotes.
Some examples:
</p>
<pre class="example">
parameter = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
parameter = (37, )
parameter = ()
</pre>
<h4 id="parameter-tuple2tuples">tuple of 2-tuples</h4>
<p>
This is a tuple of items, each of which is a 2-tuple of quoted strings. You
can think of this as a list of pairs of quoted strings.
</p>
<pre class="example">
# Three pairs
parameter = (
("first-a", "first-b"),
("second-a", "second-b"),
("third-a", "third-b"),
)
# One pair
parameter = (
("lone-a", "lone-b"),
)
</pre>
<h3 id="conf-retriever">Creating the <span class="file">[retriever]</span> section</h3>
<p>
The
<span class="file">retriever</span>
section of the rc file tells getmail what mail account to retrieve mail
from, and how to access that account. Begin with the section header line as
follows:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[retriever]
</pre>
<p>
Then, include a
<span class="file">type</span>
<a href="#parameter-string">string parameter</a>
to tell getmail what type of mail retriever to use to retrieve mail from
this account. The possible values are:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
— for single-user POP3 mail accounts.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-brokenpop3">BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever</a>
— for broken POP3 servers that do not support the
<span class="file">UIDL</span>
command, or which do not uniquely identify messages; this provides basic
support for single-user POP3 mail accounts on such servers.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a>
— for single-user IMAP mail accounts.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
— same as SimplePOP3Retriever, but uses SSL encryption.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-brokenpop3ssl">BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever</a>
— same as BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever, but uses SSL encryption.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-simpleimapssl">SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever</a>
— same as SimpleIMAPRetriever, but uses SSL encryption.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-multidroppop3">MultidropPOP3Retriever</a>
— for domain mailbox (multidrop) POP3 mail accounts.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-multidroppop3ssl">MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever</a>
— same as MultidropPOP3Retriever, but uses SSL encryption.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-multidropsdps">MultidropSDPSRetriever</a>
— for domain mailbox
<a href="http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/products/mail/sdps-tech.shtml">SDPS mail accounts</a>,
as provided by the UK ISP Demon.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-multidropimap">MultidropIMAPRetriever</a>
— for domain mailbox (multidrop) IMAP mail accounts.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#retriever-multidropimapssl">MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever</a>
— same as MultidropIMAPRetriever, but uses SSL encryption.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="conf-retriever-multidrop">What is a "multidrop" mailbox? How do I know if I have one?</h4>
<p>
Some ISPs, mailhosts, and other service providers provide a mail service
they refer to as a "domain mailbox" or "multidrop
mailbox". This is where they register a domain for you, and mail
addressed to any local-part in that domain ends up in a single mailbox
accessible via POP3, with the message envelope (envelope sender address
and envelope recipient address) recorded properly in the message header,
so that it can be re-constructed after you retrieve the messages with
POP3 or IMAP. The primary benefit of this is that you can run your
own MTA (qmail, Postfix, sendmail, Exchange, etc.) for your domain without
having to have an SMTP daemon listening at a static IP address.
</p>
<p>
Unfortunately, a lot of what is advertised and sold as multidrop service
really isn't. In many cases, the envelope recipient address of the message
is not properly recorded, so the envelope information is lost and cannot
be reconstructed. If the envelope isn't properly preserved, it isn't
a domain mailbox, and you therefore can't use a multidrop retriever with
that mailbox.
</p>
<p>
To determine if you have a multidrop mailbox, check the following list:
if any of these items are not true, you do not have a multidrop mailbox.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
the mailbox must receive one copy of the message for each envelope
recipient in the domain; if the message was addressed to three
local-parts in the domain, the mailbox must receive three separate
copies of the message.
</li>
<li>
the envelope sender address must be recorded in a header field
named
<span class="file">Return-Path</span>
at the top of the message. If the message (incorrectly) already
contained such a header field, it must be deleted before the
envelope sender address is recorded.
</li>
<li>
the envelope recipient address must be recorded in a new header field.
These may be named various things, but are commonly
<span class="file">Delivered-To</span>,
<span class="file">X-Envelope-To</span>,
and similar values. In the case of messages which had multiple
recipients in the domain, this must be a single address, reflecting the
particular recipient of this copy of the message. Note that this
field (and the envelope recipient address) are not related to
informational header fields created by the originating MUA, like
<span class="file">To</span>
or
<span class="file">cc</span>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
If you're not sure whether you have a multidrop mailbox, you probably don't.
You probably want to use
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
(for POP3 mail accounts) or
<a href="#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a>
(for IMAP mail accounts) retrievers.
</p>
<p>
Specify the mail account type with one of the above values, like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
type = <span class="meta">typename</span>
</pre>
<p>
Then, include lines for any parameters and their values which are required
by the retriever. The parameters and their types are documented below.
</p>
<h4 id="retriever-parameters">Common retriever parameters</h4>
<p>
All retriever types take several common required parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
server
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— the name or IP address of the server to retrieve mail from
</li>
<li>
username
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— username to provide when logging in to the mail server
</li>
</ul>
<p>
All retriever types also take several optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
port
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— the TCP port number to connect to. If not provided, the default
is a port appropriate for the protocol (110 for POP3, etc.)
</li>
<li>
password
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— password to use when logging in to the mail server. If not
provided (and not using Kerberos authentication -- see below), getmail
will prompt you to enter the password when getmail is run.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
All IMAP retriever types also take the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
mailboxes
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— a list of mailbox paths to retrieve mail from, expressed as a
Python tuple. If not specified, the default is to retrieve mail from the
mail folder named
<span class="file">INBOX</span>.
You might want to retrieve messages from several different mail folders,
using a configuration like this:
<pre class="example">
mailboxes = ("INBOX", "INBOX.spam",
"mailing-lists.model-railroading")
</pre>
Note that the format for hierarchical folder names is determined by the
IMAP server, not by getmail. Consult your server's documentation or
postmaster if you're unsure what form your server uses.
</li>
<li>
move_on_delete
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— if set, messages are moved to the named mail folder before being
deleted from their original location. Note that if you configure
getmail not to delete retrieved messages (the default behaviour), they
will not be moved at all.
</li>
<li>
use_kerberos
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— whether to use Kerberos authentication with the IMAP server.
If not set, normal password-based authenticaion is used. Note that when
you use Kerberos authentication, it is up to you to ensure you have a
valid Kerberos ticket (perhaps by running a ticket-renewing agent such
as <a href="http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/kstart/">kstart</a> or similar).
This feature requires that a recent version of pykerberos with GSS
support is installed; check your OS distribution or see
<a href="http://honk.sigxcpu.org/projects/pykerberos/">http://honk.sigxcpu.org/projects/pykerberos/"</a>
for details.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</h4>
<p>
The SimplePOP3Retriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
use_apop
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set to True, getmail will use APOP-style authentication to
log in to the server instead of normal USER/PASS authentication. This
is not supported by many POP3 servers. Note that APOP adds much less
security than might be supposed; weaknesses in its hashing algorithm
mean that an attacker can recover the first three characters of the
password after snooping on only a few hundred authentications between
a client and server — see
<a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/464477/30/0/threaded">http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/464477/30/0/threaded</a>
for details. The default is
<span class="file">False</span>.
</li>
<li>
timeout
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— how long (in seconds) to wait for socket operations to complete
before considering them failed. If not specified, the default is 180
seconds. You may need to increase this value in particularly poor
networking conditions.
</li>
<li>
delete_dup_msgids
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set to True, and the POP3 server identifies multiple messages
as having the same "unique" identifier, all but the first will
be deleted without retrieving them.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-brokenpop3">BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever</h4>
<p class="note">
This retriever class is intended only for use with broken POP3 servers
that either do not implement the
<span class="file">UIDL</span>
command, or which do not properly assign unique identifiers to messages
(preventing getmail from determining which messages it has seen before).
It will identify every message in the mailbox as a new message, and
therefore if you use this retriever class and opt not to delete messages
after retrieval, it will retrieve those messages again the next time
getmail is run. Use this retriever class only if your mailbox is hosted
on such a broken POP3 server, and the server does not provide another
means of getmail accessing it (i.e., IMAP).
</p>
<p>
The BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
use_apop
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
timeout
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</h4>
<p>
The SimpleIMAPRetriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
timeout
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</h4>
<p>
The SimplePOP3SSLRetriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
use_apop
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
delete_dup_msgids
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
keyfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— use the specified PEM-formatted key file in the SSL negotiation.
Note that no certificate or key validation is done.
</li>
<li>
certfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— use the specified PEM-formatted certificate file in the SSL
negotiation. Note that no certificate or key validation is done.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-brokenpop3ssl">BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever</h4>
<p class="note">
The BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
use_apop
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
keyfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
certfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-simpleimapssl">SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever</h4>
<p>
The SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
mailboxes
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
move_on_delete
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
keyfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
certfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-multidroppop3">MultidropPOP3Retriever</h4>
<p>
The MultidropPOP3Retriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
envelope_recipient
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— the name and position of the header field which records the
envelope recipient address. This is set to a value of the form
<span class="file">
<span class="meta">field_name</span>
:
<span class="meta">field_position</span>
</span>.
The first (topmost) Delivered-To: header field would be specified as:
<pre class="example">
envelope_recipient = delivered-to:1
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The MultidropPOP3Retriever also takes the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
use_apop
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
timeout
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-multidroppop3ssl">MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever</h4>
<p>
The MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
envelope_recipient
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-multidroppop3">MultidropPOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever class alo takes the following optional
parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
use_apop
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
keyfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
certfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-multidropsdps">MultidropSDPSRetriever</h4>
<p>
The MultidropSDPSRetriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
timeout
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-multidropimap">MultidropIMAPRetriever</h4>
<p>
The MultidropIMAPRetriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
envelope_recipient
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-multidroppop3">MultidropPOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The MultidropIMAPRetriever class also takes the following optional
parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
timeout
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3">SimplePOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
mailboxes
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
move_on_delete
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="retriever-multidropimapssl">MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever</h4>
<p>
The MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever class takes the
<a href="#retriever-parameters">common retriever parameters</a>
above, plus the following required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
envelope_recipient
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-multidroppop3">MultidropPOP3Retriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever class also takes following optional
parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
mailboxes
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
move_on_delete
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simpleimap">SimpleIMAPRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
keyfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
certfile
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#retriever-simplepop3ssl">SimplePOP3SSLRetriever</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="retriever-examples">Retriever examples</h3>
<p>
A typical POP3 mail account (the basic kind of mailbox provided by most
internet service providers (ISPs)) would use a retriever configuration like
this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = popmail.isp.example.net
username = account_name
password = my_mail_password
</pre>
<p>
If your ISP provides POP3 access on a non-standard port number, you would
need to include the port parameter:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = popmail.isp.example.net
port = 8110
username = account_name
password = my_mail_password
</pre>
<p>
If your ISP provides POP3-over-SSL and you wanted to use that, your
retriever configuration might look like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3SSLRetriever
server = popmail.isp.example.net
username = account_name
password = my_mail_password
</pre>
<p>
If you have an IMAP mail account and want to retrieve messages from several
mail folders under that account, and you want to move messages to a special
folder when deleting them, you would use a retriever configuration like
this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[retriever]
type = SimpleIMAPRetriever
server = imapmail.isp.example.net
username = account_name
password = my_mail_password
mailboxes = ("INBOX", "lists.unix", "lists.getmail")
move_on_delete = mail.deleted
</pre>
<p>
If you are retrieving your company's mail from a domain POP3 mailbox for
delivery to multiple local users, you might use a retriever configuration
like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[retriever]
type = MultidropPOP3Retriever
server = imapmail.isp.example.net
username = account_name
password = company_maildrop_password
envelope_recipient = delivered-to:1
</pre>
<h3 id="conf-destination">Creating the <span class="file">[destination]</span> section</h3>
<p>
The
<span class="file">destination</span>
section of the rc file tells getmail what to do with retrieved messages.
Begin with the section header line as follows:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
</pre>
<p>
Then, include a
<span class="file">type</span>
<a href="#parameter-string">string parameter</a>
to tell getmail what type of mail destination this is. The possible values
are:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#destination-maildir">Maildir</a>
— deliver all messages to a local qmail-style
<a href="http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html">maildir</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#destination-mboxrd">Mboxrd</a>
— deliver all messages to a local mboxrd-format mbox file
with fcntl-type locking.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#destination-mdaexternal">MDA_external</a>
— use an external message delivery agent (MDA) to
deliver messages. Typical MDAs include
<a href="http://www.flounder.net/~mrsam/maildrop/maildrop.html">maildrop</a>,
<a href="http://www.procmail.org/">procmail</a>,
and others.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#destination-multidestination">MultiDestination</a>
— unconditionally deliver messages to multiple destinations
(maildirs, mbox files, external MDAs, or other destinations).
</li>
<li>
<a href="#destination-multisorter">MultiSorter</a>
— sort messages according to the envelope recipient
(requires a domain mailbox retriever) and deliver to a variety of
maildirs, mbox files, external MDAs, or other destinations based on
regular expressions matching the recipient address of each message.
Messages not matching any of the regular expressions are delivered to a
default "postmaster" destination.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#destination-multiguesser">MultiGuesser</a>
— sort messages according to getmail's best <strong>guess</strong>
at what the envelope recipient of the message might have been, and
deliver to a variety of maildirs, mbox files, external
MDAs, or other destinations based on regular expressions matching those
addresses. Messages not matching any of the regular expressions are
delivered to a default "postmaster" destination.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#destination-mdaqmaillocal">MDA_qmaillocal</a>
— use
<a href="http://qmail.org/man/man8/qmail-local.html">qmail-local</a>
to deliver messages according to instructions in a
<a href="http://qmail.org/man/man9/dot-qmail.html">.qmail file</a>.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="destination-maildir">Maildir</h4>
<p>
The Maildir destination delivers to a qmail-style
<a href="http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html">maildir</a>.
The maildir must already exist, and must contain all of the
subdirectories required by the maildir format.
getmail will
<strong>not</strong>
create the maildir if it does not exist.
If you're not familiar with the maildir format, the requirements
in a nutshell are: it must be a directory containing three
writable subdirectories
<span class="file">cur</span>,
<span class="file">new</span>,
and
<span class="file">tmp</span>,
and they must all reside on the same filesystem.
</p>
<p>
The Maildir destination takes one required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
path
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— the path to the maildir, ending in slash
(<span class="file">/</span>).
This value will be expanded for leading
<span class="file">~</span>
or
<span class="file">~<span class="meta">USER</span></span>
and environment variables in the form
<span class="file">$<span class="meta">VARNAME</span></span>
or
<span class="file">${<span class="meta">VARNAME</span>}</span>.
You might want to deliver messages to a maildir named
<span class="file">Maildir</span>
in your home directory; you could do this with a configuration like
this:
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~/Maildir/
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The Maildir destination also takes two optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
user
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— on Unix-like systems, if supplied, getmail will change the
effective UID to that of the named user before delivering messages to
the maildir. Note that this typically requires root privileges.
getmail will not deliver to maildirs as root, so this
"optional" parameter is required in that situation.
</li>
<li>
filemode
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— if supplied, getmail will cause the delivered message files in
the maildir to have at most these permissions (given in standard Unix
octal notation). Note that the current umask is masked out of the
given value at file creation time. The default value, which should be
appropriate for most users, is "0600".
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="destination-mboxrd">Mboxrd</h4>
<p>
The Mboxrd destination delivers to an
<a href="http://qmail.org/man/man5/mbox.html">mboxrd-format mbox file</a>
with either fcntl-type (lockf) or flock-type file locking. The file must
already exist and appear to be a valid mboxrd file before getmail will try
to deliver to it — getmail will
<strong>not</strong>
create the file if it does not exist. If you want to create a new mboxrd
file for getmail to use, simply create a completely empty (0-byte) file.
</p>
<p class="warning">
You must ensure that all other programs accessing any the mbox file expect
mboxrd-format mbox files and the same type of file locking that you
configure getmail to use; failure to do so can cause mbox corruption.
If you do not know what type of file locking your system expects, ask
your system administrator.
If you are the system administrator and don't know what type of file locking
your system expects, do not use Mboxrd files; use Maildirs instead.
Note that delivering to mbox files over NFS can be
unreliable and should be avoided; this is the case with any MDA.
</p>
<p>
The Mboxrd destination takes one required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
path
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— the path to the mbox file. This value will be expanded for
leading
<span class="file">~</span>
or
<span class="file">~<span class="meta">USER</span></span>
and environment variables in the form
<span class="file">$<span class="meta">VARNAME</span></span>
or
<span class="file">${<span class="meta">VARNAME</span>}</span>.
You might want to deliver messages to an mbox file named
<span class="file">inbox</span>
in your home directory; you could do this with a configuration like
this:
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = Mboxrd
path = ~/inbox
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The Mboxrd destination also takes two optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
user
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— on Unix-like systems, if supplied, getmail will change the
effective UID to that of the named user before delivering messages to
the mboxrd file. Note that this typically requires root privileges.
getmail will not deliver to mbox files as root, so this
"optional" parameter is required in that situation.
</li>
<li>
locktype
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— which type of file locking to use; may be
"<span class="file">lockf</span>"
(for fcntl locking) or
"<span class="file">flock</span>".
The default in getmail 4.7.0 and later is
<span class="file">lockf</span>.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="destination-mdaexternal">MDA_external</h4>
<p>
MDA_external delivers messages by running an external program (known as a
message delivery agent, or MDA) and feeding it the message on its standard
input. Some typical MDAs include
<a href="http://www.flounder.net/~mrsam/maildrop/maildrop.html">maildrop</a>
and
<a href="http://www.procmail.org/">procmail</a>.
</p>
<p>
The MDA_external destination takes one required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
path
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— the path to the command to run. This value will be expanded for
leading
<span class="file">~</span>
or
<span class="file">~<span class="meta">USER</span></span>
and environment variables in the form
<span class="file">$<span class="meta">VARNAME</span></span>
or
<span class="file">${<span class="meta">VARNAME</span>}</span>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The MDA_external destination also takes several optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
arguments
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— arguments to be supplied to the command. The following
substrings will be substituted with the equivalent values from the
message:
<ul>
<li>
<span class="sample">%(sender)</span>
— envelope return-path address
</li>
</ul>
If the message is retrieved with a multidrop retriever class, the
message recipient (and parts of it) are also available with the
following replacement substrings:
<ul>
<li>
<span class="sample">%(recipient)</span>
— envelope recipient address
</li>
<li>
<span class="sample">%(local)</span>
— local-part of the envelope recipient address
</li>
<li>
<span class="sample">%(domain)</span>
— domain-part of the envelope recipient address
</li>
</ul>
The default value of the
<span class="file">arguments</span>
parameter is
<span class="sample">()</span>,
so no arguments are supplied to the command.
</li>
<li>
unixfrom
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— whether to include a Unix-style mbox
<span class="file">From_</span>
line at the beginning of the message supplied to the command. Defaults
to false. Some MDAs expect such a line to be present and will fail
to operate if it is missing.
</li>
<li>
user
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— if supplied, getmail will change the effective UID to that of
the named user. Note that this typically requires root privileges.
</li>
<li>
group
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— if supplied, getmail will change the effective GID to that of
the named group. Note that this typically requires root privileges.
</li>
<li>
allow_root_commands
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail will run external commands even if it is
currently running with root privileges. The default is false, which
causes getmail to raise an exception if it is asked to run an external
command as root.
<span class="warning">
Note that setting this option has serious security implications.
Don't use it if you don't know what you're doing.
I strongly recommend against running external processes as root.
</span>
</li>
<li>
ignore_stderr
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail will not consider it an error if the program
writes to stderr. The default is false, which causes getmail to
consider the delivery failed and leave the message on the server,
proceeding to the next message.
This prevents loss of mail if the MDA writes to stderr but fails to
exit nonzero when it encounters an error.
<span class="warning">
Note that setting this option has serious implications; some MDAs
can fail to deliver a message but still exit 0, which can cause
loss of mail if this option is set. Only change this setting if
you are confident your MDA always exits nonzero on error.
</span>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
A basic invocation of an external MDA might look like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/mymda
arguments = ("--log-errors", )
</pre>
<p>
Something more complex might look like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/mymda
# Switch to fred's UID and the mail group GID before delivering his mail
user = fred
group = mail
arguments = ("--strip-forbidden-attachments", "--recipient=%(recipient)")
</pre>
<h4 id="destination-multidestination">MultiDestination</h4>
<p>
MultiDestination doesn't do any message deliveries itself; instead,
it lets you specify a list of one or more other destinations which
it will pass each message to. You can use this to deliver each message
to several different destinations.
</p>
<p>
The MultiDestination destination takes one required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>
destinations
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— the destinations which the messages will be passed to.
A destination is a string that refers to another configuration
file section by name (shortcuts for maildirs and mboxrd files are
also provided; see below), like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
destinations = ('[other-destination-1]', '[other-destination-2]')
[other-destination-1]
type = Mboxrd
path = /var/spool/mail/alice
user = alice
[other-destination-2]
type = Maildir
path = /home/joe/Maildir/
user = joe
</pre>
<p>
Because Maildir and Mboxrd destinations are common, you can specify
them directly as a shortcut
<strong>
if they do not require a
<span class="file">user</span>
parameter.
</strong>
If the string (after expansion; see below) starts with a dot or
slash and ends with a slash, it specifies the path of a Maildir
destination, while if it starts with a dot or a slash and does not
end with a slash, it specifies the path of a Mboxrd destination.
</p>
<p>
For instance, you can deliver mail to two maildirs with the following:
</p>
<pre class="example">
destinations = ('~/Mail/inbox/', '~/Mail/archive/current/')
</pre>
<p>
Each destination string is first expanded for leading
<span class="file">~</span>
or
<span class="file">~<span class="meta">USER</span></span>
and environment variables in the form
<span class="file">$<span class="meta">VARNAME</span></span>
or
<span class="file">${<span class="meta">VARNAME</span>}</span>.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Some examples:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
To deliver to a maildir named
<span class="file">Maildir</span>
in the home directory of user
<span class="file">jeff</span>, when
<span class="file">getmail</span> is run as that user:
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = ("~jeff/Maildir/", )
</pre>
</li>
<li>
To deliver to an mboxrd file:
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = ("/var/spool/mail/alice", )
</pre>
</li>
<li>
To deliver with an external MDA:
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = ("[procmail-as-bob]", )
[procmail-as-bob]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/procmail
arguments = ('~bob/.procmailrc', '-f', '%(sender)')
user = bob
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Of course, the whole point of MultiDestination is to allow you to specify
multiple destinations, like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = (
"~jeff/Mail/inbox",
"[procmail-as-jeff]",
"/var/mail-archive/incoming"
)
[procmail-as-jeff]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/procmail
arguments = ('~jeff/.procmailrc', '-f', '%(sender)')
user = jeff
</pre>
<h4 id="destination-multisorter">MultiSorter</h4>
<p>
MultiSorter compares the envelope recipient address of messages against a
list of user-supplied regular expressions and delivers the message to the
destination (maildir, mboxrd file, or other) associated with any matching
patterns. A message can match multiple patterns and therefore be delivered
to multiple matching destinations. Any message which matches none of the
patterns is delivered to a default destination for the postmaster.
</p>
<p class="important">
Because MultiSorter requires the envelope recipient to operate, it must be
used with a domain mailbox retriever. If you instead want to do some basic
message sorting based on getmail's best guess as to the envelope
recipient of the message, see the
<a href="#destination-multiguesser">MultiGuesser</a>
destination class below.
</p>
<p>
The MultiSorter destination takes one required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
default
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— the destination for messages which aren't matched by any of the
"locals" regular expressions. The destination can be a
maildir, mboxrd file, or other destination. See
<a href="#destination-multidestination">MultiDestination</a>
for an explanation of how the type of destination is interpreted from
this value.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The MultiSorter destination also takes one optional parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
locals
(<a href="#parameter-tuple2tuples">tuple of 2-tuples</a>)
— zero or more regular expression – destination pairs.
Messages will be delivered to each destination for which the envelope
recipient matches the given regular expression. The regular expression
and destination are supplied as two quoted strings in a tuple; locals is
then a tuple of such pairs of strings. Destinations are specified in
the same manner as with the "default" parameter, above.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Important note: if your regular expression contains backslashes (by
themselves, or as part of an escaped character or symbol like
<span class="file">\n</span>
or
<span class="file">\W</span>
), you need to tell the parser that this expression must be parsed
"raw" by prepending the string with an "r":
</p>
<pre class="example">
locals = (
(r'jeff\?\?\?@.*', '[jeff]'),
('alice@', '[alice]')
)
locals = (
('jeff@.*', '[jeff]'),
(r'alice\D+@', '[alice]')
)
</pre>
<p>
Note that if you don't understand regular expressions, you don't need to
worry about it. In general, an email address is a regular expression that
matches itself. The only significant times this isn't the case is when the
address contains odd punctuation characters like
<span class="file">^</span>,
<span class="file">$</span>,
<span class="file">\</span>,
or
<span class="file">[</span>.
Handy hints:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
the regular expression
<span class="file">.</span>
(dot) matches anything
</li>
<li>
matches can occur anywhere in the address. If you want to only match at
the beginning, start your expression with the
<span class="file">^</span>
character. If you only want to match the whole address, also end your
expression with a dollar sign
<span class="file">$</span>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Using regular expressions:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
The regular expression
<span class="file">joe@example.org</span>
matches the addresses
<span class="file">joe@example.org</span>,
<span class="file">joe@example.org.net</span>,
and <span class="file">heyjoe@example.org</span>.
</li>
<li>
The regular expression
<span class="file">^jeff@</span>
matches the addresses
<span class="file">jeff@example.org</span>
and
<span class="file">jeff@example.net</span>,
but not <span class="file">otherjeff@example.org</span>.
</li>
<li>
The regular expression
<span class="file">sam</span>
matches the addresses
<span class="file">sam@example.org</span>,
<span class="file">samantha@example.org</span>,
<span class="file">asam@example.org</span>,
and
<span class="file">chris@isam.example.net</span>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Some examples:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
Deliver mail matching
<span class="file">jeff@example.net</span>
to
<span class="file">~jeff/Maildir/</span>
</li>
<li>
Deliver mail matching
<span class="file">alice@<span class="meta">anything</span></span>
to
<span class="file">~alice/inbox</span>
</li>
<li>
Deliver all other mail to
<span class="file">~bob/Maildir/</span>
</li>
</ul>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MultiSorter
default = [bob-default]
locals = (
('jeff@example.net', '[jeff]'),
('alice@', '[alice]')
)
[jeff]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeff/Maildir/
user = jeff
[alice]
type = Mboxrd
path = ~alice/inbox
user = alice
[bob-default]
type = Maildir
path = ~bob/Maildir/
user = bob
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<ul>
<li>
Deliver mail for jeff, bob, and alice to maildirs in their home
directories
</li>
<li>Deliver copies of all messages to samantha's mail archive</li>
<li>
Deliver copies of all messages to a program that logs certain
information. This program should run as the user
<span class="filename">log</span>,
and command arguments should tell it to record the info to
<span class="filename">/var/log/mail/info</span>
</li>
</ul>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MultiSorter
default = doesn't matter, this won't be used, as locals will always match
locals = (
('^jeff@', '[jeff]'),
('^bob@', '[bob]'),
('^alice@', '[alice]'),
('.', '[copies]'),
('.', '[info]')
)
[alice]
type = Maildir
path = ~alice/Maildir/
user = alice
[bob]
type = Maildir
path = ~bob/Maildir/
user = bob
[jeff]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeff/Maildir/
user = jeff
[copies]
type = Maildir
path = ~samantha/Mail/archive/copies/
user = samantha
[info]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/infologger
arguments = ('--log=/var/log/mail/info', '--sender=%(sender)', '--recipient=%(recipient))
user = log
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="destination-multiguesser">MultiGuesser</h4>
<p>
MultiGuesser tries to guess what the envelope recipient address of the
message might have been, by comparing addresses found in the message header
against a list of user-supplied regular expressions, and delivers the message to the
destination (maildir, mboxrd file, or other) associated with any matching
patterns. A message can match multiple patterns and therefore be delivered
to multiple matching destinations. Any message which matches none of the
patterns is delivered to a default destination for the postmaster.
In this fashion, you can do basic mail filtering and sorting with getmail
without using an external filtering message delivery agent (MDA) (such
as maildrop or procmail), if and only if the message recipient is the criteria
you want to filter on.
</p>
<p>
If you want to filter based on arbitrary message critera, like "What address
is in the To: header field?" or "Who is the message from?", then
use the filtering MDA of your choice, called from a getmail
<a href="#destination-mdaexternal">MDA_external</a> destination.
</p>
<p>
MultiGuesser is similar to
<a href="#destination-multisorter">MultiSorter</a>,
except that it does not operate on the true envelope recipient address, and
therefore does not require a domain mailbox retriever. Because it is
"guessing" at the intended recipient of the message based on the
contents of the message header, it is fallible — for instance, the
address of a recipient of a mailing list message may not appear in the
header of the message at all. If your
<span class="file">locals</span>
regular expression patterns are only looking for that address, MultiGuesser
will then have to deliver it to the destination specified as the
<span class="file">default</span>
recipient.
</p>
<p>
This functionality is very similar to the guessing functionality of
getmail version 2, which was removed in version 3. MultiGuesser extracts
a list of addresses from the message header like this:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
it looks for addresses in any
<span class="file">Delivered-To:</span> header fields.
</li>
<li>
if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
<span class="file">Envelope-To:</span> header fields.
</li>
<li>
if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
<span class="file">X-Envelope-To:</span> header fields.
</li>
<li>
if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
<span class="file">Apparently-To:</span> header fields.
</li>
<li>
if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
<span class="file">Resent-to:</span>
or
<span class="file">Resent-cc:</span>
header fields (or
<span class="file">Resent-bcc:</span>,
which shouldn't be present).
</li>
<li>
if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
<span class="file">To:</span>
or
<span class="file">cc:</span>
header fields (or
<span class="file">bcc:</span>,
which shouldn't be present).
</li>
</ol>
<p>
The MultiGuesser destination takes one required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
default
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#destination-multisorter">MultiSorter</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The MultiGuesser destination also takes one optional parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
locals
(<a href="#parameter-tuple2tuples">tuple of 2-tuples</a>)
— see
<a href="#destination-multisorter">MultiSorter</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Examples:
</p>
<p>
If you have a simple POP3 account (i.e. it's not a multidrop mailbox)
and you want to deliver your personal mail to your regular maildir,
but deliver mail from a couple of mailing lists (identified by the list
address appearing in the message header) to separate maildirs,
you could use a MultiGuesser configuration like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MultiGuesser
default = ~/Maildir/
locals = (
("list-address-1@list-domain-1", "~/Mail/mailing-lists/list-1/"),
("list-address-2@list-domain-2", "~/Mail/mailing-lists/list-2/"),
)
</pre>
<p>
See <a href="#destination-multisorter">MultiSorter</a>
above for other examples of getmail rc usage; the only difference is the
<span class="file">type</span>
parameter specifying the
<span class="file">MultiGuesser</span>
destination.
</p>
<h4 id="destination-mdaqmaillocal">MDA_qmaillocal</h4>
<p>
MDA_qmaillocal delivers messages by running the
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>
program as an external MDA.
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>
uses
<span class="file">.qmail</span>
files to tell it what to do with messages. If you're not already familiar
with qmail, you don't need to use this destination class.
</p>
<p>
The MDA_qmaillocal destination takes several optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
qmaillocal
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— path to the
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>
program. The default value is
<span class="file">/var/qmail/bin/qmail-local</span>.
</li>
<li>
user
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— supplied to
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>,
and also tells getmail to change the current effective UID to that of
the named user before running
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>.
Note that this typically requires root privileges. The default value is
the account name of the current effective UID.
</li>
<li>
group
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— if supplied, getmail will change the effective GID to that of
the named group before running
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>.
Note that this typically requires root privileges.
</li>
<li>
homedir
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— supplied to
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>.
The default value is the home directory of the account with the current
effective UID.
</li>
<li>
localdomain
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— supplied to
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>
as its
<span class="file">domain</span>
argument. The default value is the fully-qualified domain name of the
local host.
</li>
<li>
defaultdelivery
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— supplied to
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>
as its
<span class="file">defaultdelivery</span>
argument. The default value is
<span class="file">./Maildir/</span>.
</li>
<li>
conf-break
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— supplied to
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>
as its
<span class="file">dash</span>
argument. The default value is
<span class="file">-</span>.
</li>
<li>
localpart_translate
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">2-tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— if supplied, the recipient address of the message (which is used
to construct the
<span class="file">local</span>
argument (among others) to
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>)
will have any leading instance of the first string replaced with the
second string. This can be used to remap recipient addresses, trim
extraneous prefixes (such as the qmail virtualdomain
<span class="file">prepend</span>
value), or perform other tasks. The default value is
<span class="file">('', '')</span>
(i.e., no translation).
</li>
<li>
strip_delivered_to
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set,
<span class="file">Delivered-To:</span>
header fields will be removed from the message before handing it to
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>.
This may be necessary to prevent qmail-local falsely detecting a looping
message if (for instance) the system retrieving messages otherwise
believes it has the same domain name as the retrieval server.
<span class="warning">
Inappropriate use of this option may cause message loops.
</span>
The default value is
<span class="file">False</span>.
</li>
<li>
allow_root_commands
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail will run
<span class="file">qmail-local</span>
even if it is currently running with root privileges. The default is
false, which causes getmail to raise an exception if it is asked to run
an external command as root.
<span class="warning">
Note that setting this option has serious security implications.
Don't use it if you don't know what you're doing.
I strongly recommend against running external processes as root.
</span>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
A basic invocation of qmail-local might look like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MDA_qmaillocal
user = joyce
</pre>
<p>
Something more complex might look like this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[destination]
type = MDA_qmaillocal
user = joyce
# The mail domain isn't the normal FQDN of the server running getmail
localdomain = host.example.net
# Trim the server's virtualdomain prepend value from message recipient before
# sending it to qmail-local
localpart_translate = ('mailhostaccount-', '')
</pre>
<h3 id="conf-options">Creating the <span class="file">[options]</span> section</h3>
<p>
The optional
<span class="file">options</span>
section of the rc file can be used to alter getmail's default behaviour.
The parameters supported in this section are as follows:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
verbose
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— controls getmail's verbosity. If set to 2, getmail prints
messages about each of its actions. If set to 1, it prints messages
about retrieving and deleting messages (only). If set to 0, getmail
will only print warnings and errors. Default: 1.
</li>
<li>
read_all
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail retrieves all available messages. If unset,
getmail only retrieves messages it has not seen before. Default: True.
</li>
<li>
delete
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail will delete messages after retrieving and
successfully delivering them. If unset, getmail will leave messages on
the server after retrieving them. Default: False.
</li>
<li>
delete_after
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— if set, getmail will delete messages this number of days after
first seeing them, if they have been retrieved and delivered. This, in
effect, leaves messages on the server for a configurable number of days
after retrieving them. Note that the delete parameter has higher
priority; if both are set, the messages will be deleted immediately.
Default: 0, which means not to enable this feature.
</li>
<li>
max_bytes_per_session
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— if set, getmail will retrieve messages totalling up to this
number of bytes before closing the session with the server. This can
be useful if you do not want large messages causing large bursts of
network traffic. Default: 0, which means not to enable this feature.
Note that message sizes reported by the server are used, and therefore
may vary slightly from the actual size on disk after message retrieval.
</li>
<li>
max_message_size
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— if set, getmail will not retrieve messages larger than this
number of bytes. Default: 0, which means not to enable this feature.
</li>
<li>
max_messages_per_session
(<a href="#parameter-integer">integer</a>)
— if set, getmail will process a maximum of this number of
messages before closing the session with the server. This can be useful
if your network or the server is particuarly unreliable. Default: 0,
which means not to enable this feature.
</li>
<li>
delivered_to
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail adds a Delivered-To: header field to the
message. If unset, it will not do so. Default: True. Note that this
field will contain the envelope recipient of the message if the
retriever in use is a multidrop retriever; otherwise it will contain the
string "unknown".
</li>
<li>
received
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail adds a Received: header field to the message.
If unset, it will not do so. Default: True.
</li>
<li>
message_log
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— if set, getmail will record a log of its actions to the named
file. The value will be expanded for leading
<span class="file">~</span>
or
<span class="file">~<span class="meta">USER</span></span>
and environment variables in the form
<span class="file">$<span class="meta">VARNAME</span></span>
or
<span class="file">${<span class="meta">VARNAME</span>}</span>.
Default: '' (the empty string), which means not to enable this feature.
</li>
<li>
message_log_syslog
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail will record a log of its actions using the
system logger.
<span class="warning">
Note that syslog is inherently unreliable and can lose log messages.
</span>
Default: False.
</li>
<li>
message_log_verbose
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail will log to the message log file (or syslog)
information about messages not retrieved and the reason for not
retrieving them, as well as starting and ending information lines.
By default, it will log only about messages actually retrieved, and
about error conditions.
<span class="warning">
Note that this has no effect if neither message_log nor
message_log_syslog is in use.
</span>
Default: False.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Most users will want to either enable the
<span class="file">delete</span>
option (to delete mail after retrieving it), or disable the
<span class="file">read_all</span>
option (to only retrieve previously-unread mail).
</p>
<p>
The verbose, read_all, and delete parameters can be overridden at run time
with
<a href="#running">commandline options</a>.
</p>
<h4 id="options-example"><span class="file">[options]</span> example</h4>
<p>
To configure getmail to operate quietly, to retrieve only new mail,
to delete messages after retrieving them, and to log its actions to
a file, you could provide the following in your getmail rc file(s):
</p>
<pre class="example">
[options]
verbose = 0
read_all = false
delete = true
message_log = ~/.getmail/log
</pre>
<h3 id="conf-filters">Creating the <span class="file">[filter-<span class="meta">something</span>]</span> sections</h3>
<p>
The
filter-<span class="meta">something</span>
section(s) of the rc file (which are not required) tell getmail to process
messages in some way after retrieving them, but before delivering them to
your destinations. Filters can tell getmail to drop a message (i.e. not
deliver it at all), add information to the message header (i.e. for a spam-
classification system or similar), or modify message content (like an
antivirus system stripping suspected MIME parts from messages).
</p>
<p>
You can specify any number of filters; provide a separate rc file section
for each, naming each of them
filter-<span class="meta">something</span>.
They will be run in collated order, so it's likely simplest to name them
like this:
</p>
<ul>
<li class="file">[filter-1]</li>
<li class="file">[filter-2]</li>
<li class="file">[filter-3]</li>
</ul>
<p>
Begin with the section header line as follows:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[filter-<span class="meta">something</span>]
</pre>
<p>
Then, include a
<span class="file">type</span>
<a href="#parameter-string">string parameter</a>
to tell getmail what type of filter. The possible values are:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
— run the message through an external program, and insert the
output of the program into
<span class="file">X-getmail-filter-classifier:</span>
header fields in the message. Messages can be dropped by having the
filter return specific exit codes.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#conf-filters-external">Filter_external</a>
— supply the message to an external program, which can then modify
the message in any fashion. The program must print the modified message
to stdout. getmail reads the modified message from the program in this
fasion before proceeding to the next filter or destination. Messages
can be dropped by having the filter return specific exit codes.
</li>
<li>
<a href="#conf-filters-tmda">Filter_TMDA</a>
— run the message through the
<span class="file">tmda-filter</span>
program for use with the
<a href="http://www.tmda.net/">Tagged Message Delivery Agent (TMDA)</a>
package. If
<span class="file">tmda-filter</span>
returns 0, the message will be passed to the next filter (or
destination). If it returns 99, the message will be dropped,
and TMDA is responsible for sending a challenge message, queuing
the original, etc., as with normal TMDA operation in a
<span class="file">.qmail</span>,
<span class="file">.courier</span>,
or
<span class="file">.forward</span>
file.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
By default, if a filter writes anything to
<span class="file">stderr</span>,
getmail will consider the delivery to have encountered an error. getmail
will leave the message on the server and proceed to the next message.
You must configure any filter you use not to emit messages to stderr except
on errors — please see the documentation for your filter program
for details.
Optionally, if you know your filter can emit warnings on stderr under
non-error conditions, you can set the
<span class="file">ignore_stderr</span> option.
</p>
<h4 id="conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</h4>
<p>
Filter_classifier runs the message through an external program, placing the
output of that program into
<span class="file">X-getmail-filter-classifier:</span>
header fields. It can also cause messages to be dropped by exiting with
a return code listed in the exitcodes_drop parameter.
</p>
<p>
Filter_classifier has one required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
path
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— the path to the command to run. This value will be expanded for
leading
<span class="file">~</span>
or
<span class="file">~<span class="meta">USER</span></span>
and environment variables in the form
<span class="file">$<span class="meta">VARNAME</span></span>
or
<span class="file">${<span class="meta">VARNAME</span>}</span>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
In addition, Filter_classifier takes the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
arguments
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— arguments to be supplied to the command. The following
substrings will be substituted with the equivalent values from the
message:
<ul>
<li>
<span class="sample">%(sender)</span>
— envelope return-path address
</li>
</ul>
If the message is retrieved with a multidrop retriever class, the
message recipient (and parts of it) are also available with the
following replacement substrings:
<ul>
<li>
<span class="sample">%(recipient)</span>
— envelope recipient address
</li>
<li>
<span class="sample">%(local)</span>
— local-part of the envelope recipient address
</li>
<li>
<span class="sample">%(domain)</span>
— domain-part of the envelope recipient address
</li>
</ul>
The default value of the
<span class="file">arguments</span>
parameter is
<span class="sample">()</span>,
so no arguments are supplied to the command. </li>
<li>
unixfrom
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— whether to include a Unix-style mbox
<span class="file">From_</span>
line at the beginning of the message supplied to the command. Default:
False.
</li>
<li>
user
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— if supplied, getmail will change the effective UID to that of
the named user. Note that this typically requires root privileges.
</li>
<li>
group
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— if supplied, getmail will change the effective GID to that of
the named group. Note that this typically requires root privileges.
</li>
<li>
allow_root_commands
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail will run external commands even if it is
currently running with root privileges. The default is false, which
causes getmail to raise an exception if it is asked to run an external
command as root.
<span class="warning">
Note that setting this option has serious security implications.
Don't use it if you don't know what you're doing.
I strongly recommend against running external processes as root.
</span>
</li>
<li>
ignore_stderr
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— if set, getmail will not consider it an error if the filter
writes to stderr. The default is false, which causes getmail to
consider the delivery failed and leave the message on the server,
proceeding to the next message.
This prevents loss of mail if the filter writes to stderr but fails to
exit nonzero when it encounters an error.
<span class="warning">
Note that setting this option has serious implications; some
poorly-written programs commonly used as mail filters can
can mangle or drop mail but still exit 0, their only clue to failure
being warnings emitted on stderr. Only change this setting if
you are confident your filter always exits nonzero on error.
</span>
</li>
<li>
exitcodes_drop
(<a href="#parameter-tupleintegers">tuple of integers</a>)
— if the filter returns an exit code in this list, the message
will be dropped. The default is
<span class="sample">(99, 100)</span>.
</li>
<li>
exitcodes_keep
(<a href="#parameter-tupleintegers">tuple of integers</a>)
— if the filter returns an exit code other than those in
<span class="file">exitcodes_drop</span>
and
<span class="file">exitcodes_keep</span>,
getmail assumes the filter encountered an error. getmail will then not
proceed, so that the message is not lost. The default is
<span class="sample">(0, )</span>.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="conf-filters-external">Filter_external</h4>
<p>
Filter_external runs the message through an external program, and replaces
the message with the output of that program, allowing the filter to make
arbitrary changes to messages. It can also cause messages to be dropped by
exiting with a return code listed in the exitcodes_drop parameter.
</p>
<p>
Filter_external has one required parameter:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
path
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
In addition, Filter_external takes the following optional parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
arguments
(<a href="#parameter-tuplestrings">tuple of quoted strings</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
unixfrom
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
user
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
group
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
allow_root_commands
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
ignore_stderr
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
exitcodes_drop
(<a href="#parameter-tupleintegers">tuple of integers</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
exitcodes_keep
(<a href="#parameter-tupleintegers">tuple of integers</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="conf-filters-tmda">Filter_TMDA</h4>
<p>
Filter_external runs the message through the external program
<span class="file">tmda-filter</span>, allowing the use of the
<a href="http://www.tmda.net/">Tagged Message Delivery Agent (TMDA)</a>
package. As TMDA relies on the message envelope, this filter requires
the use of a multidrop retriever class to function. It sets the
three environment variables
<span class="file">SENDER</span>,
<span class="file">RECIPIENT</span>,
and
<span class="file">EXT</span>
prior to running
<span class="file">tmda-filter</span>.
</p>
<p class="warning">
I've tested this filter, and it Works For Me™, but I'm not a regular
TMDA user. I would appreciate any feedback about its use from TMDA users.
</p>
<p>
Filter_TMDA has no required parameters. It has the following optional
parameters:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
path
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— the path to the
<span class="file">tmda-filter</span>
binary. Default:
<span class="file">/usr/local/bin/tmda-filter</span>.
This value will be expanded for leading
<span class="file">~</span>
or
<span class="file">~<span class="meta">USER</span></span>
and environment variables in the form
<span class="file">$<span class="meta">VARNAME</span></span>
or
<span class="file">${<span class="meta">VARNAME</span>}</span>.
</li>
<li>
user
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
group
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
allow_root_commands
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
ignore_stderr
(<a href="#parameter-boolean">boolean</a>)
— see
<a href="#conf-filters-classifier">Filter_classifier</a>
for definition.
</li>
<li>
conf-break
(<a href="#parameter-string">string</a>)
— this value will be used to split the local-part of the envelope
recipient address to determine the value of the
<span class="file">EXT</span>
environment variable. For example, if the envelope sender address is
<span class="file">sender-something@host.example.org</span>,
and the envelope recipient address is
<span class="file">user-ext-ext2@host.example.net</span>,
and
<span class="file">conf-break</span>
is set to
<span class="file">-</span>,
getmail will set the environment variables
<span class="file">SENDER</span>
to
"<span class="file">sender-something@host.example.org</span>",
<span class="file">RECIPIENT</span>
to
"<span class="file">user-ext-ext2@host.example.net</span>",
and
<span class="file">EXT</span>
to
"<span class="file">ext-ext2</span>".
Default: "-".
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="filter-examples"><span class="file">[filter-<span class="meta">something</span>]</span> examples</h4>
<p>
You might filter spam messages in your MUA based on information added to the
message header by a spam-classification program. You could have that
information added to the message header with a filter configuration like
this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[filter-3]
type = Filter_classifier
path = /path/to/my-classifier
arguments = ('--message-from-stdin', '--report-to-stdout')
user = nobody
</pre>
<p>
You might use a program to prevent users from accidentally destroying their
data by stripping suspected attachments from messages. You could have that
information added to the message header with a filter configuration like
this:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[filter-3]
type = Filter_external
path = /path/to/my-mime-filter
arguments = ('--message-from-stdin', '--remove-all-but-attachment-types=text/plain,text/rfc822')
user = nobody
</pre>
<p>
You might use TMDA to challenge messages from unknown senders. If the
default parameters are fine for your configuration, this is as simple as:
</p>
<pre class="example">
[filter-3]
type = Filter_TMDA
</pre>
<h3 id="examplerc">getmail rc file examples</h3>
<p>
Several examples of different getmail rc configuration are available
in the included file
<a href="getmailrc-examples">getmailrc-examples</a>.
</p>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h1 id="running">Running getmail</h1>
<p>
To use getmail, simply run the script
<span class="file">getmail</span>,
which is typically installed in
<span class="file">/usr/local/bin/</span>
by default. getmail will read the default getmail rc file
(<span class="file">getmailrc</span>)
from the default configuration/data directory
(<span class="file">~/.getmail/</span>)
and begin operating.
</p>
<p>
You can modify this behaviour by supplying commandline options to getmail.
</p>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h2 id="running-commandline-options">Commandline options</h2>
<p>
getmail understands the following options:
</p>
<ul>
<li>--version — show getmail's version number and exit</li>
<li>--help or -h — show a brief usage summary and exit</li>
<li>
--getmaildir=<span class="meta">DIR</span>
or
-g<span class="meta">DIR</span>
— use
<span class="meta">DIR</span>
for configuration and data files
</li>
<li>
--rcfile=<span class="meta">FILE</span>
or
-r<span class="meta">FILE</span>
— read getmail rc file
<span class="meta">FILE</span>
instead of the default. The file path is assumed to be relative to the
<span class="meta">getmaildir</span>
directory unless this value starts with a slash
(<span class="file">/</span>).
This option can be given multiple times to have getmail retrieve mail
from multiple accounts.
</li>
<li>
--dump — read rc files, dump configuration, and exit (debugging)
</li>
<li>--trace — print extended debugging information</li>
</ul>
<p>
In addition, the following commandline options can be used to override any
values specified in the
<span class="file">[options]</span>
section of the getmail rc files:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
--verbose or -v — operate more verbosely. Can be given multiple
times.
</li>
<li>--quiet or -q — print only warnings or errors while running</li>
<li>--delete or -d — delete messages after retrieving</li>
<li>--dont-delete or -l — do not delete messages after retrieving</li>
<li>--all or -a — retrieve all messages</li>
<li>--new or -n — retrieve only new (unseen) messages</li>
</ul>
<p>
For instance, if you want to retrieve mail from two different mail accounts,
create a getmail rc file for each of them (named, say,
<span class="file">getmailrc-account1</span>
and
<span class="file">getmailrc-account2</span>)
and put them in
<span class="file">~/.getmail/</span> .
Then run getmail as follows:
</p>
<pre class="example">
$ getmail --rcfile getmailrc-account1 --rcfile getmailrc-account2
</pre>
<p>
If those files were located in a directory other than the default, and you
wanted to use that directory for storing the data files as well, you could
run getmail as follows:
</p>
<pre class="example">
$ getmail --getmaildir /path/to/otherdir --rcfile getmailrc-account1 --rcfile getmailrc-account2
</pre>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h2 id="running-mda">Using getmail as an MDA</h2>
<p>
getmail includes helper scripts which allow you to use it to deliver mail
from other programs to maildirs or mboxrd files.
</p>
<h3 id="running-mda-maildir">Using the <span class="file">getmail_maildir</span> MDA</h3>
<p>
The
<span class="file">getmail_maildir</span>
script can be used as an MDA from other programs to deliver mail to
maildirs. It reads the mail message from stdin, and delivers it to a
maildir path provided as an argument on the commandline. This path
must (after expansion by the shell, if applicable) start with a dot
or slash and end with a slash.
</p>
<p>
<span class="file">getmail_maildir</span>
uses the contents of the
<span class="file">SENDER</span>
environment variable to construct a
<span class="file">Return-Path:</span>
header field and the contents of the
<span class="file">RECIPIENT</span>
environment variable to construct a
<span class="file">Delivered-To:</span>
header field at the top of the message.
</p>
<p>
<span class="file">getmail_maildir</span>
also accepts the options
<span class="file">--verbose</span>
or
<span class="file">-v</span>
which tell it to print a status message on success. The default is to
operate silently unless an error occurs.
</p>
<h4 id="running-mda-maildir-example">Example</h4>
<p>
You could deliver a message to a maildir named
<span class="file">Maildir</span>
located in your home directory by running the following command
with the message on stdin:
</p>
<pre class="example">
$ getmail_maildir $HOME/Maildir/
</pre>
<h3 id="running-mda-mbox">Using the <span class="file">getmail_mbox</span> MDA</h3>
<p>
The
<span class="file">getmail_mbox</span>
script can be used as an MDA from other programs to deliver mail to
mboxrd-format mbox files. It reads the mail message from stdin, and
delivers it to an mbox path provided as an argument on the commandline.
This path must (after expansion by the shell, if applicable) start with a
dot or slash and not end with a slash.
</p>
<p>
<span class="file">getmail_maildir</span>
uses the contents of the
<span class="file">SENDER</span>
environment variable to construct a
<span class="file">Return-Path:</span>
header field and mbox
<span class="file">From_</span>
line and the contents of the
<span class="file">RECIPIENT</span>
environment variable to construct a
<span class="file">Delivered-To:</span>
header field at the top of the message.
</p>
<p>
<span class="file">getmail_mbox</span>
also accepts the options
<span class="file">--verbose</span>
or
<span class="file">-v</span>
which tell it to print a status message on success. The default is to
operate silently unless an error occurs.
</p>
<h4 id="running-mda-mbox-example">Example</h4>
<p>
You could deliver a message to an mboxrd-format mbox file named
<span class="file">inbox</span>
located in a directory named
<span class="file">mail</span>
in your home directory by running the following command with the message on
stdin:
</p>
<pre class="example">
$ getmail_mbox $HOME/mail/inbox
</pre>
<!-- ********************************************************************** -->
<h2 id="running-fetch">Using getmail_fetch to retrieve mail from scripts</h2>
<p>
getmail includes the <span class="file">getmail_fetch</span>
helper script, which allows you to retrieve mail from a POP3 server without
the use of a configuration file. It is primarily intended for use in
automated or scripted environments, but can be used to retrieve mail normally.
</p>
<p>
See the <span class="file">getmail_fetch</span> manual page for details
on the use of <span class="file">getmail_fetch</span>.
</p>
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Mandriva
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2010.0
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i586
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media
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contrib-release
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by-pkgid
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0c876419bd5a336ffc8f81f810f05a13
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files
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