mail setup in lenny

mail setup in lenny

[lists]

I am hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

Using debian lenny, I am trying to collect mail using mutt and 
getmail.

I found a howto which is for etch which I have used as I cannot find 
any lenny specific howtos on the subject.

This is what I have done.

Installed getmail4 with apt-get

nano ~/.getmail/getmailrc
[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = mail.plus.net
username = my username
 password = my password
[destination]
type = Mboxrd
path = /var/mail/keith

I login to the debian system with username keith

Now these are the error messages.

Running getmail
error: configuration file /home/keith/.getmail/getmailrc incorrect 
path: specified mbox file /var/keith/Mail does not exist.

If I run mutt I get

/var/Mail/keith no such file or directory

I have not created a .muttrc locally so the lenny defaults should 
apply?

I think my problem is to do with the path or lack of a mailbox 
although mutt seems to be looking for one.

Sorry about all this but been at it all day and I think I am digging a 
deeper hole for myself.

I am new at this so please assume I have little knowledge of linux.

Thanks

Keith




 

Re: mail setup in lenny

[Tyler Spivey]

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Personally, I just keep my mail in a maildir in my home directory. Either way you go (mbox or maildir),
you can convert from one to the other. Just to get started, set the path of your mbox to something like /home/keith/mail/inbox,
create ~/mail if it doesn't already exist (mkdir ~/mail) and touch ~/mail/inbox.
Add this line to your ~/.muttrc:
set spoolfile=~/mail/inbox
touch just creates a 0 byte file so getmail has something to deliver to; the no such file or directory
was telling you that it couldn't find /var/mail/keith. Personally I like having my mail in my home directory for
ease of backups and organization.
If you really want it in /var/mail/keith, you can su to root and
touch /var/mail/keith
chown keith: /var/mail/keith
which will create the file and set its owner to keith.
But you'll probably end up with a customized .muttrc anyways, so the home directory is probably a good option.

- - Tyler
On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 06:26:17PM -0000, lists@barrettpianos.co.uk wrote:
> I am hoping someone could point me in the right direction.
> 
> Using debian lenny, I am trying to collect mail using mutt and 
> getmail.
> 
> I found a howto which is for etch which I have used as I cannot find 
> any lenny specific howtos on the subject.
> 
> This is what I have done.
> 
> Installed getmail4 with apt-get
> 
> nano ~/.getmail/getmailrc
> [retriever]
> type = SimplePOP3Retriever
> server = mail.plus.net
> username = my username
>  password = my password
> [destination]
> type = Mboxrd
> path = /var/mail/keith
> 
> I login to the debian system with username keith
> 
> Now these are the error messages.
> 
> Running getmail
> error: configuration file /home/keith/.getmail/getmailrc incorrect 
> path: specified mbox file /var/keith/Mail does not exist.
> 
> If I run mutt I get
> 
> /var/Mail/keith no such file or directory
> 
> I have not created a .muttrc locally so the lenny defaults should 
> apply?
> 
> I think my problem is to do with the path or lack of a mailbox 
> although mutt seems to be looking for one.
> 
> Sorry about all this but been at it all day and I think I am digging a 
> deeper hole for myself.
> 
> I am new at this so please assume I have little knowledge of linux.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Keith
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
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Re: mail setup in lenny

[Gaijin]

On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 06:26:17PM -0000, lists@barrettpianos.co.uk wrote:
> This is what I have done.
> [destination]
> type = Mboxrd
> path = /var/mail/keith

	I had this same problem, and couldn't get getmail to write to
the /var/mail directory, even with file permissions seeming right.  I
had to settle for writing to ~/mbox instead, or go through setting up
the system to use the "type = MDA_external" feature and pass things
through the mailserver to the /var/mail dir.  Anyway, I'm sure you need
"mail" group permission to write to /var/mail.  I use an alias called
"mb" to have mutt read the mbox file:

alias mb='mutt -f ~/mbox'

	I load aliases at login by placing them in the ~/.bashrc file.
(Actually, a ~/.aliases file is sourced to make things easier to modify
on the fly, but that's another story.)

alias Saliases='alias > ~/.aliases'

	Anyway, you may have read permission for /var/mail/keith, but
not write permission to /var/mail, and that's causing the problem.  HTH,

			Michael

Re: mail setup in lenny

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

I let my getmail hand things off to procmail for delivery and it works
great. No need to give it to an MTA.

-- 
The Moon is Waning Crescent (21% of Full)

                My web site: http://hallenbeck.ftml.net
                                --------
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.
		-- Ramsey Clark

Re: mail setup in lenny

[Daniel Dalton]

Hello,

First, double check the paths exist:
ls path
replacing path with the path that you are getting errors about.

Next, you could try using fetchmail... It is really easy to
setup... Also, use procmail as your mta I think they call it (please
correct me if I am wrong). As procmail is very configurable eg. you can
filter your mailing list messages to a certain folder...

Here is my setup:
fetchmail: get and connect to pop servers download the email
procmail: Deliver the mail into the folders I specify eg. messages to
the speakup list should go to ~/mail/speakup and messages directly to me
go in /var/mail/daniel or something like that.
- Use mutt for reading messages. Opening the default /var inbox. When
closing mutt move all messages to the mbox as it asks. Therefore I just
backup ~/mail and all my mail is safely backed up.
The last thing I use is msmtp for sending mail. This configuration gives
me the choice of using many clients to read my mail as the delivery
isn't controled by the client eg. mutt or pine... I use mutt, so email
me off list if you want my config files to get you started...

Cheers,

Danny


On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 06:26:17PM -0000, lists@barrettpianos.co.uk wrote:
> I am hoping someone could point me in the right direction.
> 
> Using debian lenny, I am trying to collect mail using mutt and 
> getmail.
> 
> I found a howto which is for etch which I have used as I cannot find 
> any lenny specific howtos on the subject.
> 
> This is what I have done.
> 
> Installed getmail4 with apt-get
> 
> nano ~/.getmail/getmailrc
> [retriever]
> type = SimplePOP3Retriever
> server = mail.plus.net
> username = my username
>  password = my password
> [destination]
> type = Mboxrd
> path = /var/mail/keith
> 
> I login to the debian system with username keith
> 
> Now these are the error messages.
> 
> Running getmail
> error: configuration file /home/keith/.getmail/getmailrc incorrect 
> path: specified mbox file /var/keith/Mail does not exist.
> 
> If I run mutt I get
> 
> /var/Mail/keith no such file or directory
> 
> I have not created a .muttrc locally so the lenny defaults should 
> apply?
> 
> I think my problem is to do with the path or lack of a mailbox 
> although mutt seems to be looking for one.
> 
> Sorry about all this but been at it all day and I think I am digging a 
> deeper hole for myself.
> 
> I am new at this so please assume I have little knowledge of linux.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Keith
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

mail setup in lenny

[Keith Barrett]

	Hi,

Been searching for howtos on setting up getmail on lenny.

I can only find documents on using it with etch.

Before I get in a mess, are there any changes in lenny that would prevent 
me using the etch howto's?

thanks