Retrieving Emails From Remote Servers With getmail (Debian Etch) Page 3

By admin on May 13, 2010 with Comments 0

Getmail is a program for retrieving emails from remote servers; it
is very similar to fetchmail, but more flexible. For example, it can be
configured to deliver mails directly to a Maildir or mbox mailbox
without the need for an MTA such as Postfix, but of course it can also
pipe the mails through an MTA if you want. Getmail can use so called
filters such as SpamAssassin and ClamAV to scan the mails, and you can
even tell getmail to delete mails on the original server only after a
certain number of days.

6 A Sample Configuration File

This is how my ~/.getmail/getmailrc file looks in the end:

vi ~/.getmail/getmailrc

[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = pop.someprovider.tld
username = falko@someprovider.tld
password = secret[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~/Maildir/
[options]
verbose = 1
read_all = false
delete = true
message_log_syslog = true[filter-1]
type = Filter_classifier
path = /usr/bin/clamdscan
arguments = ("--stdout", "--no-summary", "-")
exitcodes_keep = (1, )[filter-2]
type = Filter_external
path = /usr/bin/spamc
arguments = ("-s 250000", )

7 Further Configuration Examples

You can find further configuration examples on http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/configuration.html and in the getmailrc-examples file that comes with the getmail .tar.gz file that you can download from http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail. Here’s the contents of that file:

#
# This file contains various examples of configuration sections to use
# in your getmail rc file. You need one file for each mail account you
# want to retrieve mail from. These files should be placed in your
# getmail configuration/data directory (default: $HOME/.getmail/).
# If you only need one rc file, name it getmailrc in that directory,
# and you won’t need to supply any commandline options to run getmail.
#

#
# Example 1: simplest case of retrieving mail from one POP3 server and
# storing all messages in a maildir.
#

[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = pop.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword

[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeffp/Maildir/

#
# Example 2: same as (1), but operate quietly, delete messages from
# the server after retrieving them, and log getmail’s actions to a file.
#

[options]
verbose = 0
delete = true
message_log = ~/.getmail/log

[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = pop.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword

[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeffp/Maildir/

#
# Example 3: same as (1), but the mail account is accessed via IMAP4 instead
# of POP3.
#

[retriever]
type = SimpleIMAPRetriever
server = mail.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword

[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeffp/Maildir/

#
# Example 4: same as (3), but retrieve mail from the INBOX, INBOX.spam, and
# mailing-lists.getmail-users mail folders.
#

[retriever]
type = SimpleIMAPRetriever
server = mail.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword
mailboxes = (“INBOX”, “INBOX.spam”, “mailing-lists.getmail-users”)

[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeffp/Maildir/

#
# Example 5: same as (3), but move messages to the mail folder “sent-mail”
# after retrieving them. Note that you do this by setting delete and
# move_on_delete options.
#

[options]
delete = true

[retriever]
type = SimpleIMAPRetriever
server = mail.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword
move_on_delete = sent-mail

[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeffp/Maildir/

#
# Example 6: same as (1), but deliver the messages to an mboxrd-format mbox
# file as user “jeffp”.
#

[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = pop.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword

[destination]
type = Mboxrd
path = ~jeffp/Mail/inbox
user = jeffp

#
# Example 7: same as (1), but deliver the messages through an external MDA
# which takes several arguments.
#

[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = pop.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword

[destination]
type = MDA_external
path = /usr/local/bin/my-mda
arguments = (“–message-from-stdin”, “–scan-message”, “–to-maildir”,
“~jeffp/Maildir/”)

#
# Example 8: retrieve mail from a corporate POP3-SSL domain mailbox,
# sort messages for several local users and deliver to maildirs in their
# home directories (except Sam, who likes mbox files, and Christina, who
# uses procmail for further sorting), and deliver all other mail to
# Joe, who serves as postmaster for the company. Sam also needs
# to receive mail for “sam1″, “sam23″, etc, so we use a regular expression
# matching “sam” plus zero or more decimal digits.
#

[retriever]
type = MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever
server = pop.example.net
username = companylogin
password = mailpassword
# Our domain mailbox mailhost records the envelope recipient address in a
# new Delivered-To: header field at the top of the message.
envelope_recipient = delivered-to:1

[destination]
type = MultiSorter
default = [postmaster]
locals = (
(“jeffk@company.example.net”, “[jeff]“),
(“martinh@company.example.net”, “[martin]“),
(r”samD*@company.example.net”, “[sam]“),
(“c.fellowes@company.example.net”, “[christina-procmail]“)
)

[postmaster]
type = Maildir
path = ~joe/Mail/postmaster/
user = joe

[jeff]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeffp/Maildir/
user = jeffp

[martin]
type = Maildir
path = ~martinh/Maildir/
user = martinh

[sam]
type = Mboxrd
path = ~sam/Mail/inbox
user = sam

[christina-procmail]
type = MDA_external
path = /usr/local/bin/procmail
# procmail requires either that the message starts with an mboxrd-style
# “From ” line (which getmail can generate by setting “unixfrom” to True), or
# that the -f option is provided as below.
arguments = (“-f”, “%(sender)”, “-m”, “/home/christina/.procmailrc”)
user = christina

#
# Example 9: same as (3), but use SpamAssassin to filter out spam,
# and ClamAV to filter out MS worms.
#

[retriever]
type = SimpleIMAPRetriever
server = mail.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword

[filter-1]
type = Filter_external
path = /usr/local/bin/spamc

[filter-2]
type = Filter_classifier
path = /usr/local/bin/clamscan
arguments = (“–stdout”, “–no-summary”,
“–mbox”, “–infected”, “-”)
exitcodes_drop = (1,)

[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeffp/Maildir/

#
# Example 10: same as (3), but deliver all mail to two different local
# mailboxes.
#

[retriever]
type = SimpleIMAPRetriever
server = mail.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword

[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = (
“~jeff/Maildir/”,
“/var/log/mail-archive/current”,
)

#
# Example 11: retrieve mail from a simple (non-multidrop) POP3 mailbox.
# Then extract addresses from the message header (see documentation for which
# fields are examined), and deliver mail containing the address
# <list1@domain.example.net> to ~/Mail/lists/list1/, mail containing the
# address <list2@otherdomain.example.com> to ~/Mail/lists/list2/,
# mail containing the address <othername@example.org> to ~/Mail/other/,
# and all other mail gets delivered through the external MDA program
# “my-mda” with some default arguments.
#

[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = pop.example.net
username = jeff.plotzky
password = mailpassword

[destination]
type = MultiGuesser
default = [my-mda]
locals = (
(“list1@domain.example.net”, “~/Mail/lists/list1/”),
(“list2@otherdomain.example.com”, “~/Mail/lists/list2/”),
(“othername@example.org”, “~/Mail/other/”),
)

[my-mda]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/my-mda
arguments = (“-f”, “%(sender)”, “${HOME}/.mymdarc”)

Also take a look at the getmail man page:

man getmail

to learn more about available command line parameters that you can pass to getmail.