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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>getmail Frequently Asked Questions</title>
<style type="text/css" media="all">@import "getmail.css";</style>
<meta name="author" content="Charles Cazabon" />
</head>
<body id="top">
<div class="body">
<h2 id="faq">getmail Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)</h2>
<p>
These are the Frequently Asked Questions about getmail. If your question is not
answered here or in the <a href="docs.html#docs">documentation</a>,
please subscribe to the <a href="getmail.html#maillist">mailing list</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="faq-about"><a href="#faq">About this document</a></h3>
<p>
The official location of this document is
<a href="http://www.qcc.ca/~charlesc/software/getmail-3.0/docs.html">http://www.qcc.ca/~charlesc/software/getmail-3.0/docs.html</a>.
For easy navigation, all headings in the HTML version of this document are
links to their parent heading.
</p>
<h3 id="toc"><a href="#faq">Table of Contents</a></h3>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#about-getmail">About getmail</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#error-messages">Error messages</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#config">getmail configuration</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#other-errors">Other errors</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#how">How do I …</a>
</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="about-getmail"><a href="#faq">About getmail</a></h3>
<h4 id="about-getmail-what"><a href="#about-getmail">What is getmail?</a></h4>
<p>
getmail is a POP3 mail retriever, with support for both ordinary and domain (or
multidrop) POP3 mailboxes. It is written in Python, and licensed under the
<a href="COPYING">GNU General Public License version 2</a>.
</p>
<h4 id="about-getmail-why"><a href="#about-getmail">Why did you write getmail? Why not just use fetchmail?</a></h4>
<p>
I do not like some of the design choices which were made with fetchmail. getmail
does things a little differently, and for my purposes, better. In addition, most
people find getmail easier to configure and use than fetchmail. Perhaps most
importantly, getmail goes to great lengths to ensure that mail is never lost,
while fetchmail (in its default configuration) frequently loses mail, causes
mail loops, bounces legitimate messages, and causes many other problems.
</p>
<p>
In addition, fetchmail has a long history of security problems:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
versions released before 20 June 2001 contain a buffer overflow, which can be
remotely exploited (see
<a href="http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/2877">www.securityfocus.com/bid/2877</a>
for details). getmail is not vulnerable to buffer overflows, because buffers in
Python are dynamically sized.
</li>
<li>
Another remotely-exploitable security hole discovered in fetchmail in June 2002;
<a href="http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2002-0146">versions prior to 5.9.10 (released in June 2002)
are exploitable</a>.
</li>
<li>
Reading fetchmail's UPDATES file, it appears that another security problem was
fixed in 5.9.12, where a server could crash fetchmail on 64-bit platforms. Also
worrying is a mention that it includes a fix for "password shrouding".
</li>
<li>
Another remotely-exploitable security hole in fetchmail discovered in September 2002;
<a href="http://security.e-matters.de/advisories/032002.html">this hole</a> lets an
attacker run arbitrary code on the victim's computer.
</li>
<li>
Another remotely-exploitable security hole in fetchmail discovered in December 2002; once again, a remote
attacker can run arbitrary code on the machine running fetchmail in its default
configuration. See <a href="http://security.e-matters.de/advisories/052002.html">this advisory</a>
for details.
</li>
<li>
January 2003: <a href="http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=3DCAN-2002-1365">More buffer overflows in fetchmail let attackers run arbitrary code</a>.
</li>
<li>
October 2003: <a href="http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2003-0792">Anyone can cause fetchmail to crash by sending you a message</a>.
Other problems are <a href="http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2003-0790">here</a>, and <a href="http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=fetchmail">I might have missed some</a>.
</li>
</ul>
<p>I've given up even trying to stay abreast of the various security holes in fetchmail.</p>
<p>
<a href="http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=585008+0+archive/2001/freebsd-arch/20010218.freebsd-arch">But don't just
take my word for it</a>.
</p>
<p>
getmail users have not had to worry about any of these security holes.
</p>
<h4 id="about-getmail-support"><a href="#about-getmail">How can I get support for getmail?</a></h4>
<p>
getmail is <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software</a>. As such, it comes
with no warranty. However, I will do my best to support getmail on a voluntary
basis through the <a href="getmail.html#maillist">getmail mailing list</a>.
</p>
<p>
If you are using getmail in a commercial or other environment where problems
cost money, consider contacting me privately for commercial support.
</p>
<p>
If you have questions about getmail, the first step is to read the
<a href="docs.html#docs">documentation</a>, and the remainder of the
<a href="faq.html#faq">Frequently Asked Questions</a>. If your question isn't
answered there, search the getmail mailing list archives at
<a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=getmail&r=1&w=2">http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=getmail&r=1&w=2</a>.
</p>
<p>
If you still haven't found an answer to your question, please subscribe to the
<a href="getmail.html#maillist">mailing list</a> by sending a blank email to
<getmail-subscribe @ discworld.dnsalias.org>. If you post your question
there, I will see it. As an additional bonus, your question may be answered by
another member of the list.
</p>
<h4 id="about-getmail-bug"><a href="#about-getmail">I think I found a bug! How do I report it?</a></h4>
<p>
Ideally, you should join the <a href="getmail.html#maillist">mailing list</a>.
Send your bug report there. You should include the following information:
</p>
<ul>
<li>getmail version</li>
<li>Python version</li>
<li>any error message which getmail displayed</li>
<li>the output from running getmail with your normal options plus <span class="sample">--dump</span></li>
<li>
if your problem is getmail not determining the proper local recipient, please include
the output of running getmail with your normal options plus <span class="sample">--trace</span>,
showing the retrieval of <strong>one</strong> problematic message.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
If you absolutely cannot sign up for the mailing list, send the report to me
directly. I may not be able to respond to all reports privately, but I will try
to address any bugs I find out about this way.
</p>
<h4 id="about-getmail-virus"><a href="#about-getmail">Does getmail support virus scanning of retrieved messages?</a></h4>
<p>
Yes, getmail can use external MDAs which do absolutely any type of message scanning, filtering,
etc. Also see <a href="#how-virus">this question about how to do this</a>.
</p>
<h4 id="about-getmail-newfields"><a href="#about-getmail">Does getmail rewrite mail headers when it retrieves mail?</a></h4>
<p>
No—rewriting message header fields is bad. getmail will add a new
Received: header field and a new Delivered-To: header field, but does not
rewrite existing headers. You can disable the creation of these header fields.
</p>
<h4 id="about-getmail-recipients"><a href="#about-getmail">How does getmail decide what local recipients to deliver a message to?</a></h4>
<p>This is a two-step process.</p>
<ol>
<li>
getmail first tries to find who the message was originally addressed
to using one of two methods:
<ul>
<li>
If you have enabled SPDS *ENV support, getmail will retrieve the original
envelope of the message from an SPDS-enabled server (i.e. Demon provides this).
</li>
<li>
Envelope recipient address method. If the MTA running on the POP3 servers is
sensible, it will record the envelope recipient address in a new header field at
the top of the message. You can then tell getmail to find it using the
<a href="docs.html#directive-envelope-recipient">envelope_recipient directive</a>.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
getmail will then compare each address found above to any configured local
recipient address patterns. If a pattern matches, getmail will deliver the
message to that target. If no patterns match, or if you have not configured
getmail to reconstruct the original envelope, the message is delivered to the
default delivery instruction (postmaster directive).
</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="error-messages"><a href="#faq">Error Messages</a></h3>
<h4 id="error-message-fsync"><a href="#error-messages">getmail fails with a message "<span class="error">AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'fsync'</a></h4>
<p>
This is not a problem with getmail; it is a <a href="http://www.python.org/2.3.1/bugs.html">well-known bug in the Python 2.3.1 distribution</a>.
Downgrade to Python version 2.3.0 or before, or upgrade to 2.3.2, which should fix the problem.
</p>
<h4 id="error-message-percent"><a href="#error-messages">getmail complains about "<span class="error">incomplete format string</span>" …</a></h4>
<p>
Double any percent signs you have in your getmailrc file—i.e., if your
password is <span class="sample">foo%bar</span>, then actually specify it as
<span class="sample">foo%%bar</span>.
</p>
<h4 id="error-message-empty-value"><a href="#error-messages">getmail complains about "<span class="error">error in getmailrc file (expected option value, got … )</span>"</a></h4>
<p>
You have a syntax error in your getmailrc file. Empty option values are not
allowed. If you want to specify an empty string as an option value, you have to
quote it:
</p>
<pre class="sample">foo = ""</pre>
<h4 id="error-message-writable">
<a href="#error-messages">getmail complains about "<span class="error">configuration error in getmailrc file (/path/to/getmailrc): file is group- or world-writable</span>".
What's wrong?</a>
</h4>
<p>
Your getmailrc configuration file is group- or world-writable. For security
reasons, getmail refuses to run with a group- or world-writable getmailrc file.
Change the permissions on that file.
</p>
<h4 id="error-message-locals">
<a href="#error-messages">getmail complains about "<span class="error">Configuration error (local directives require use_*env or envelope_recipient to identify envelope recipient)</span>".
What's wrong?</a>
</h4>
<p>
The account configuration in question contains <a href="docs.html#directive-local"><span class="sample">local</span></a>
directives, but you haven't told getmail how to determine the original envelope recipient address of the message.
To use multidrop mode, you must either enable <a href="docs.html#directive-use-*env"><span class="sample">use_*env</span></a>
(if your mailhost supports it) or tell getmail which header field the envelope recipient address is recorded in by the
mailhost's MTA using the <a href="docs.html#directive-envelope-recipient"><span class="sample">envelope_recipient</span></a>
directive.
</p>
<h4 id="error-message-no-matching-headers">
<a href="#error-messages">getmail complains about "<span class="error">Configuration error (no matching header fields (something))</span>".
What's wrong?</a>
</h4>
<p>
You've used the <a href="docs.html#directive-envelope-recipient"><span class="sample">envelope_recipient</span></a>
directive to enable domain mailbox operation, but a retrieved message didn't contain the header field you specified.
To use multidrop mode, you must either enable <a href="docs.html#directive-use-*env"><span class="sample">use_*env</span></a>
(if your mailhost supports it) or tell getmail which header field the envelope recipient address is recorded in by the
mailhost's MTA using the <a href="docs.html#directive-envelope-recipient"><span class="sample">envelope_recipient</span></a>
directive.
</p>
<h4 id="error-message-root">
<a href="#error-messages">getmail complains about "<span class="error">Delivery error (refuse to deliver to commands as root)</span>".
What's wrong?</a>
</h4>
<p>
You're running getmail as user "root" (UID 0) and trying to have getmail run an external command.
<a href="docs.html#delivery-targets">The documentation says don't do that.</a>
</p>
<h3 id="config"><a href="#faq">getmail configuration</a></h3>
<h4 id="config-domain"><a href="#config">What is a "domain mailbox"?</a></h4>
<p>
A domain (or multidrop) mailbox is a POP3 mailbox which receives mail for all
users in a given domain. Normal mailboxes contain mail for a single user (like
<span class="sample">jason@myisp.co.uk</span>); some Internet Service Providers
which provide webhosting or other services will provide a POP3 mailbox which
receives mail for all addresses in a given domain (i.e. mail for
<span class="sample">service@smallcompany.net</span>,
<span class="sample">sales@smallcompany.net</span>, and indeed anything
<span class="sample">@smallcompany.net</span> ends up in the same POP3 mailbox).
</p>
<p>
getmail provides a method of retrieving mail from a domain mailbox and
distributing it among the various users automatically. See the documentation
sections on <a href="docs.html#directive-local">header field pattern matching delivery targets</a>,
<a href="docs.html#directive-envelope-recipient">envelope recipient address field specification</a>,
<a href="docs.html#directive-postmaster">default delivery target</a>, and
<a href="docs.html#account-types-domain">POP3 domain mailboxes</a>.
</p>
<h4 id="config-mta"><a href="#config">Do I have to run sendmail or another MTA to use getmail?</a></h4>
<p>
No. getmail delivers directly to Maildirs or via arbitrary MDAs, and never
injects mail via SMTP, so no MTA is necessary. P.S. If you're currently running
sendmail, consider switching to <a href="http://www.qmail.org/">qmail</a> if you
need a full MTA, or <a href="http://untroubled.org/nullmailer/">nullmailer</a>
if you relay all your mail through your ISP's smarthost. Both of them are
better and more secure than sendmail.
</p>
<h4 id="config-simple"><a href="#config">I've got a simple POP3 account. Do I need "local=…" configuration variables?</a></h4>
<p>
No, you don't need them. They might be useful to you if the MTA on the POP3 server
supports extension addresses (i.e. <a href="http://www.qmail.org/">qmail</a>) and records the envelope
recipient address properly.
But in general, you will only need to use a <a href="docs.html/#directive-postmaster">postmaster directive</a>.
</p>
<h3 id="other-errors"><a href="#faq">Other getmail errors</a></h3>
<h4 id="other-errors-maildir"><a href="#other-errors">I've configured getmail to deliver to my Maildir, but it won't do it. Why?</a></h4>
<p>
Double-check your getmailrc file. Maildir delivery targets
<strong>must</strong> include a trailing slash.
</p>
<h4 id="other-errors-mbox"><a href="#other-errors">I've configured getmail to deliver to my mbox file, but it won't do it. Why?</a></h4>
<p>
getmail 3.x does not have native mbox support, as all mbox-capable MDAs on a
given system must use the same locking mechanism and support the same mbox
subtype. You can use getmail's command delivery mechanism to deliver through an
external mbox-aware MDA (see the next paragraph) if you must, but consider using
maildirs instead.
</p>
<p>
getmail includes <span class="sample">getmail_mbox</span>, an mbox delivery
agent you can use in this fashion. It supports mboxrd-format mbox files and
uses flock-style locking. Make sure these are the correct types for your system
before using it, as all mbox-handling programs on a system must use the same
types and values.
</p>
<p>
To use getmail_mbox to deliver to mbox files, specify it as an external MDA.
It takes the path to the mbox file as a commandline argument, as follows:
<pre class="sample">getmail_mbox /path/to/mbox</pre>
Example uses:
<pre class="sample">
postmaster = "|/path/to/getmail_mbox /path/to/mbox"
local = "^joe@.*$,|/path/to/getmail_mbox /home/joe/mbox"
local = "^sam@.*$,|/path/to/getmail_mbox /home/sam/mbox"
</pre>
</p>
<h4 id="other-errors-command"><a href="#other-errors">I've configured getmail to deliver to a command (external MDA), but it complains that the command <span class="error">exited 0 but wrote to stderr</span>. Why?</a></h4>
<p>
Command deliveries must exit 0 and not write anything to stderr to be considered
a successful delivery. If you know your MDA can write to stderr on success,
give your command a <span class="sample">--quiet</span> option (if it supports
it) or discard or redirect stderr in the command specification of the delivery
target.
</p>
<h4 id="other-errors-allmail"><a href="#other-errors">Why does getmail retrieve all my messages when I've told it to only retrieve new mail?</a></h4>
<p>
Your POP3 mail server is probably broken. getmail requires that the server
support the POP3 UIDL command to uniquely identify messages. If the server
doesn't support it, getmail cannot tell which messages it has already seen, and
therefore retrieves all messages.
</p>
<h3 id="how"><a href="#faq">How do I …</a></h3>
<h4 id="how-delivered-to"><a href="#how">How do I stop getmail adding a Delivered-To: header to email?</a></h4>
<p>
Use the <a href="docs.html#directive-no-delivered-to">no_delivered_to configuration directive</a>.
</p>
<h4 id="how-received"><a href="#how">How do I stop getmail adding a Received: header to email?</a></h4>
<p>
Use the <a href="docs.html#directive-no-received">no_received configuration directive</a>.
</p>
<h4 id="how-pipe"><a href="#how">How do I make getmail deliver messages to a program?</a></h4>
<p>
Specify the delivery target as <span class="sample">|path-to-command</span>. You should probably
use full paths (e.g. <span class="sample">/usr/bin/maildrop</span>). As a basic security
precaution, getmail will refuse to deliver to programs if it is running as root.
</p>
<p class="warning">
Warning: if you don't know what you're doing, you can shoot yourself in the
foot with this option.
</p>
<h4 id="how-smtp"><a href="#how">How do I make getmail deliver messages by re-injecting with SMTP?</a></h4>
<p>
You don't. getmail doesn't do this, to prevent lost mail, mail loops, and
bounces if getmail or your Mail Transfer Agent is misconfigured. getmail has
native support for delivering to qmail-style Maildirs and commands (pipe
delivery). Therefore you shouldn't need to re-inject retrieved messages.
</p>
<p>
If you absolutely must inject retrieved messages into an MTA, it is possible to
do this knowing no more than what is included in the getmail documentation. If
you know enough about mail to avoid the pitfalls mentioned above, you don't need
my help figuring out how.
</p>
<h4 id="how-ssl"><a href="#how">How do I make getmail use SSL / talk to an SSL-wrapped POP3 server (POP3S)?</a></h4>
<p>
Use the SSL utility <a href="http://www.stunnel.org/">stunnel</a> to set up an SSL tunnel from
a port on your machine to the SSL-wrapped POP3 port (typically TCP port 995) on the mailserver.
Then configure getmail to connect to the local end of the tunnel.
</p>
<p>
The easiest way to do this is to use a tiny shellscript wrapper which sets up the tunnel
and then runs getmail. An example would be:
</p>
<pre class="sample">#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/stunnel -c -D 4 -d 8110 -r 192.168.2.3:995
getmail
</pre>
<p>
The above script sets up a tunnel from port 8110 on localhost to port 995 on
the mailserver at 192.168.2.3. You would then use the following getmailrc
configuration:
</p>
<pre class="sample">[SSL-wrapped access to my mail]
server = localhost
port = 8110
username = me
password = mypassword
</pre>
<p>
Note that there are security considerations with this configuration, as with all
configurations. For instance, do not configure getmail to connect to a port
that another local user might have already set up a listener on; stunnel could
fail to set up the tunnel, and if the other user had set up a POP3 listener,
getmail would send your credentials to it. You could set up the tunnel on
a privileged port to prevent non-privileged local users from mounting this
type of attack.
</p>
<h4 id="how-daemon"><a href="#how">How do I run getmail in "daemon" mode?</a></h4>
<p>
Use your system's cron utility to run getmail periodically if you wish to have
mail retrieved automatically at intervals. This is precisely what cron is
designed to do; there's no need to add special code to getmail to do this.
</p>
<p>
Keep in mind that cron usually runs user cron jobs in a simpler environment
than the user has in a login shell. In particular, $PATH is frequently much
shorter. If your getmail shell script wrapper has `which python` or similar
in it, you might need to explicitly set $PATH or change the wrapper to point
explicitly to the Python interpreter.
</p>
<h4 id="how-spam"><a href="#how">How do I use SpamAssassin (or another spam-filtering solution) with getmail?</a></h4>
<p>
Use it as an external MDA, which getmail supports. getmail user "Frankye"
contributed <a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=getmail&m=107591610118287&w=2">a
working SpamAssassin setup in this list message</a>. Also see his
(and others') contributions in <a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=108306112300002&r=1&w=2">this
thread about spam filtering</a>.
</p>
<h4 id="how-tmda"><a href="#how">How do I use TMDA with getmail?</a></h4>
<p>
<a href="http://tmda.sourceforge.net">TMDA</a> is the Tagged Message Delivery
Agent, an excercise in preventing spam from ever reaching your inbox.
</p>
<p>
To make getmail export the <a href="docs.html#directive-delivery-
targets">environment variables</a> which TMDA needs, you must use
<a href="docs.html#directive-local">local directives</a> in your getmailrc file.
You can then optionally set the <a href="docs.html#directive-extension-sep">extension_sep</a>
and <a href="docs.html#directive-extension-depth">extension_depth</a> directives.
</p>
<p>
For example, if getmail determines the envelope recipient to be
<span class="sample">domain-user-ext1-ext2@otherdomain.tld</span>,
<span class="sample">extension_sep</span> is set to <span class="sample">-</span>,
and <span class="sample">extension_depth</span> is set to <span class="sample">1</span>,
then getmail will set <span class="sample">EXT</span> to <span class="sample">user-ext1-ext2</span>.
If <span class="sample">extension_depth</span> is 2, it will instead set
<span class="sample">EXT</span> to <span class="sample">ext1-ext2</span>.
</p>
<p>
TMDA renames existing Delivered-To: header fields to Old-Delivered-To:. Previous
versions (0.55 through 0.57 or so) instead tried to strip recent Delivered-To:
fields and may have required disabling getmail's addition of new Delivered-To:
header fields.
</p>
<p>
You will need a wrapper around TMDA to use in a
<a href="docs.html#delivery-targets">command delivery target</a>
which conditionally delivers the message based on TMDA's exit code.
getmail does not include such a wrapper; you will need to write it or find
it yourself.
</p>
<p>
Note that getmail will only be able to determine the envelope recipient address
(and extension part of that address) reliably if the MTA at the POP3 server is
configured to record the envelope recipient in a message header field (i.e. as
qmail does with Delivered-To:), and you have configured getmail to only look at
that header field with the
<a href="docs.html#directive-envelope-recipient">envelope_recipient</a> directive,
or if your ISP supports the SPDS *ENV extension and you have configured
getmail to use it.
</p>
<p>
If anyone has concrete experience using getmail and TMDA together, please feel
free to send instructions or your wrapper script to me; I personally do not use
a filtering MDA and therefore have no experience making TMDA work with getmail.
</p>
<h4 id="how-virus"><a href="#how">How do I do virus scanning of retrieved messages with getmail?</a></h4>
<p>
You can do this in hundreds of different ways. There are many threads in the mailing
list archive dealing specifically with this topic; please read at least all of
February 2003, including <a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=getmail&m=104467583728416&w=2">this
thread</a>, before posting to the mailing list.
</p>
<h4 id="how-filter"><a href="#how">How do I do message filtering with getmail?</a></h4>
<p>
The best way is to use a program designed specifically to do message filtering, like a filtering
MDA. The best-known example of a filtering MDA is procmail, but I don't recommend using it.
maildrop is much easier to use.
</p>
<p>
getmail can invoke arbitrary programs as external MDAs, so you can also write your
own filters as you choose. A simple example, changing all occurrences of the
string "stupid" to "XXXXXX" and using safecat to deliver the
resulting filtered message to a Maildir might be to specify a delivery
target of <pre class="sample">|/bin/sed 's/stupid/XXXXXX/g' | safecat ./Maildir/tmp ./Maildir/new</pre>
.
</p>
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