[fetchmail]SMTP problem

[Bo Grimes]

Rob MacGregor wrote:

>1) Post your .fetchmailrc
>  
>
# Configuration created Thu Sep 29 18:23:51 2005 by fetchmailconf
set postmaster "fred"         <------ should this be root or postmaster?
set bouncemail
set no spambounce
set properties ""
poll pop.newsguy.com with proto POP3
       user 'fred' there with password 'deleted' is 'fred' here

>2) Confirm that <username> is the same at ISP and local machine (ie,
>fred@isp.com is fred@localhost
>  
>

It is.

>3) Consult your mail log (probably under /var/log/mail<something>)
>  
>

/var/log/mail/mail.log doesn't seem to have anything useful.  Mostly 
it's a lot of stuff about spamd which regularly says stuff like: strider 
spamd[17207]: got connection over 
/home/fred/.evolution/cache/tmp/spamd-socket-path-Fh6V1d  then it checks 
messages and cleans them, etc.

All my GUI MUAs have no problems.  Spamd (spamassassin) may be the 
problem, I suppose, but I don't see how.

>4) Learn more about your MTA (http://www.exim.org/) :-)
>  
>

Trying, but it's a bit like a dyslexic trying to learn Geek, I mean 
Greek.  Looking in /var/log led me to /var/log/exim4/rejectlog.1 which 
says stuff like:

2005-09-29 14:15:06 H=localhost [127.0.0.1] F=<fred@isp.com> temporarily 
rejected RCPT <fred@localhost>: failed to open /etc/aliases for linear 
search: Permission denied (euid=112 egid=112)

I will read up on aliases.  This seems to be getting at the root of the 
problem because in /etc/aliases it says the postmaster is root.  
However, if I run fetchmailconf and then fetchmail as root setting the 
local name to 'fred' I still get the same problem.  Root's .fetchmailrc 
gets written with set postmaster "postmaster". 

What I'm trying to figure out, because I think it would help, is just 
how Evolution, et al send mail successfully.  When I set up a graphical 
MUA I set the smtp as smtp.isp.com; however, my machine has to use some 
MTA that has to use my smtp to get it to my isp's smtp, right?  I assume 
that's Exim, so why does it work for Evolution?

My /etc/exim/config files have stuff about aliases, so it looks like I'm 
on the right path here, though /etc/aliases is a sendmail and smail file 
that Exim doesn't use except for compabitility, it seems. 

Thanks for the pointers.  This may take awile for me and is probably 
best persued down the exim route rather than fetchmail.  Appreciate it!  
Disclaimer: The rest of this is just pissiness and not meant to indicate 
ingratitude and need not be read.

> 5) Do the same for whatever flavour of Linux you've got

Which is why I tried to make it clear from the start that I was doing 
this, hoping to avoid the obligatory rtfm conversation.  On my desk sit 
"The Linux Cookbook," "The Linux Administration Handbook," "Running 
Linux," and "Fedora 3 Unleashed."  I never resort to usenet, mailing 
list or irc until I have tried everything else.  I thought I had 
narrowed the problem down very significantly and posted what I thought 
was the key infomation for diagnosing the problem.

Conversely, I guess I could just skip fetchmail and stick with what 
already works.

Sorry I'm getting pissy, and I'm sure it's obvious, but over the last 6 
years of using Linux as just a regular home user coming from Windows 
with no tech background whatsoever it just seems Linux folk shoot their 
wounded.

I was very trepidatious about posting to this list, thinking it was just 
slightly less intimidating than the mutt list which is only below the 
kernel list, so I tried to do my homework.

Anyway, I do mean it when I say thank-you.