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fetchmail(1)		  fetchmail reference manual		  fetchmail(1)



NAME
       fetchmail - fetch mail from a POP, IMAP, ETRN, or ODMR-capable server


SYNOPSIS
       fetchmail [option...] [mailserver...]
       fetchmailconf


DESCRIPTION
       fetchmail  is  a mail-retrieval and forwarding utility; it fetches mail
       from  remote  mailservers  and  forwards	 it  to	 your  local  (client)
       machine's  delivery  system.   You  can	then handle the retrieved mail
       using normal mail user agents such as mutt(1), elm(1) or Mail(1).   The
       fetchmail utility can be run in a daemon mode to repeatedly poll one or
       more systems at a specified interval.

       The fetchmail program can gather mail from servers  supporting  any  of
       the  common  mail-retrieval protocols: POP2 (legacy, to be removed from
       future release), POP3, IMAP2bis, IMAP4, and IMAP4rev1.  It can also use
       the ESMTP ETRN extension and ODMR.  (The RFCs describing all these pro-
       tocols are listed at the end of this manual page.)

       While fetchmail is primarily intended to be used over on-demand	TCP/IP
       links  (such  as	 SLIP  or PPP connections), it may also be useful as a
       message transfer agent for sites which refuse for security  reasons  to
       permit (sender-initiated) SMTP transactions with sendmail.


   SUPPORT, TROUBLESHOOTING
       For troubleshooting, tracing and debugging, you need to increase fetch-
       mail's verbosity to actually see what happens. To do that,  please  run
       both  of	 the  two  following commands, adding all of the options you'd
       normally use.


	      env LC_ALL=C fetchmail -V -v --nodetach --nosyslog

	      (This command line prints in English how	fetchmail  understands
	      your configuration.)


	      env LC_ALL=C fetchmail -vvv  --nodetach --nosyslog

	      (This  command line actually runs fetchmail with verbose English
	      output.)

       Also see item #G3 in fetchmail's FAQ <http://fetchmail.berlios.de/
       fetchmail-FAQ.html#G3>

       You  can	 omit  the LC_ALL=C part above if you want output in the local
       language (if supported). However if you are posting to  mailing	lists,
       please  leave it in. The maintainers do not necessarily understand your
       language, please use English.




   CONCEPTS
       If fetchmail is used with a POP or an IMAP server (but not with ETRN or
       ODMR),  it has two fundamental modes of operation for each user account
       from which it retrieves mail: singledrop- and multidrop-mode.

       In singledrop-mode,
	      fetchmail assumes that all messages in the user's account (mail-
	      box)  are	 intended for a single recipient.  The identity of the
	      recipient will either default to the local user  currently  exe-
	      cuting fetchmail, or will need to be explicitly specified in the
	      configuration file.

	      fetchmail uses singledrop-mode when the  fetchmailrc  configura-
	      tion  contains  at  most a single local user specification for a
	      given server account.

       In multidrop-mode,
	      fetchmail assumes that the mail server account actually contains
	      mail  intended  for  any number of different recipients.	There-
	      fore, fetchmail must attempt  to	deduce	the  proper  "envelope
	      recipient"  from the mail headers of each message.  In this mode
	      of operation, fetchmail almost resembles a mail  transfer	 agent
	      (MTA).

	      Note  that  neither the POP nor IMAP protocols were intended for
	      use in this fashion, and hence envelope information is often not
	      directly	available.   The ISP must stores the envelope informa-
	      tion in some message header and. The ISP	must  also  store  one
	      copy  of	the message per recipient. If either of the conditions
	      is not fulfilled, this process is unreliable, because  fetchmail
	      must then resort to guessing the true envelope recipient(s) of a
	      message. This usually fails for mailing list messages and	 Bcc:d
	      mail, or mail for multiple recipients in your domain.

	      fetchmail	 uses  multidrop-mode  when  more  than one local user
	      and/or a wildcard is specified for a particular  server  account
	      in the configuration file.

       In ETRN and ODMR modes,
	      these  considerations do not apply, as these protocols are based
	      on SMTP, which provides explicit envelope recipient information.
	      These protocols always support multiple recipients.

       As  each	 message is retrieved, fetchmail normally delivers it via SMTP
       to port 25 on the machine it is running on (localhost), just as	though
       it  were being passed in over a normal TCP/IP link.  fetchmail provides
       the SMTP server with  an	 envelope  recipient  derived  in  the	manner
       described  previously.	The  mail  will then be delivered according to
       your MTA's rules (the  Mail  Transfer  Agent  is	 usually  sendmail(8),
       exim(8),	 or  postfix(8)).   Invoking  your system's MDA (Mail Delivery
       Agent) is the duty of your MTA.	All  the  delivery-control  mechanisms
       (such as .forward files) normally available through your system MTA and
       local delivery agents will therefore be applied as usual.

       If your fetchmail  configuration	 sets  a  local	 MDA  (see  the	 --mda
       option), it will be used directly instead of talking SMTP to port 25.

       If  the	program fetchmailconf is available, it will assist you in set-
       ting up and editing a fetchmailrc configuration.	 It runs under	the  X
       window  system and requires that the language Python and the Tk toolkit
       (with Python bindings) be present on your system.   If  you  are	 first
       setting	up  fetchmail for single-user mode, it is recommended that you
       use Novice mode.	 Expert mode provides complete	control	 of  fetchmail
       configuration,  including  the multidrop features.  In either case, the
       'Autoprobe' button will tell you the  most  capable  protocol  a	 given
       mailserver  supports,  and  warn	 you  of  potential problems with that
       server.


GENERAL OPERATION
       The behavior of fetchmail is controlled by command-line options	and  a
       run  control file, ~/.fetchmailrc, the syntax of which we describe in a
       later section (this file is  what  the  fetchmailconf  program  edits).
       Command-line options override ~/.fetchmailrc declarations.

       Each  server name that you specify following the options on the command
       line will be queried.  If you don't specify any servers on the  command
       line, each 'poll' entry in your ~/.fetchmailrc file will be queried.

       To facilitate the use of fetchmail in scripts and pipelines, it returns
       an appropriate exit code upon termination -- see EXIT CODES below.

       The following options modify the behavior of fetchmail.	It  is	seldom
       necessary  to specify any of these once you have a working .fetchmailrc
       file set up.

       Almost all options have a corresponding keyword which can  be  used  to
       declare them in a .fetchmailrc file.

       Some  special  options are not covered here, but are documented instead
       in sections on AUTHENTICATION and DAEMON MODE which follow.

   General Options
       -V | --version
	      Displays the version information for your copy of fetchmail.  No
	      mail  fetch  is  performed.  Instead, for each server specified,
	      all the option information that would be computed	 if  fetchmail
	      were connecting to that server is displayed.  Any non-printables
	      in passwords or other string names are shown as  backslashed  C-
	      like escape sequences.  This option is useful for verifying that
	      your options are set the way you want them.

       -c | --check
	      Return a status code to indicate whether there is mail  waiting,
	      without  actually	 fetching  or  deleting	 mail  (see EXIT CODES
	      below).  This option turns off daemon mode (in which it would be
	      useless).	  It doesn't play well with queries to multiple sites,
	      and doesn't work with ETRN or ODMR.  It will return a false pos-
	      itive  if you leave read but undeleted mail in your server mail-
	      box and your fetch protocol can't tell kept  messages  from  new
	      ones.   This  means  it will work with IMAP, not work with POP2,
	      and may occasionally flake out under POP3.

       -s | --silent
	      Silent mode.  Suppresses all progress/status messages  that  are
	      normally	echoed to standard output during a fetch (but does not
	      suppress actual error messages).	The --verbose option overrides
	      this.

       -v | --verbose
	      Verbose mode.  All control messages passed between fetchmail and
	      the mailserver are echoed to stdout.  Overrides --silent.	  Dou-
	      bling this option (-v -v) causes extra diagnostic information to
	      be printed.

       --nosoftbounce
	      (since v6.3.10, Keyword: set no softbounce, since v6.3.10)
	      Hard bounce mode. All permanent delivery errors  cause  messages
	      to  be  deleted  from  the  upstream server, see "no softbounce"
	      below.

       --softbounce
	      (since v6.3.10, Keyword: set softbounce, since v6.3.10)
	      Soft bounce mode. All permanent delivery errors  cause  messages
	      to be left on the upstream server if the protocol supports that.
	      Default to match historic fetchmail documentation, to be changed
	      to hard bounce mode in the next fetchmail release.

   Disposal Options
       -a | --all | (since v6.3.3) --fetchall
	      (Keyword: fetchall, since v3.0)
	      Retrieve	both  old (seen) and new messages from the mailserver.
	      The default is to fetch only messages the server has not	marked
	      seen.   Under  POP3,  this  option  also	forces the use of RETR
	      rather than TOP.	Note that POP2	retrieval  behaves  as	though
	      --all  is always on (see RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES below) and this
	      option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.  While the -a and	 --all
	      command-line and fetchall rcfile options have been supported for
	      a long time, the --fetchall command-line	option	was  added  in
	      v6.3.3.

       -k | --keep
	      (Keyword: keep)
	      Keep  retrieved  messages	 on  the remote mailserver.  Normally,
	      messages are deleted from the folder  on	the  mailserver	 after
	      they  have  been	retrieved.   Specifying the keep option causes
	      retrieved messages to remain in your folder on  the  mailserver.
	      This  option does not work with ETRN or ODMR. If used with POP3,
	      it is recommended to also specify the --uidl option or uidl key-
	      word.

       -K | --nokeep
	      (Keyword: nokeep)
	      Delete  retrieved	 messages  from	 the  remote mailserver.  This
	      option forces retrieved mail to be deleted.  It may be useful if
	      you have specified a default of keep in your .fetchmailrc.  This
	      option is forced on with ETRN and ODMR.

       -F | --flush
	      (Keyword: flush)
	      POP3/IMAP only.  This is a dangerous option and can  cause  mail
	      loss  when  used improperly. It deletes old (seen) messages from
	      the mailserver before retrieving new  messages.	Warning:  This
	      can  cause  mail	loss if you check your mail with other clients
	      than fetchmail, and cause fetchmail to delete a message  it  had
	      never  fetched  before.  It can also cause mail loss if the mail
	      server marks the message seen after retrieval  (IMAP2  servers).
	      You  should  probably  not use this option in your configuration
	      file. If you use it with POP3, you must use the  'uidl'  option.
	      What  you	 probably  want	 is  the default setting: if you don't
	      specify '-k', then fetchmail will automatically delete  messages
	      after successful delivery.

       --limitflush
	      POP3/IMAP	 only, since version 6.3.0.  Delete oversized messages
	      from the mailserver before retrieving  new  messages.  The  size
	      limit  should  be	 separately specified with the --limit option.
	      This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.

   Protocol and Query Options
       -p <proto> | --proto <proto> | --protocol <proto>
	      (Keyword: proto[col])
	      Specify the protocol to use when communicating with  the	remote
	      mailserver.   If	no protocol is specified, the default is AUTO.
	      proto may be one of the following:

	      AUTO   Tries IMAP, POP3, and POP2 (skipping  any	of  these  for
		     which support has not been compiled in).

	      POP2   Post Office Protocol 2 (legacy, to be removed from future
		     release)

	      POP3   Post Office Protocol 3

	      APOP   Use POP3 with old-fashioned MD5-challenge authentication.
		     Considered not resistant to man-in-the-middle attacks.

	      RPOP   Use POP3 with RPOP authentication.

	      KPOP   Use POP3 with Kerberos V4 authentication on port 1109.

	      SDPS   Use POP3 with Demon Internet's SDPS extensions.

	      IMAP   IMAP2bis,	IMAP4,	or  IMAP4rev1 (fetchmail automatically
		     detects their capabilities).

	      ETRN   Use the ESMTP ETRN option.

	      ODMR   Use the the On-Demand Mail Relay ESMTP profile.

       All these alternatives work in basically the  same  way	(communicating
       with standard server daemons to fetch mail already delivered to a mail-
       box on the server) except ETRN and ODMR.	 The ETRN mode allows  you  to
       ask  a compliant ESMTP server (such as BSD sendmail at release 8.8.0 or
       higher) to immediately open a sender-SMTP  connection  to  your	client
       machine and begin forwarding any items addressed to your client machine
       in the server's queue of undelivered mail.   The ODMR mode requires  an
       ODMR-capable  server  and  works similarly to ETRN, except that it does
       not require the client machine to have a static DNS.

       -U | --uidl
	      (Keyword: uidl)
	      Force UIDL use (effective only with  POP3).   Force  client-side
	      tracking	of  'newness'  of messages (UIDL stands for "unique ID
	      listing" and is described in RFC1939).  Use with 'keep' to use a
	      mailbox  as a baby news drop for a group of users. The fact that
	      seen messages are skipped is logged,  unless  error  logging  is
	      done  through  syslog  while  running in daemon mode.  Note that
	      fetchmail may automatically  enable  this	 option	 depending  on
	      upstream server capabilities.  Note also that this option may be
	      removed and forced enabled in a future  fetchmail	 version.  See
	      also: --idfile.

       --idle (since 6.3.3)
	      (Keyword: idle, since before 6.0.0)
	      Enable IDLE use (effective only with IMAP). Note that this works
	      with only one folder at a given time.   While  the  idle	rcfile
	      keyword  had been supported for a long time, the --idle command-
	      line option was added in version	6.3.3.	IDLE  use  means  that
	      fetchmail	 tells the IMAP server to send notice of new messages,
	      so they can be retrieved sooner than would be possible with reg-
	      ular polls.

       -P <portnumber> | --service <servicename>
	      (Keyword: service) Since version 6.3.0.
	      The service option permits you to specify a service name to con-
	      nect to.	You can specify a decimal port number  here,  if  your
	      services	database  lacks the required service-port assignments.
	      See the FAQ item R12 and the --ssl  documentation	 for  details.
	      This replaces the older --port option.

       --port <portnumber>
	      (Keyword: port)
	      Obsolete	version of --service that does not take service names.
	      Note: this option may be removed from a future version.

       --principal <principal>
	      (Keyword: principal)
	      The principal option permits you to specify a service  principal
	      for  mutual  authentication.  This is applicable to POP3 or IMAP
	      with Kerberos authentication.

       -t <seconds> | --timeout <seconds>
	      (Keyword: timeout)
	      The timeout option allows you to set a server-nonresponse	 time-
	      out  in  seconds.	 If a mailserver does not send a greeting mes-
	      sage or respond to commands for the  given  number  of  seconds,
	      fetchmail	 will drop the connection to it.  Without such a time-
	      out fetchmail might hang until the  TCP  connection  times  out,
	      trying  to  fetch mail from a down host, which may be very long.
	      This would be particularly annoying for a fetchmail  running  in
	      the  background.	 There is a default timeout which fetchmail -V
	      will report.  If a given connection receives too	many  timeouts
	      in succession, fetchmail will consider it wedged and stop retry-
	      ing.  The calling user will be notified by email	if  this  hap-
	      pens.

	      Beginning with fetchmail 6.3.10, the SMTP client uses the recom-
	      mended minimum timeouts from  RFC-5321  while  waiting  for  the
	      SMTP/LMTP	 server	 it is talking to.  You can raise the timeouts
	      even more, but you cannot shorten it. This is to avoid a painful
	      situation where fetchmail has been configured with a short time-
	      out (a minute or less), ships a long message  (many  MBytes)  to
	      the  local  MTA, which then takes longer than timeout to respond
	      "OK", which it eventually will; that would mean  the  mail  gets
	      delivered properly, but fetchmail cannot notice it and will thus
	      refetch this big message over and over again.

       --plugin <command>
	      (Keyword: plugin)
	      The plugin option allows you  to	use  an	 external  program  to
	      establish the TCP connection.  This is useful if you want to use
	      ssh, or need some special firewalling setup.  The	 program  will
	      be  looked up in $PATH and can optionally be passed the hostname
	      and port as arguments using "%h"	and  "%p"  respectively	 (note
	      that  the	 interpolation	logic  is  rather primitive, and these
	      tokens must be bounded by whitespace or beginning of  string  or
	      end  of string).	Fetchmail will write to the plugin's stdin and
	      read from the plugin's stdout.

       --plugout <command>
	      (Keyword: plugout)
	      Identical to the plugin option above, but this one is  used  for
	      the SMTP connections.

       -r <name> | --folder <name>
	      (Keyword: folder[s])
	      Causes a specified non-default mail folder on the mailserver (or
	      comma-separated list of folders) to be retrieved.	 The syntax of
	      the  folder name is server-dependent.  This option is not avail-
	      able under POP3, ETRN, or ODMR.

       --tracepolls
	      (Keyword: tracepolls)
	      Tell fetchmail to poll trace information in  the	form  'polling
	      account  %s'  and 'folder %s' to the Received line it generates,
	      where the %s parts are replaced by the user's remote  name,  the
	      poll  label,  and	 the  folder  (mailbox)	 where	available (the
	      Received header also normally includes the server's true	name).
	      This  can	 be  used  to  facilitate  mail filtering based on the
	      account it is being received from.  The  folder  information  is
	      written only since version 6.3.4.

       --ssl  (Keyword: ssl)
	      Causes  the  connection  to  the mail server to be encrypted via
	      SSL.  Connect to the server using the  specified	base  protocol
	      over  a  connection  secured  by SSL. This option defeats oppor-
	      tunistic starttls negotiation. It is highly recommended  to  use
	      --sslproto  'SSL3' --sslcertck to validate the certificates pre-
	      sented by the server and defeat the obsolete SSLv2  negotiation.
	      More  information is available in the README.SSL file that ships
	      with fetchmail.

	      Note that fetchmail may  still  try  to  negotiate  SSL  through
	      starttls	even if this option is omitted. You can use the --ssl-
	      proto option to defeat this behavior or tell fetchmail to	 nego-
	      tiate a particular SSL protocol.

	      If no port is specified, the connection is attempted to the well
	      known port of the SSL version of the  base  protocol.   This  is
	      generally a different port than the port used by the base proto-
	      col.  For IMAP, this is port 143 for the clear protocol and port
	      993  for	the SSL secured protocol, for POP3, it is port 110 for
	      the clear text and port 995 for the encrypted variant.

	      If your system lacks the corresponding  entries  from  /etc/ser-
	      vices,  see  the	--service  option and specify the numeric port
	      number as given in the previous paragraph (unless your  ISP  had
	      directed you to different ports, which is uncommon however).

       --sslcert <name>
	      (Keyword: sslcert)
	      For certificate-based client authentication.  Some SSL encrypted
	      servers require client side keys and certificates for  authenti-
	      cation.	In  most  cases, this is optional.  This specifies the
	      location of the public key certificate to be  presented  to  the
	      server  at  the  time the SSL session is established.  It is not
	      required (but may be provided) if the server  does  not  require
	      it.   It	may  be the same file as the private key (combined key
	      and certificate file) but this  is  not  recommended.  Also  see
	      --sslkey below.

	      NOTE: If you use client authentication, the user name is fetched
	      from the certificate's CommonName and  overrides	the  name  set
	      with --user.

       --sslkey <name>
	      (Keyword: sslkey)
	      Specifies	 the  file  name  of  the client side private SSL key.
	      Some SSL encrypted servers require client side keys and certifi-
	      cates  for  authentication.   In	most  cases, this is optional.
	      This specifies the location of the  private  key	used  to  sign
	      transactions  with  the  server  at  the time the SSL session is
	      established.  It is not required (but may be  provided)  if  the
	      server  does not require it. It may be the same file as the pub-
	      lic key (combined key and certificate file) but this is not rec-
	      ommended.

	      If a password is required to unlock the key, it will be prompted
	      for at the time just prior to establishing the  session  to  the
	      server.  This can cause some complications in daemon mode.

	      Also see --sslcert above.

       --sslproto <name>
	      (Keyword: sslproto)
	      Forces  an  SSL/TLS  protocol.  Possible	values are '', 'SSL2',
	      'SSL23', (use of these two values is discouraged and should only
	      be  used	as a last resort) 'SSL3', and 'TLS1'.  The default be-
	      haviour if this option is	 unset	is:  for  connections  without
	      --ssl,  use  'TLS1'  that	 fetchmail  will opportunistically try
	      STARTTLS negotiation with TLS1. You can  configure  this	option
	      explicitly  if the default handshake (TLS1 if --ssl is not used,
	      does not work for your server.

	      Use this option with 'TLS1' value to enforce a STARTTLS  connec-
	      tion.  In	 this  mode,  it  is  highly  recommended  to also use
	      --sslcertck (see below).

	      To defeat opportunistic TLSv1 negotiation when the server adver-
	      tises  STARTTLS or STLS, use ''.	This option, even if the argu-
	      ment is the empty string,	 will  also  suppress  the  diagnostic
	      'SERVER: opportunistic upgrade to TLS.' message in verbose mode.
	      The default is to try appropriate protocols  depending  on  con-
	      text.

       --sslcertck
	      (Keyword: sslcertck)
	      Causes  fetchmail	 to  strictly  check  the  server  certificate
	      against a set of local trusted certificates (see the sslcertfile
	      and  sslcertpath	options).  If the server certificate cannot be
	      obtained or is not signed by one of the trusted  ones  (directly
	      or  indirectly), the SSL connection will fail, regardless of the
	      sslfingerprint option.

	      Note that CRL (certificate revocation lists) are only  supported
	      in  OpenSSL  0.9.7  and  newer! Your system clock should also be
	      reasonably accurate when using this option.

	      Note that this optional behavior may become default behavior  in
	      future fetchmail versions.

       --sslcertfile <file>
	      (Keyword: sslcertfile, since v6.3.17)
	      Sets the file fetchmail uses to look up local certificates.  The
	      default is empty.	 This can be given in addition	to  --sslcert-
	      path  below, and certificates specified in --sslcertfile will be
	      processed before those in --sslcertpath.	The option can be used
	      in addition to --sslcertpath.

	      The  file	 is  a	text  file.  It	 contains the concatenation of
	      trusted CA certificates in PEM format.

	      Note that using this option will suppress	 loading  the  default
	      SSL  trusted CA certificates file unless you set the environment
	      variable FETCHMAIL_INCLUDE_DEFAULT_X509_CA_CERTS to a  non-empty
	      value.

       --sslcertpath <directory>
	      (Keyword: sslcertpath)
	      Sets the directory fetchmail uses to look up local certificates.
	      The default is your OpenSSL  default  directory.	The  directory
	      must  be	hashed the way OpenSSL expects it - every time you add
	      or modify a certificate in the directory, you need  to  use  the
	      c_rehash	tool (which comes with OpenSSL in the tools/ subdirec-
	      tory). Also,  after  OpenSSL  upgrades,  you  may	 need  to  run
	      c_rehash; particularly when upgrading from 0.9.X to 1.0.0.

	      This  can be given in addition to --sslcertfile above, which see
	      for precedence rules.

	      Note that using this option will suppress adding the default SSL
	      trusted CA certificates directory unless you set the environment
	      variable FETCHMAIL_INCLUDE_DEFAULT_X509_CA_CERTS to a  non-empty
	      value.

       --sslcommonname <common name>
	      (Keyword: sslcommonname; since v6.3.9)
	      Use  of this option is discouraged. Before using it, contact the
	      administrator of your upstream server and ask for a  proper  SSL
	      certificate  to be used. If that cannot be attained, this option
	      can be used to specify  the  name	 (CommonName)  that  fetchmail
	      expects  on  the	server	certificate.   A  correctly configured
	      server will have this  set  to  the  hostname  by	 which	it  is
	      reached,	and by default fetchmail will expect as much. Use this
	      option when the CommonName is set to some other value, to	 avoid
	      the  "Server  CommonName	mismatch"  warning,  and  only	if the
	      upstream server can't be made to use proper certificates.

       --sslfingerprint <fingerprint>
	      (Keyword: sslfingerprint)
	      Specify the fingerprint of the server key (an MD5	 hash  of  the
	      key)  in	hexadecimal  notation with colons separating groups of
	      two digits. The letter hex digits must be in upper case. This is
	      the  default  format OpenSSL uses, and the one fetchmail uses to
	      report the fingerprint when an SSL  connection  is  established.
	      When  this  is  specified, fetchmail will compare the server key
	      fingerprint with the given one, and the connection will fail  if
	      they  do not match regardless of the sslcertck setting. The con-
	      nection will also fail if fetchmail cannot obtain	 an  SSL  cer-
	      tificate	from  the server.  This can be used to prevent man-in-
	      the-middle attacks, but the finger print from the	 server	 needs
	      to  be obtained or verified over a secure channel, and certainly
	      not over the same Internet connection that fetchmail would use.

	      Using this option will prevent printing certificate verification
	      errors as long as --sslcertck is unset.

	      To  obtain  the  fingerprint of a certificate stored in the file
	      cert.pem, try:

		   openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -md5 -fingerprint

	      For details, see x509(1ssl).

   Delivery Control Options
       -S <hosts> | --smtphost <hosts>
	      (Keyword: smtp[host])
	      Specify a hunt list of hosts to forward mail  to	(one  or  more
	      hostnames,  comma-separated). Hosts are tried in list order; the
	      first one that is up becomes the forwarding target for the  cur-
	      rent  run.  If this option is not specified, 'localhost' is used
	      as the default.  Each hostname may have a port number  following
	      the  host name.  The port number is separated from the host name
	      by a slash; the default port is "smtp".  If you specify an abso-
	      lute  path  name (beginning with a /), it will be interpreted as
	      the name of a UNIX socket accepting LMTP connections (such as is
	      supported by the Cyrus IMAP daemon) Example:

		   --smtphost server1,server2/2525,server3,/var/imap/socket/lmtp

	      This  option  can	 be  used with ODMR, and will make fetchmail a
	      relay between the ODMR server and SMTP or LMTP receiver.

       --fetchdomains <hosts>
	      (Keyword: fetchdomains)
	      In ETRN or ODMR mode, this option specifies the list of  domains
	      the  server  should  ship mail for once the connection is turned
	      around.  The default is the FQDN of the machine  running	fetch-
	      mail.

       -D <domain> | --smtpaddress <domain>
	      (Keyword: smtpaddress)
	      Specify  the domain to be appended to addresses in RCPT TO lines
	      shipped to SMTP. When this is not specified,  the	 name  of  the
	      SMTP  server  (as specified by --smtphost) is used for SMTP/LMTP
	      and 'localhost' is used for UNIX socket/BSMTP.

       --smtpname <user@domain>
	      (Keyword: smtpname)
	      Specify the domain and user to be put in RCPT TO	lines  shipped
	      to SMTP.	The default user is the current local user.

       -Z <nnn> | --antispam <nnn[, nnn]...>
	      (Keyword: antispam)
	      Specifies	 the list of numeric SMTP errors that are to be inter-
	      preted as a spam-block response from the listener.  A  value  of
	      -1  disables this option.	 For the command-line option, the list
	      values should be comma-separated.

       -m <command> | --mda <command>
	      (Keyword: mda)
	      This option lets fetchmail use a Message or Local Delivery Agent
	      (MDA or LDA) directly, rather than forward via SMTP or LMTP.

	      To  avoid losing mail, use this option only with MDAs like mail-
	      drop or MTAs like sendmail that exit with a  nonzero  status  on
	      disk-full	 and  other  delivery errors; the nonzero status tells
	      fetchmail that delivery failed and  prevents  the	 message  from
	      being deleted on the server.

	      If  fetchmail  is	 running  as  root,  it sets its user id while
	      delivering mail through an MDA as follows:   First,  the	FETCH-
	      MAILUSER, LOGNAME, and USER environment variables are checked in
	      this order. The value of the first variable from his  list  that
	      is  defined  (even  if  it is empty!) is looked up in the system
	      user database. If none of the variables  is  defined,  fetchmail
	      will  use	 the  real  user id it was started with. If one of the
	      variables was defined, but the user stated  there	 isn't	found,
	      fetchmail	 continues running as root, without checking remaining
	      variables on the list.  Practically, this means that if you  run
	      fetchmail as root (not recommended), it is most useful to define
	      the FETCHMAILUSER environment variable to set the user that  the
	      MDA  should run as. Some MDAs (such as maildrop) are designed to
	      be setuid root and setuid to the recipient's  user  id,  so  you
	      don't lose functionality this way even when running fetchmail as
	      unprivileged user.  Check the MDA's manual for details.

	      Some possible MDAs are  "/usr/sbin/sendmail  -i  -f  %F  --  %T"
	      (Note: some several older or vendor sendmail versions mistake --
	      for an address, rather than an indicator to mark the end of  the
	      option  arguments), "/usr/bin/deliver" and "/usr/bin/maildrop -d
	      %T".  Local delivery addresses will be  inserted	into  the  MDA
	      command wherever you place a %T; the mail message's From address
	      will be inserted where you place an %F.

	      Do NOT enclose the %F or %T string in single quotes!   For  both
	      %T  and  %F,  fetchmail  encloses the addresses in single quotes
	      ('), after removing any single quotes they may  contain,	before
	      the MDA command is passed to the shell.

	      Do  NOT use an MDA invocation that dispatches on the contents of
	      To/Cc/Bcc, like "sendmail -i -t" or "qmail-inject", it will cre-
	      ate mail loops and bring the just wrath of many postmasters down
	      upon your head.  This is one of the most frequent	 configuration
	      errors!

	      Also,  do	 not try to combine multidrop mode with an MDA such as
	      maildrop that can only accept one address, unless your  upstream
	      stores  one copy of the message per recipient and transports the
	      envelope recipient in a header; you will lose mail.

	      The well-known procmail(1) package is  very  hard	 to  configure
	      properly,	 it  has  a very nasty "fall through to the next rule"
	      behavior on delivery errors (even temporary ones, such as out of
	      disk  space  if  another	user's	mail daemon copies the mailbox
	      around to purge old messages), so your mail will end up  in  the
	      wrong mailbox sooner or later. The proper procmail configuration
	      is outside the scope of this document. Using maildrop(1) is usu-
	      ally  much easier, and many users find the filter syntax used by
	      maildrop easier to understand.

	      Finally, we strongly advise that you do  not  use	 qmail-inject.
	      The  command  line  interface  is non-standard without providing
	      benefits for typical use, and fetchmail  makes  no  attempts  to
	      accomodate  qmail-inject's deviations from the standard. Some of
	      qmail-inject's command-line and environment options are actually
	      dangerous	 and  can cause broken threads, non-detected duplicate
	      messages and forwarding loops.


       --lmtp (Keyword: lmtp)
	      Cause delivery via LMTP (Local Mail Transfer Protocol).  A  ser-
	      vice  host and port must be explicitly specified on each host in
	      the smtphost hunt list (see above) if this option	 is  selected;
	      the  default  port  25 will (in accordance with RFC 2033) not be
	      accepted.

       --bsmtp <filename>
	      (Keyword: bsmtp)
	      Append fetched mail to a BSMTP file.  This simply	 contains  the
	      SMTP commands that would normally be generated by fetchmail when
	      passing mail to an SMTP listener daemon.

	      An argument of '-' causes the SMTP batch to be written to	 stan-
	      dard  output, which is of limited use: this only makes sense for
	      debugging, because fetchmail's regular output is interspersed on
	      the same channel, so this isn't suitable for mail delivery. This
	      special mode may be removed in a later release.

	      Note that fetchmail's reconstruction of MAIL FROM	 and  RCPT  TO
	      lines is not guaranteed correct; the caveats discussed under THE
	      USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP MAILBOXES below apply.	 This mode has
	      precedence before --mda and SMTP/LMTP.

       --bad-header {reject|accept}
	      (Keyword: bad-header; since v6.3.15)
	      Specify  how  fetchmail  is  supposed to treat messages with bad
	      headers, i. e. headers with bad syntax. Traditionally, fetchmail
	      has  rejected  such  messages,  but  some	 distributors modified
	      fetchmail to accept them. You can now configure fetchmail's  be-
	      haviour per server.


   Resource Limit Control Options
       -l <maxbytes> | --limit <maxbytes>
	      (Keyword: limit)
	      Takes  a maximum octet size argument, where 0 is the default and
	      also the special value designating "no limit".  If nonzero, mes-
	      sages larger than this size will not be fetched and will be left
	      on the server (in foreground  sessions,  the  progress  messages
	      will  note  that	they  are "oversized").	 If the fetch protocol
	      permits (in particular, under IMAP or POP3 without the  fetchall
	      option) the message will not be marked seen.

	      An  explicit  --limit  of 0 overrides any limits set in your run
	      control file. This option	 is  intended  for  those  needing  to
	      strictly	control fetch time due to expensive and variable phone
	      rates.

	      Combined with --limitflush, it can be used to  delete  oversized
	      messages	waiting on a server.  In daemon mode, oversize notifi-
	      cations are mailed to  the  calling  user	 (see  the  --warnings
	      option). This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.

       -w <interval> | --warnings <interval>
	      (Keyword: warnings)
	      Takes  an	 interval  in seconds.	When you call fetchmail with a
	      'limit' option in daemon mode, this  controls  the  interval  at
	      which  warnings about oversized messages are mailed to the call-
	      ing user (or the user specified  by  the	'postmaster'  option).
	      One  such	 notification  is  always mailed at the end of the the
	      first poll that the oversized message is detected.   Thereafter,
	      re-notification  is  suppressed until after the warning interval
	      elapses (it will take place at the end of	 the  first  following
	      poll).

       -b <count> | --batchlimit <count>
	      (Keyword: batchlimit)
	      Specify  the  maximum number of messages that will be shipped to
	      an SMTP listener before the connection is deliberately torn down
	      and  rebuilt  (defaults  to  0,  meaning no limit).  An explicit
	      --batchlimit of 0 overrides any limits set in your  run  control
	      file.   While  sendmail(8) normally initiates delivery of a mes-
	      sage immediately after receiving the  message  terminator,  some
	      SMTP  listeners  are not so prompt.  MTAs like smail(8) may wait
	      till the delivery socket is shut down to deliver.	 This may pro-
	      duce  annoying  delays  when  fetchmail is processing very large
	      batches.	Setting the batch limit to some nonzero size will pre-
	      vent these delays.  This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.

       -B <number> | --fetchlimit <number>
	      (Keyword: fetchlimit)
	      Limit  the  number of messages accepted from a given server in a
	      single poll.  By default there is no limit. An explicit --fetch-
	      limit  of	 0  overrides any limits set in your run control file.
	      This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.

       --fetchsizelimit <number>
	      (Keyword: fetchsizelimit)
	      Limit the number of sizes of  messages  accepted	from  a	 given
	      server in a single transaction.  This option is useful in reduc-
	      ing the delay in downloading the first mail when there  are  too
	      many  mails  in  the mailbox.  By default, the limit is 100.  If
	      set to 0, sizes of all messages are  downloaded  at  the	start.
	      This option does not work with ETRN or ODMR.  For POP3, the only
	      valid non-zero value is 1.

       --fastuidl <number>
	      (Keyword: fastuidl)
	      Do a binary instead of linear search for the first  unseen  UID.
	      Binary  search  avoids  downloading  the UIDs of all mails. This
	      saves time (especially in daemon	mode)  where  downloading  the
	      same  set of UIDs in each poll is a waste of bandwidth. The num-
	      ber 'n' indicates how rarely a linear search should be done.  In
	      daemon  mode,  linear  search  is	 used  once followed by binary
	      searches in 'n-1' polls if 'n' is greater than 1; binary	search
	      is  always used if 'n' is 1; linear search is always used if 'n'
	      is 0. In non-daemon mode, binary search is used  if  'n'	is  1;
	      otherwise	 linear search is used. The default value of 'n' is 4.
	      This option works with POP3 only.

       -e <count> | --expunge <count>
	      (Keyword: expunge)
	      Arrange for deletions to be made final after a given  number  of
	      messages.	  Under	 POP2 or POP3, fetchmail cannot make deletions
	      final without sending QUIT and ending the session --  with  this
	      option  on,  fetchmail  will break a long mail retrieval session
	      into multiple sub-sessions, sending QUIT after each sub-session.
	      This  is	a  good	 defense  against  line drops on POP3 servers.
	      Under IMAP, fetchmail normally issues an EXPUNGE	command	 after
	      each  deletion in order to force the deletion to be done immedi-
	      ately.  This is safest when your connection  to  the  server  is
	      flaky and expensive, as it avoids resending duplicate mail after
	      a line hit.  However, on large mailboxes	the  overhead  of  re-
	      indexing after every message can slam the server pretty hard, so
	      if your connection is reliable it is good to  do	expunges  less
	      frequently.   Also  note	that some servers enforce a delay of a
	      few seconds after each quit, so fetchmail may not be able to get
	      back  in immediately after an expunge -- you may see "lock busy"
	      errors if this happens. If you specify this option to an integer
	      N,  it  tells  fetchmail	to  only  issue	 expunges on every Nth
	      delete.  An argument of zero suppresses expunges entirely (so no
	      expunges at all will be done until the end of run).  This option
	      does not work with ETRN or ODMR.


   Authentication Options
       -u <name> | --user <name> | --username <name>
	      (Keyword: user[name])
	      Specifies the user identification to be used when logging in  to
	      the  mailserver.	 The  appropriate  user identification is both
	      server and user-dependent.  The default is your  login  name  on
	      the  client machine that is running fetchmail.  See USER AUTHEN-
	      TICATION below for a complete description.

       -I <specification> | --interface <specification>
	      (Keyword: interface)
	      Require that a specific interface device be up and have  a  spe-
	      cific local or remote IPv4 (IPv6 is not supported by this option
	      yet) address (or range) before polling.  Frequently fetchmail is
	      used  over  a  transient	point-to-point TCP/IP link established
	      directly to a mailserver via SLIP or PPP.	 That is a  relatively
	      secure  channel.	But when other TCP/IP routes to the mailserver
	      exist (e.g. when the link is connected  to  an  alternate	 ISP),
	      your  username and password may be vulnerable to snooping (espe-
	      cially when daemon mode automatically polls for mail, shipping a
	      clear  password  over  the  net  at predictable intervals).  The
	      --interface option may be used to prevent this.  When the speci-
	      fied  link  is  not  up  or  is  not  connected to a matching IP
	      address, polling will be skipped.	 The format is:

		   interface/iii.iii.iii.iii[/mmm.mmm.mmm.mmm]

	      The field before the first slash is  the	interface  name	 (i.e.
	      sl0,  ppp0  etc.).   The	field  before  the second slash is the
	      acceptable IP address.  The field after the second  slash	 is  a
	      mask  which  specifies a range of IP addresses to accept.	 If no
	      mask is  present	255.255.255.255	 is  assumed  (i.e.  an	 exact
	      match).  This option is currently only supported under Linux and
	      FreeBSD. Please see the monitor section for  below  for  FreeBSD
	      specific information.

	      Note  that  this	option	may be removed from a future fetchmail
	      version.

       -M <interface> | --monitor <interface>
	      (Keyword: monitor)
	      Daemon mode can cause transient links  which  are	 automatically
	      taken  down  after  a  period  of inactivity (e.g. PPP links) to
	      remain up indefinitely.  This option identifies a system	TCP/IP
	      interface	 to be monitored for activity.	After each poll inter-
	      val, if the link is up but no other activity has occurred on the
	      link, then the poll will be skipped.  However, when fetchmail is
	      woken up by a signal, the monitor check is skipped and the  poll
	      goes  through  unconditionally.	This  option is currently only
	      supported under Linux and FreeBSD.  For the monitor  and	inter-
	      face  options  to	 work  for  non	 root users under FreeBSD, the
	      fetchmail binary must be installed SGID kmem.  This would	 be  a
	      security	hole, but fetchmail runs with the effective GID set to
	      that of the kmem group only when interface data  is  being  col-
	      lected.

	      Note  that  this	option	may be removed from a future fetchmail
	      version.

       --auth <type>
	      (Keyword: auth[enticate])
	      This option permits you to specify an authentication  type  (see
	      USER AUTHENTICATION below for details).  The possible values are
	      any,  password,  kerberos_v5,  kerberos  (or,  for  excruciating
	      exactness,  kerberos_v4), gssapi, cram-md5, otp, ntlm, msn (only
	      for POP3), external (only IMAP) and ssh.	When any (the default)
	      is specified, fetchmail tries first methods that don't require a
	      password (EXTERNAL, GSSAPI, KERBEROS IV,	KERBEROS 5);  then  it
	      looks  for  methods  that	 mask your password (CRAM-MD5, X-OTP -
	      note that NTLM and MSN are not autoprobed for POP3  and  MSN  is
	      only supported for POP3); and only if the server doesn't support
	      any of those will it ship your password en clair.	 Other	values
	      may  be  used  to force various authentication methods (ssh sup-
	      presses authentication and is thus  useful  for  IMAP  PREAUTH).
	      (external	 suppresses authentication and is thus useful for IMAP
	      EXTERNAL).  Any value other than password, cram-md5,  ntlm,  msn
	      or  otp  suppresses  fetchmail's	normal inquiry for a password.
	      Specify ssh when you are using an end-to-end  secure  connection
	      such  as	an  ssh tunnel; specify external when you use TLS with
	      client authentication and specify gssapi or kerberos_v4  if  you
	      are  using a protocol variant that employs GSSAPI or K4.	Choos-
	      ing KPOP protocol automatically selects Kerberos authentication.
	      This option does not work with ETRN.

   Miscellaneous Options
       -f <pathname> | --fetchmailrc <pathname>
	      Specify  a  non-default  name for the ~/.fetchmailrc run control
	      file.  The pathname argument must be either "-" (a single	 dash,
	      meaning  to  read	 the  configuration  from standard input) or a
	      filename.	 Unless the --version option is also on, a named  file
	      argument	 must	have   permissions  no	more  open  than  0700
	      (u=rwx,g=,o=) or else be /dev/null.

       -i <pathname> | --idfile <pathname>
	      (Keyword: idfile)
	      Specify an alternate name for the .fetchids file	used  to  save
	      message  UIDs.  NOTE: since fetchmail 6.3.0, write access to the
	      directory containing the idfile is required, as fetchmail writes
	      a	 temporary  file  and  renames	it  into the place of the real
	      idfile only if the temporary file has been written successfully.
	      This  avoids  the truncation of idfiles when running out of disk
	      space.

       --pidfile <pathname>
	      (Keyword: pidfile; since fetchmail v6.3.4)
	      Override the default location of	the  PID  file.	 Default:  see
	      "ENVIRONMENT" below.

       -n | --norewrite
	      (Keyword: no rewrite)
	      Normally, fetchmail edits RFC-822 address headers (To, From, Cc,
	      Bcc, and Reply-To) in fetched mail so that any mail IDs local to
	      the  server are expanded to full addresses (@ and the mailserver
	      hostname are appended).  This enables replies on the  client  to
	      get  addressed correctly (otherwise your mailer might think they
	      should be addressed to local  users  on  the  client  machine!).
	      This  option  disables the rewrite.  (This option is provided to
	      pacify people who are paranoid about having  an  MTA  edit  mail
	      headers  and  want to know they can prevent it, but it is gener-
	      ally not a good idea to actually turn off rewrite.)  When	 using
	      ETRN or ODMR, the rewrite option is ineffective.

       -E <line> | --envelope <line>
	      (Keyword: envelope; Multidrop only)
	      In the configuration file, an enhanced syntax is used:
	      envelope [<count>] <line>

	      This  option  changes  the header fetchmail assumes will carry a
	      copy of the mail's envelope address.  Normally this is  'X-Enve-
	      lope-To'.	  Other	 typically  found  headers  to	carry envelope
	      information are 'X-Original-To' and 'Delivered-To'.  Now,	 since
	      these  headers  are  not	standardized, practice varies. See the
	      discussion of multidrop address handling below.	As  a  special
	      case,  'envelope	"Received"'  enables parsing of sendmail-style
	      Received lines.  This is the default, but discouraged because it
	      is not fully reliable.

	      Note  that  fetchmail  expects the Received-line to be in a spe-
	      cific format: It must contain "by host for address", where  host
	      must match one of the mailserver names that fetchmail recognizes
	      for the account in question.

	      The optional count argument (only available in the configuration
	      file) determines how many header lines of this kind are skipped.
	      A count of 1 means: skip the first, take the second. A count  of
	      2 means: skip the first and second, take the third, and so on.

       -Q <prefix> | --qvirtual <prefix>
	      (Keyword: qvirtual; Multidrop only)
	      The  string  prefix assigned to this option will be removed from
	      the user name found in the header specified  with	 the  envelope
	      option  (before  doing  multidrop	 name  mapping	or localdomain
	      checking, if either is applicable). This option is useful if you
	      are using fetchmail to collect the mail for an entire domain and
	      your ISP (or your mail redirection  provider)  is	 using	qmail.
	      One  of the basic features of qmail is the Delivered-To: message
	      header.  Whenever qmail delivers a message to a local mailbox it
	      puts the username and hostname of the envelope recipient on this
	      line.  The major reason for this is to prevent mail  loops.   To
	      set up qmail to batch mail for a disconnected site the ISP-mail-
	      host will have normally put that site in its 'Virtualhosts' con-
	      trol file so it will add a prefix to all mail addresses for this
	      site. This results  in  mail  sent  to  'username@userhost.user-
	      dom.dom.com' having a Delivered-To: line of the form:

	      Delivered-To: mbox-userstr-username@userhost.example.com

       The  ISP can make the 'mbox-userstr-' prefix anything they choose but a
       string matching the user host name is  likely.	By  using  the	option
       'envelope  Delivered-To:'  you can make fetchmail reliably identify the
       original envelope recipient, but you have to strip the  'mbox-userstr-'
       prefix  to  deliver  to	the correct user.  This is what this option is
       for.

       --configdump
	      Parse  the  ~/.fetchmailrc  file,	 interpret  any	  command-line
	      options  specified,  and dump a configuration report to standard
	      output.  The configuration report is a data structure assignment
	      in the language Python.  This option is meant to be used with an
	      interactive ~/.fetchmailrc editor like fetchmailconf, written in
	      Python.


   Removed Options
       -T | --netsec
	      Removed before version 6.3.0, the required underlying inet6_apps
	      library had been discontinued and is no longer available.


USER AUTHENTICATION AND ENCRYPTION
       All modes except ETRN require  authentication  of  the  client  to  the
       server.	 Normal user authentication in fetchmail is very much like the
       authentication mechanism of ftp(1).  The correct user-id	 and  password
       depend upon the underlying security system at the mailserver.

       If  the mailserver is a Unix machine on which you have an ordinary user
       account, your regular login name and password are used with  fetchmail.
       If  you	use  the  same	login  name  on both the server and the client
       machines, you needn't worry about specifying  a	user-id	 with  the  -u
       option  -- the default behavior is to use your login name on the client
       machine as the user-id on the server machine.  If you use  a  different
       login  name  on the server machine, specify that login name with the -u
       option.	e.g. if your login name is 'jsmith' on a machine named	'mail-
       grunt', you would start fetchmail as follows:

	      fetchmail -u jsmith mailgrunt

       The  default behavior of fetchmail is to prompt you for your mailserver
       password before the connection is established.  This is the safest  way
       to  use	fetchmail  and	ensures that your password will not be compro-
       mised.  You may also specify your password in your ~/.fetchmailrc file.
       This is convenient when using fetchmail in daemon mode or with scripts.


   Using netrc files
       If you do not specify a password, and fetchmail cannot extract one from
       your ~/.fetchmailrc file, it will look for a ~/.netrc file in your home
       directory before requesting one interactively; if an entry matching the
       mailserver is found in that file, the password will be used.  Fetchmail
       first looks for a match on poll name; if it finds none, it checks for a
       match on via name.  See the ftp(1) man page for details of  the	syntax
       of the ~/.netrc file.  To show a practical example, a .netrc might look
       like this:

	      machine hermes.example.org
	      login joe
	      password topsecret

       You can repeat this block with different user information if  you  need
       to provide more than one password.

       This feature may allow you to avoid duplicating password information in
       more than one file.

       On mailservers that do not provide ordinary user accounts, your user-id
       and  password are usually assigned by the server administrator when you
       apply for a mailbox on the server.  Contact your	 server	 administrator
       if  you	don't  know  the correct user-id and password for your mailbox
       account.

POP3 VARIANTS
       Early versions of POP3 (RFC1081, RFC1225) supported  a  crude  form  of
       independent  authentication  using  the	.rhosts file on the mailserver
       side.  Under this RPOP variant, a fixed per-user	 ID  equivalent	 to  a
       password	 was  sent  in	clear over a link to a reserved port, with the
       command RPOP rather than PASS to alert the server  that	it  should  do
       special	checking.   RPOP  is  supported	 by fetchmail (you can specify
       'protocol RPOP' to have the program send 'RPOP' rather than 'PASS') but
       its  use	 is  strongly  discouraged, and support will be removed from a
       future fetchmail version.  This facility was vulnerable to spoofing and
       was withdrawn in RFC1460.

       RFC1460	introduced  APOP authentication.  In this variant of POP3, you
       register an APOP password on your server host  (on  some	 servers,  the
       program to do this is called popauth(8)).  You put the same password in
       your ~/.fetchmailrc file.  Each time fetchmail logs in, it sends an MD5
       hash of your password and the server greeting time to the server, which
       can verify it by checking its authorization database.

       Note that APOP is no longer considered  resistant  against  man-in-the-
       middle attacks.

   RETR or TOP
       fetchmail  makes	 some  efforts to make the server believe messages had
       not been retrieved, by using the TOP command with  a  large  number  of
       lines  when  possible.  TOP is a command that retrieves the full header
       and a fetchmail-specified amount of body	 lines.	 It  is	 optional  and
       therefore  not implemented by all servers, and some are known to imple-
       ment it improperly. On many servers however,  the  RETR	command	 which
       retrieves  the  full message with header and body, sets the "seen" flag
       (for instance, in a web interface), whereas the TOP command does not do
       that.

       fetchmail  will	always	use  the  RETR	command	 if "fetchall" is set.
       fetchmail will also use the RETR command if "keep" is set and "uidl" is
       unset.	Finally,  fetchmail  will  use the RETR command on Maillennium
       POP3/PROXY servers (used by Comcast) to avoid a deliberate  TOP	misin-
       terpretation in this server that causes message corruption.

       In  all	other  cases, fetchmail will use the TOP command. This implies
       that in "keep" setups, "uidl" must be set if "TOP" is desired.

       Note that this description is true for the current  version  of	fetch-
       mail,  but  the	behavior may change in future versions. In particular,
       fetchmail may prefer the RETR command because the  TOP  command	causes
       much grief on some servers and is only optional.

ALTERNATE AUTHENTICATION FORMS
       If  your fetchmail was built with Kerberos support and you specify Ker-
       beros authentication (either with --auth	 or  the  .fetchmailrc	option
       authenticate kerberos_v4) it will try to get a Kerberos ticket from the
       mailserver at the start of each query.  Note: if either the pollname or
       via  name  is 'hesiod', fetchmail will try to use Hesiod to look up the
       mailserver.

       If you use POP3 or IMAP	with  GSSAPI  authentication,  fetchmail  will
       expect  the  server to have RFC1731- or RFC1734-conforming GSSAPI capa-
       bility, and will use it.	 Currently this has only been tested over Ker-
       beros  V,  so you're expected to already have a ticket-granting ticket.
       You may pass a username different from your principal  name  using  the
       standard --user command or by the .fetchmailrc option user.

       If  your IMAP daemon returns the PREAUTH response in its greeting line,
       fetchmail will notice this and skip  the	 normal	 authentication	 step.
       This  can  be useful, e.g. if you start imapd explicitly using ssh.  In
       this case you can declare the authentication value 'ssh' on  that  site
       entry  to stop .fetchmail from asking you for a password when it starts
       up.

       If you use client authentication with TLS1 and your IMAP daemon returns
       the AUTH=EXTERNAL response, fetchmail will notice this and will use the
       authentication shortcut and will not send the passphrase. In this  case
       you can declare the authentication value 'external'
	on  that site to stop fetchmail from asking you for a password when it
       starts up.

       If you are using POP3, and the server issues a one-time-password	 chal-
       lenge conforming to RFC1938, fetchmail will use your password as a pass
       phrase to generate the required response. This avoids  sending  secrets
       over the net unencrypted.

       Compuserve's  RPA  authentication  is  supported. If you compile in the
       support, fetchmail will try to perform an RPA  pass-phrase  authentica-
       tion instead of sending over the password en clair if it detects "@com-
       puserve.com" in the hostname.

       If you are using IMAP, Microsoft's NTLM authentication (used by	Micro-
       soft  Exchange)	is supported. If you compile in the support, fetchmail
       will try to perform an NTLM authentication (instead of sending over the
       password	 en  clair) whenever the server returns AUTH=NTLM in its capa-
       bility  response.  Specify  a  user  option  value  that	  looks	  like
       'user@domain':  the  part  to  the  left of the @ will be passed as the
       username and the part to the right as the NTLM domain.


   Secure Socket Layers (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS)
       Note that fetchmail currently uses the OpenSSL library,	which  is  se-
       verely underdocumented, so failures may occur just because the program-
       mers are not aware of OpenSSL's requirement of the day.	For  instance,
       since  v6.3.16,	fetchmail calls OpenSSL_add_all_algorithms(), which is
       necessary to support certificates with SHA256 on OpenSSL 0.9.8 --  this
       information  is deeply hidden in the documentation and not at all obvi-
       ous.  Please do not hesitate to report subtle SSL failures.

       You can access SSL encrypted services by specifying the	--ssl  option.
       You  can	 also  do this using the "ssl" user option in the .fetchmailrc
       file. With SSL encryption enabled, queries are initiated over a connec-
       tion  after negotiating an SSL session, and the connection fails if SSL
       cannot be negotiated.  Some services, such as POP3 and IMAP, have  dif-
       ferent  well  known  ports defined for the SSL encrypted services.  The
       encrypted ports will be selected automatically when SSL is enabled  and
       no  explicit  port is specified. The --sslproto 'SSL3' option should be
       used to select the SSLv3 protocol (default if unset: v2 or v3).	 Also,
       the  --sslcertck	 command  line	or  sslcertck  run control file option
       should be used to force strict certificate checking - see below.

       If SSL is not configured, fetchmail will usually opportunistically  try
       to  use	STARTTLS. STARTTLS can be enforced by using --sslproto "TLS1".
       TLS connections use the same port as the	 unencrypted  version  of  the
       protocol and negotiate TLS via special command. The --sslcertck command
       line or sslcertck run control file  option  should  be  used  to	 force
       strict certificate checking - see below.

       --sslcertck  is recommended: When connecting to an SSL or TLS encrypted
       server, the server presents a certificate to the client for validation.
       The  certificate	 is checked to verify that the common name in the cer-
       tificate matches the name of the server being contacted	and  that  the
       effective  and  expiration dates in the certificate indicate that it is
       currently valid.	 If any of these checks fail,  a  warning  message  is
       printed, but the connection continues.  The server certificate does not
       need to be signed by any specific Certifying Authority  and  may	 be  a
       "self-signed"  certificate.  If	the --sslcertck command line option or
       sslcertck run control file option is used, fetchmail will instead abort
       if  any	of  these  checks fail, because it must assume that there is a
       man-in-the-middle attack in this scenario,  hence  fetchmail  must  not
       expose  cleartest passwords. Use of the sslcertck or --sslcertck option
       is therefore advised.

       Some SSL encrypted servers may request a client	side  certificate.   A
       client  side  public  SSL certificate and private SSL key may be speci-
       fied.  If requested by the server, the client certificate  is  sent  to
       the  server  for	 validation.   Some servers may require a valid client
       certificate and may refuse connections if a certificate is not provided
       or  if  the  certificate is not valid.  Some servers may require client
       side certificates be signed by a recognized Certifying Authority.   The
       format  for the key files and the certificate files is that required by
       the underlying SSL libraries (OpenSSL in the general case).

       A word of care about the use of SSL: While above mentioned  setup  with
       self-signed  server  certificates  retrieved over the wires can protect
       you from a passive eavesdropper, it  doesn't  help  against  an	active
       attacker.  It's	clearly	 an  improvement over sending the passwords in
       clear, but you should be aware that a man-in-the-middle attack is triv-
       ially possible (in particular with tools such as dsniff <http://
       monkey.org/~dugsong/dsniff/>, ).	 Use of	 strict	 certificate  checking
       with a certification authority recognized by server and client, or per-
       haps of an SSH tunnel (see below for some examples)  is	preferable  if
       you care seriously about the security of your mailbox and passwords.


   ESMTP AUTH
       fetchmail  also	supports  authentication  to  the  ESMTP server on the
       client side according to RFC 2554.  You	can  specify  a	 name/password
       pair  to be used with the keywords 'esmtpname' and 'esmtppassword'; the
       former defaults to the username of the calling user.


DAEMON MODE
   Introducing the daemon mode
       In daemon mode, fetchmail puts itself into the background and runs for-
       ever,  querying	each  specified	 host  and  then  sleeping for a given
       polling interval.

   Starting the daemon mode
       There are several ways to make fetchmail work in daemon	mode.  On  the
       command	line,  --daemon <interval> or -d <interval> option runs fetch-
       mail in daemon mode.  You must specify a numeric argument  which	 is  a
       polling interval (time to wait after completing a whole poll cycle with
       the last server and before starting the next poll cycle with the	 first
       server) in seconds.

       Example: simply invoking

	      fetchmail -d 900

       will,  therefore,  poll	all the hosts described in your ~/.fetchmailrc
       file (except those explicitly excluded with the 'skip' verb) a bit less
       often  than  once every 15 minutes (exactly: 15 minutes + time that the
       poll takes).

       It is also possible to set a polling interval  in  your	~/.fetchmailrc
       file  by saying 'set daemon <interval>', where <interval> is an integer
       number of seconds.  If you do this, fetchmail will always start in dae-
       mon mode unless you override it with the command-line option --daemon 0
       or -d0.

       Only one daemon process is permitted per user; in daemon	 mode,	fetch-
       mail  sets  up a per-user lockfile to guarantee this.  (You can however
       cheat and set the FETCHMAILHOME environment variable to	overcome  this
       setting,	 but  in that case, it is your responsibility to make sure you
       aren't polling the same server with two processes at the same time.)

   Awakening the background daemon
       Normally, calling fetchmail with a daemon in  the  background  sends  a
       wake-up	signal	to the daemon and quits without output. The background
       daemon then starts its next poll cycle immediately.  The	 wake-up  sig-
       nal, SIGUSR1, can also be sent manually. The wake-up action also clears
       any 'wedged' flags indicating  that  connections	 have  wedged  due  to
       failed authentication or multiple timeouts.

   Terminating the background daemon
       The  option --quit will kill a running daemon process instead of waking
       it up (if there is no such process, fetchmail will notify you).	If the
       --quit option appears last on the command line, fetchmail will kill the
       running daemon process and then quit. Otherwise, fetchmail  will	 first
       kill  a running daemon process and then continue running with the other
       options.

   Useful options for daemon mode
       The -L <filename> or --logfile <filename> option (keyword: set logfile)
       is  only	 effective when fetchmail is detached and in daemon mode. Note
       that the logfile must exist before fetchmail is run, you	 can  use  the
       touch(1) command with the filename as its sole argument to create it.
       This  option  allows  you  to redirect status messages into a specified
       logfile (follow the option with the  logfile  name).   The  logfile  is
       opened  for  append, so previous messages aren't deleted.  This is pri-
       marily useful for debugging configurations. Note	 that  fetchmail  does
       not  detect  if the logfile is rotated, the logfile is only opened once
       when fetchmail starts. You need to restart fetchmail after rotating the
       logfile and before compressing it (if applicable).

       The --syslog option (keyword: set syslog) allows you to redirect status
       and error messages emitted to the syslog(3) system daemon if available.
       Messages are logged with an id of fetchmail, the facility LOG_MAIL, and
       priorities LOG_ERR, LOG_ALERT or LOG_INFO.  This option is intended for
       logging status and error messages which indicate the status of the dae-
       mon and the results while fetching mail from the server(s).  Error mes-
       sages  for  command  line options and parsing the .fetchmailrc file are
       still written to stderr, or to the specified log file.  The  --nosyslog
       option  turns  off  use	of  syslog(3),	assuming it's turned on in the
       ~/.fetchmailrc file.

       The -N or --nodetach option suppresses backgrounding and detachment  of
       the  daemon  process  from  its	control	 terminal.  This is useful for
       debugging or when fetchmail runs as the child of a  supervisor  process
       such  as init(8) or Gerrit Pape's runit(8).  Note that this also causes
       the logfile option to be ignored (though perhaps it shouldn't).

       Note that while running in daemon  mode	polling	 a  POP2  or  IMAP2bis
       server,	transient  errors  (such  as DNS failures or sendmail delivery
       refusals) may force the fetchall option on for the duration of the next
       polling	cycle.	This is a robustness feature.  It means that if a mes-
       sage is fetched (and thus marked seen by the mailserver) but not deliv-
       ered  locally due to some transient error, it will be re-fetched during
       the next poll cycle.  (The IMAP logic  doesn't  delete  messages	 until
       they're delivered, so this problem does not arise.)

       If  you touch or change the ~/.fetchmailrc file while fetchmail is run-
       ning in daemon mode, this will be detected at the beginning of the next
       poll  cycle.   When  a  changed	~/.fetchmailrc	is detected, fetchmail
       rereads it and restarts from scratch (using exec(2); no state  informa-
       tion is retained in the new instance).  Note that if fetchmail needs to
       query for passwords, of that if you  break  the	~/.fetchmailrc	file's
       syntax,	the  new  instance  will  softly  and  silently vanish away on
       startup.


ADMINISTRATIVE OPTIONS
       The --postmaster <name> option (keyword: set postmaster) specifies  the
       last-resort  username  to which multidrop mail is to be forwarded if no
       matching local recipient can be found. It is also used  as  destination
       of  undeliverable  mail	if  the	 'bouncemail' global option is off and
       additionally for spam-blocked mail if the 'bouncemail' global option is
       off  and	 the 'spambounce' global option is on. This option defaults to
       the user who invoked fetchmail.	If the invoking user is root, then the
       default of this option is the user 'postmaster'.	 Setting postmaster to
       the empty string causes such mail as described above to be discarded  -
       this  however  is  usually a bad idea.  See also the description of the
       'FETCHMAILUSER' environment variable in the ENVIRONMENT section below.

       The --nobounce behaves like the	"set  no  bouncemail"  global  option,
       which see.

       The --invisible option (keyword: set invisible) tries to make fetchmail
       invisible.  Normally, fetchmail behaves like any other MTA would --  it
       generates  a  Received header into each message describing its place in
       the chain of transmission, and tells the MTA it forwards	 to  that  the
       mail  came  from	 the  machine  fetchmail itself is running on.	If the
       invisible option is on, the Received header is suppressed and fetchmail
       tries  to  spoof	 the MTA it forwards to into thinking it came directly
       from the mailserver host.

       The --showdots option (keyword: set showdots) forces fetchmail to  show
       progress	 dots even if the output goes to a file or fetchmail is not in
       verbose mode.  Fetchmail shows the dots by default when run  in	--ver-
       bose  mode  and	output	goes  to  console.  This  option is ignored in
       --silent mode.

       By specifying the --tracepolls option, you can  ask  fetchmail  to  add
       information to the Received header on the form "polling {label} account
       {user}", where {label} is the account label (from the specified rcfile,
       normally	 ~/.fetchmailrc)  and  {user} is the username which is used to
       log on to the mail server. This header can be used  to  make  filtering
       email where no useful header information is available and you want mail
       from different accounts sorted into different  mailboxes	 (this	could,
       for  example, occur if you have an account on the same server running a
       mailing list, and are subscribed to the list using that	account).  The
       default is not adding any such header.  In .fetchmailrc, this is called
       'tracepolls'.


RETRIEVAL FAILURE MODES
       The protocols fetchmail uses to talk to mailservers are next to bullet-
       proof.	In  normal operation forwarding to port 25, no message is ever
       deleted (or even marked for deletion) on the host until the  SMTP  lis-
       tener on the client side has acknowledged to fetchmail that the message
       has been either accepted for delivery or rejected due to a spam block.

       When forwarding to an MDA, however, there is more possibility of error.
       Some MDAs are 'safe' and reliably return a nonzero status on any deliv-
       ery error, even one due to temporary resource limits.  The  maildrop(1)
       program	is  like this; so are most programs designed as mail transport
       agents, such as sendmail(1), including the sendmail wrapper of  Postfix
       and exim(1).  These programs give back a reliable positive acknowledge-
       ment and can be used with the mda option with no	 risk  of  mail	 loss.
       Unsafe  MDAs,  though,  may return 0 even on delivery failure.  If this
       happens, you will lose mail.

       The normal mode of fetchmail is to try to download only 'new' messages,
       leaving	untouched  (and	 undeleted)  messages  you  have  already read
       directly on the server (or fetched with a previous  fetchmail  --keep).
       But  you	 may  find that messages you've already read on the server are
       being fetched (and deleted) even when you don't specify	--all.	 There
       are several reasons this can happen.

       One  could  be  that  you're using POP2.	 The POP2 protocol includes no
       representation of 'new' or 'old' state in messages, so  fetchmail  must
       treat  all messages as new all the time.	 But POP2 is obsolete, so this
       is unlikely.

       A potential POP3 problem might be servers that insert messages  in  the
       middle of mailboxes (some VMS implementations of mail are rumored to do
       this).  The fetchmail code assumes that new messages  are  appended  to
       the  end	 of  the  mailbox; when this is not true it may treat some old
       messages as new and vice versa.	Using UIDL whilst setting  fastuidl  0
       might fix this, otherwise, consider switching to IMAP.

       Yet  another  POP3  problem is that if they can't make tempfiles in the
       user's home directory, some POP3 servers will hand back an undocumented
       response that causes fetchmail to spuriously report "No mail".

       The  IMAP code uses the presence or absence of the server flag \Seen to
       decide whether or not a message is new.	This isn't the right thing  to
       do,  fetchmail should check the UIDVALIDITY and use UID, but it doesn't
       do that yet. Under Unix, it counts on your IMAP server  to  notice  the
       BSD-style  Status  flags set by mail user agents and set the \Seen flag
       from them when appropriate.  All Unix IMAP servers we know of do	 this,
       though  it's  not  specified by the IMAP RFCs.  If you ever trip over a
       server that doesn't, the symptom will be that messages you have already
       read  on	 your  host  will  look new to the server.  In this (unlikely)
       case, only messages you fetched with  fetchmail	--keep	will  be  both
       undeleted and marked old.

       In  ETRN and ODMR modes, fetchmail does not actually retrieve messages;
       instead, it asks the server's SMTP listener to start a queue  flush  to
       the client via SMTP.  Therefore it sends only undelivered messages.


SPAM FILTERING
       Many  SMTP listeners allow administrators to set up 'spam filters' that
       block unsolicited email from specified domains.	A MAIL	FROM  or  DATA
       line  that  triggers  this  feature  will elicit an SMTP response which
       (unfortunately) varies according to the listener.

       Newer versions of sendmail return an error code of 571.

       According to RFC2821, the correct thing to return in this situation  is
       550  "Requested	action not taken: mailbox unavailable" (the draft adds
       "[E.g., mailbox not found, no access, or command	 rejected  for	policy
       reasons].").

       Older  versions	of the exim MTA return 501 "Syntax error in parameters
       or arguments".

       The postfix MTA runs 554 as an antispam response.

       Zmailer may reject code with a 500 response (followed  by  an  enhanced
       status code that contains more information).

       Return  codes which fetchmail treats as antispam responses and discards
       the message can be set with the 'antispam' option.  This is one of  the
       only  three  circumstance under which fetchmail ever discards mail (the
       others are the 552 and 553 errors described below, and the  suppression
       of multidropped messages with a message-ID already seen).

       If  fetchmail  is  fetching  from an IMAP server, the antispam response
       will be detected and the message rejected immediately after the headers
       have  been  fetched, without reading the message body.  Thus, you won't
       pay for downloading spam message bodies.

       By default, the list of antispam responses is empty.

       If the spambounce global option is on, mail that is spam-blocked	 trig-
       gers an RFC1892/RFC1894 bounce message informing the originator that we
       do not accept mail from it. See also BUGS.


SMTP/ESMTP ERROR HANDLING
       Besides the spam-blocking  described  above,  fetchmail	takes  special
       actions on the following SMTP/ESMTP error responses

       452 (insufficient system storage)
	    Leave the message in the server mailbox for later retrieval.

       552 (message exceeds fixed maximum message size)
	    Delete the message from the server.	 Send bounce-mail to the orig-
	    inator.

       553 (invalid sending domain)
	    Delete the message from  the  server.   Don't  even	 try  to  send
	    bounce-mail to the originator.

       Other errors trigger bounce mail back to the originator. See also BUGS.


THE RUN CONTROL FILE
       The  preferred  way to set up fetchmail is to write a .fetchmailrc file
       in your home directory (you may do this directly, with a	 text  editor,
       or indirectly via fetchmailconf).  When there is a conflict between the
       command-line arguments and the arguments in this file, the command-line
       arguments take precedence.

       To  protect the security of your passwords, your ~/.fetchmailrc may not
       normally have more than 0700 (u=rwx,g=,o=) permissions; fetchmail  will
       complain and exit otherwise (this check is suppressed when --version is
       on).

       You may read the .fetchmailrc file as a list of commands to be executed
       when fetchmail is called with no arguments.

   Run Control Syntax
       Comments begin with a '#' and extend through the end of the line.  Oth-
       erwise the file consists of a series of server entries or global option
       statements in a free-format, token-oriented syntax.

       There are four kinds of tokens: grammar keywords, numbers (i.e. decimal
       digit sequences), unquoted  strings,  and  quoted  strings.   A	quoted
       string  is  bounded  by	double	quotes and may contain whitespace (and
       quoted digits are treated as a string).	Note that quoted strings  will
       also contain line feed characters if they run across two or more lines,
       unless you use a backslash to join  lines  (see	below).	  An  unquoted
       string  is  any	whitespace-delimited  token  that  is neither numeric,
       string quoted nor contains the special characters  ',',	';',  ':',  or
       '='.

       Any  amount  of	whitespace  separates tokens in server entries, but is
       otherwise ignored. You may use backslash escape sequences (\n  for  LF,
       \t  for	HT,  \b	 for BS, \r for CR, \nnn for decimal (where nnn cannot
       start with a 0), \0ooo for octal, and \xhh for hex) to embed non-print-
       able  characters or string delimiters in strings.  In quoted strings, a
       backslash at the very end of a line will cause the backslash itself and
       the line feed (LF or NL, new line) character to be ignored, so that you
       can wrap long strings. Without the backslash at the line end, the  line
       feed character would become part of the string.

       Warning:	 while	these  resemble C-style escape sequences, they are not
       the same.  fetchmail only supports these eight styles. C supports  more
       escape  sequences that consist of backslash (\) and a single character,
       but does not support decimal codes and does not require the  leading  0
       in octal notation.  Example: fetchmail interprets \233 the same as \xE9
       (Latin small letter e with acute), where	 C  would  interpret  \233  as
       octal 0233 = \x9B (CSI, control sequence introducer).

       Each  server  entry  consists  of one of the keywords 'poll' or 'skip',
       followed by a server name, followed by server options, followed by  any
       number  of  user	 (or username) descriptions, followed by user options.
       Note: the most common cause of syntax errors  is	 mixing	 up  user  and
       server options or putting user options before the user descriptions.

       For backward compatibility, the word 'server' is a synonym for 'poll'.

       You  can	 use  the  noise  keywords  'and', 'with', 'has', 'wants', and
       'options' anywhere in an entry to make it  resemble  English.   They're
       ignored, but but can make entries much easier to read at a glance.  The
       punctuation characters ':', ';' and ',' are also ignored.

   Poll vs. Skip
       The 'poll' verb tells fetchmail to query this host when it is run  with
       no  arguments.	The  'skip' verb tells fetchmail not to poll this host
       unless it is explicitly named on the command line.   (The  'skip'  verb
       allows  you  to	experiment with test entries safely, or easily disable
       entries for hosts that are temporarily down.)

   Keyword/Option Summary
       Here are the legal options.  Keyword suffixes enclosed in square brack-
       ets  are	 optional.   Those corresponding to short command-line options
       are followed by '-' and the appropriate option letter.	If  option  is
       only  relevant to a single mode of operation, it is noted as 's' or 'm'
       for singledrop- or multidrop-mode, respectively.

       Here are the legal global options:


       Keyword		   Opt	 Mode	Function
       --------------------------------------------------------------------
       set daemon	   -d		Set a background poll interval	in
					seconds.
       set postmaster			Give  the  name of the last-resort
					mail recipient (default: user run-
					ning  fetchmail,  "postmaster"	if
					run by the root user)
       set    bouncemail		Direct error mail  to  the  sender
					(default)
       set no bouncemail		Direct	error  mail  to	 the local
					postmaster (as per  the	 'postmas-
					ter' global option above).
       set no spambounce		Do  not	 bounce	 spam-blocked mail
					(default).
       set    spambounce		Bounce blocked	spam-blocked  mail
					(as   per   the	  'antispam'  user
					option) back to the destination as
					indicated   by	 the  'bouncemail'
					global option.	 Warning:  Do  not
					use  this  to  bounce spam back to
					the sender -  most  spam  is  sent
					with false sender address and thus
					this   option	 hurts	  innocent
					bystanders.
       set no softbounce		Delete	permanently  undeliverable
					mail. It  is  recommended  to  use
					this  option  if the configuration
					has been thoroughly tested.
       set    softbounce		Keep   permanently   undeliverable
					mail  as  though a temporary error
					had occurred (default).
       set logfile	   -L		Name of a file to append error and
					status messages to.
       set idfile	   -i		Name  of  the  file  to	 store UID
					lists in.
       set    syslog			Do  error  logging  through   sys-
					log(3).
       set no syslog			Turn  off  error  logging  through
					syslog(3). (default)
       set properties			String value that  is  ignored	by
					fetchmail  (may	 be used by exten-
					sion scripts).

       Here are the legal server options:


       Keyword		Opt   Mode   Function
       -----------------------------------------------------------------
       via			     Specify DNS  name	of  mailserver,
				     overriding poll name
       proto[col]	-p	     Specify  protocol	(case  insensi-
				     tive):  POP2,  POP3,  IMAP,  APOP,
				     KPOP
       local[domains]	      m	     Specify  domain(s)	 to be regarded
				     as local
       port			     Specify TCP/IP service port (obso-
				     lete, use 'service' instead).

       service		-P	     Specify  service  name  (a numeric
				     value is also allowed and	consid-
				     ered a TCP/IP port number).
       auth[enticate]		     Set  authentication  type (default
				     'any')
       timeout		-t	     Server inactivity timeout in  sec-
				     onds (default 300)
       envelope		-E    m	     Specify   envelope-address	 header
				     name
       no envelope	      m	     Disable   looking	 for   envelope
				     address
       qvirtual		-Q    m	     Qmail  virtual  domain  prefix  to
				     remove from user name
       aka		      m	     Specify  alternate	 DNS  names  of
				     mailserver
       interface	-I	     specify  IP interface(s) that must
				     be up  for	 server	 poll  to  take
				     place
       monitor		-M	     Specify  IP address to monitor for
				     activity
       plugin			     Specify command through  which  to
				     make server connections.
       plugout			     Specify  command  through which to
				     make listener connections.
       dns		      m	     Enable DNS	 lookup	 for  multidrop
				     (default)
       no dns		      m	     Disable DNS lookup for multidrop
       checkalias	      m	     Do	 comparison  by	 IP address for
				     multidrop
       no checkalias	      m	     Do comparison  by	name  for  mul-
				     tidrop (default)
       uidl		-U	     Force   POP3  to  use  client-side
				     UIDLs (recommended)
       no uidl			     Turn off POP3 use	of  client-side
				     UIDLs (default)
       interval			     Only  check this site every N poll
				     cycles; N is a numeric argument.
       tracepolls		     Add poll  tracing	information  to
				     the Received header
       principal		     Set  Kerberos principal (only use-
				     ful with IMAP and kerberos)
       esmtpname		     Set name for  RFC2554  authentica-
				     tion to the ESMTP server.
       esmtppassword		     Set password for RFC2554 authenti-
				     cation to the ESMTP server.
       bad-header		     How to treat messages with	 a  bad
				     header. Can be reject (default) or
				     accept.

       Here are the legal user descriptions and options:


       Keyword		  Opt	Mode   Function
       -------------------------------------------------------------------
       user[name]	  -u	       This is the user	 description  and
				       must   come   first  after  server
				       description  and	 after	 possible
				       server  options,	 and  before user
				       options.
				       It sets the remote user name if by
				       itself  or followed by 'there', or
				       the local user name if followed by
				       'here'.
       is			       Connect	 local	and  remote  user
				       names
       to			       Connect	local  and  remote   user
				       names
       pass[word]		       Specify remote account password
       ssl			       Connect	to server over the speci-
				       fied  base  protocol   using   SSL
				       encryption
       sslcert			       Specify	file for client side pub-
				       lic SSL certificate
       sslcertfile		       Specify file with trusted CA  cer-
				       tificates

       sslcertpath		       Specify c_rehash-ed directory with
				       trusted CA certificates.
       sslkey			       Specify file for client side  pri-
				       vate SSL key
       sslproto			       Force ssl protocol for connection
       folder		  -r	       Specify remote folder to query
       smtphost		  -S	       Specify smtp host(s) to forward to
       fetchdomains		m      Specify	domains	 for  which  mail
				       should be fetched
       smtpaddress	  -D	       Specify the domain to  be  put  in
				       RCPT TO lines
       smtpname			       Specify	the user and domain to be
				       put in RCPT TO lines
       antispam		  -Z	       Specify	what  SMTP  returns   are
				       interpreted as spam-policy blocks
       mda		  -m	       Specify MDA for local delivery
       bsmtp		  -o	       Specify BSMTP batch file to append
				       to
       preconnect		       Command to be executed before each
				       connection
       postconnect		       Command	to be executed after each
				       connection
       keep		  -k	       Don't delete  seen  messages  from
				       server  (for  POP3, uidl is recom-
				       mended)
       flush		  -F	       Flush  all  seen	 messages  before
				       querying (DANGEROUS)
       limitflush		       Flush   all   oversized	 messages
				       before querying
       fetchall		  -a	       Fetch all messages whether seen or
				       not
       rewrite			       Rewrite	destination addresses for
				       reply (default)
       stripcr			       Strip carriage returns  from  ends
				       of lines
       forcecr			       Force  carriage returns at ends of
				       lines
       pass8bits		       Force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP  lis-
				       tener
       dropstatus		       Strip  Status and X-Mozilla-Status
				       lines out of incoming mail
       dropdelivered		       Strip Delivered-To  lines  out  of
				       incoming mail
       mimedecode		       Convert	quoted-printable to 8-bit
				       in MIME messages
       idle			       Idle  waiting  for  new	 messages
				       after each poll (IMAP only)
       no keep		  -K	       Delete  seen  messages from server
				       (default)
       no flush			       Don't  flush  all  seen	 messages
				       before querying (default)
       no fetchall		       Retrieve	   only	   new	 messages
				       (default)
       no rewrite		       Don't rewrite headers
       no stripcr		       Don't   strip   carriage	  returns
				       (default)
       no forcecr		       Don't  force  carriage  returns at
				       EOL (default)
       no pass8bits		       Don't force BODY=8BITMIME to ESMTP
				       listener (default)
       no dropstatus		       Don't	drop	Status	  headers
				       (default)
       no dropdelivered		       Don't  drop  Delivered-To  headers
				       (default)
       no mimedecode		       Don't  convert quoted-printable to
				       8-bit in MIME messages (default)
       no idle			       Don't idle waiting  for	new  mes-
				       sages after each poll (IMAP only)
       limit		  -l	       Set message size limit
       warnings		  -w	       Set message size warning interval
       batchlimit	  -b	       Max  # messages to forward in sin-
				       gle connect
       fetchlimit	  -B	       Max # messages to fetch in  single
				       connect


       fetchsizelimit		       Max  #  message	sizes to fetch in
				       single transaction
       fastuidl			       Use binary search for first unseen
				       message (POP3 only)
       expunge		  -e	       Perform	an  expunge  on every #th
				       message (IMAP and POP3 only)
       properties		       String value is ignored by  fetch-
				       mail  (may  be  used  by extension
				       scripts)

       All user options must begin with a user description (user  or  username
       option) and follow all server descriptions and options.

       In  the	.fetchmailrc  file, the 'envelope' string argument may be pre-
       ceded by a whitespace-separated number.	This number, if specified,  is
       the  number  of	such  headers  to skip over (that is, an argument of 1
       selects the second header of the given type).  This is sometime	useful
       for  ignoring bogus envelope headers created by an ISP's local delivery
       agent or	 internal  forwards  (through  mail  inspection	 systems,  for
       instance).

   Keywords Not Corresponding To Option Switches
       The  'folder' and 'smtphost' options (unlike their command-line equiva-
       lents) can take a space- or comma-separated  list  of  names  following
       them.

       All  options  correspond	 to the obvious command-line arguments, except
       the following: 'via', 'interval', 'aka', 'is',  'to',  'dns'/'no	 dns',
       'checkalias'/'no	 checkalias', 'password', 'preconnect', 'postconnect',
       'localdomains',	 'stripcr'/'no	 stripcr',   'forcecr'/'no   forcecr',
       'pass8bits'/'no	 pass8bits'  'dropstatus/no  dropstatus',  'dropdeliv-
       ered/no dropdelivered', 'mimedecode/no mimedecode', 'no idle', and  'no
       envelope'.

       The 'via' option is for if you want to have more than one configuration
       pointing at the same site.  If it is present, the string argument  will
       be  taken as the actual DNS name of the mailserver host to query.  This
       will override the argument of poll, which can then simply be a distinct
       label  for  the	configuration (e.g. what you would give on the command
       line to explicitly query this host).

       The 'interval' option (which takes a numeric argument)  allows  you  to
       poll a server less frequently than the basic poll interval.  If you say
       'interval N' the server this option is attached to will only be queried
       every N poll intervals.

   Singledrop vs. Multidrop options
       Please  ensure  you  read  the section titled THE USE AND ABUSE OF MUL-
       TIDROP MAILBOXES if you intend to use multidrop mode.

       The 'is' or  'to'  keywords  associate  the  following  local  (client)
       name(s)	(or  server-name  to client-name mappings separated by =) with
       the mailserver user name in the entry.  If an is/to list has '*' as its
       last  name,  unrecognized  names	 are  simply passed through. Note that
       until fetchmail version 6.3.4 inclusively, these lists could only  con-
       tain  local  parts of user names (fetchmail would only look at the part
       before the @ sign). fetchmail versions 6.3.5  and  newer	 support  full
       addresses on the left hand side of these mappings, and they take prece-
       dence over any 'localdomains', 'aka', 'via' or similar mappings.

       A single local name can be used to support redirecting your  mail  when
       your  username on the client machine is different from your name on the
       mailserver.  When there is only a single local name, mail is  forwarded
       to  that	 local	username regardless of the message's Received, To, Cc,
       and Bcc headers.	 In this case, fetchmail never does DNS lookups.

       When there is more than one local name  (or  name  mapping),  fetchmail
       looks  at  the  envelope	 header,  if  configured, and otherwise at the
       Received, To, Cc, and Bcc headers of retrieved mail (this is 'multidrop
       mode').	 It  looks  for	 addresses with hostname parts that match your
       poll name or your 'via', 'aka' or 'localdomains' options,  and  usually
       also  for  hostname  parts  which  DNS  tells  it  are  aliases	of the
       mailserver.  See the discussion of 'dns', 'checkalias', 'localdomains',
       and 'aka' for details on how matching addresses are handled.

       If  fetchmail  cannot  match  any  mailserver  usernames or localdomain
       addresses, the mail will be bounced.  Normally it will  be  bounced  to
       the sender, but if the 'bouncemail' global option is off, the mail will
       go to the local	postmaster  instead.   (see  the  'postmaster'	global
       option). See also BUGS.

       The  'dns'  option  (normally  on) controls the way addresses from mul-
       tidrop mailboxes are checked.  On, it enables logic to check each  host
       address	that  does not match an 'aka' or 'localdomains' declaration by
       looking it up with DNS.	 When  a  mailserver  username	is  recognized
       attached to a matching hostname part, its local mapping is added to the
       list of local recipients.

       The 'checkalias' option (normally off) extends the lookups performed by
       the  'dns'  keyword  in	multidrop  mode,  providing a way to cope with
       remote MTAs that identify themselves using their canonical name,	 while
       they're polled using an alias.  When such a server is polled, checks to
       extract the envelope address fail, and fetchmail	 reverts  to  delivery
       using   the   To/Cc/Bcc	 headers   (See	 below	'Header	 vs.  Envelope
       addresses').  Specifying this option instructs  fetchmail  to  retrieve
       all  the	 IP  addresses associated with both the poll name and the name
       used by the remote MTA and to do a  comparison  of  the	IP  addresses.
       This  comes  in	handy  in situations where the remote server undergoes
       frequent canonical name changes, that would otherwise require modifica-
       tions  to the rcfile.  'checkalias' has no effect if 'no dns' is speci-
       fied in the rcfile.

       The 'aka' option is for use with multidrop mailboxes.  It allows you to
       pre-declare  a  list of DNS aliases for a server.  This is an optimiza-
       tion hack that allows you to trade space for  speed.   When  fetchmail,
       while  processing  a multidrop mailbox, grovels through message headers
       looking for names of the mailserver, pre-declaring common ones can save
       it  from	 having	 to do DNS lookups.  Note: the names you give as argu-
       ments to 'aka' are matched as suffixes -- if  you  specify  (say)  'aka
       netaxs.com',  this  will	 match not just a hostname netaxs.com, but any
       hostname that ends with '.netaxs.com'; such  as	(say)  pop3.netaxs.com
       and mail.netaxs.com.

       The 'localdomains' option allows you to declare a list of domains which
       fetchmail should consider local.	 When  fetchmail  is  parsing  address
       lines in multidrop modes, and a trailing segment of a host name matches
       a declared local domain, that address is passed through to the listener
       or MDA unaltered (local-name mappings are not applied).

       If you are using 'localdomains', you may also need to specify 'no enve-
       lope', which disables fetchmail's normal attempt to deduce an  envelope
       address	from  the  Received  line  or X-Envelope-To header or whatever
       header has been previously set by 'envelope'.  If you set 'no envelope'
       in the defaults entry it is possible to undo that in individual entries
       by using 'envelope <string>'.  As a special case, 'envelope "Received"'
       restores the default parsing of Received lines.

       The  password  option requires a string argument, which is the password
       to be used with the entry's server.

       The 'preconnect' keyword allows you to specify a shell  command	to  be
       executed	 just before each time fetchmail establishes a mailserver con-
       nection.	 This may be useful if you are attempting to set up secure POP
       connections  with  the aid of ssh(1).  If the command returns a nonzero
       status, the poll of that mailserver will be aborted.

       Similarly, the 'postconnect' keyword similarly allows you to specify  a
       shell  command to be executed just after each time a mailserver connec-
       tion is taken down.

       The 'forcecr' option controls whether lines terminated by LF  only  are
       given  CRLF  termination	 before	 forwarding.  Strictly speaking RFC821
       requires this, but few MTAs enforce the requirement it so  this	option
       is  normally  off  (only	 one such MTA, qmail, is in significant use at
       time of writing).

       The 'stripcr' option controls whether carriage returns are stripped out
       of retrieved mail before it is forwarded.  It is normally not necessary
       to set this, because it defaults to 'on' (CR  stripping	enabled)  when
       there  is  an  MDA declared but 'off' (CR stripping disabled) when for-
       warding is via SMTP.  If 'stripcr' and 'forcecr' are both on, 'stripcr'
       will override.

       The 'pass8bits' option exists to cope with Microsoft mail programs that
       stupidly slap a "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit" on everything.	  With
       this  option  off  (the	default)  and such a header present, fetchmail
       declares BODY=7BIT to an ESMTP-capable listener; this  causes  problems
       for  messages  actually	using 8-bit ISO or KOI-8 character sets, which
       will be garbled by having the high bits of all characters stripped.  If
       'pass8bits'  is on, fetchmail is forced to declare BODY=8BITMIME to any
       ESMTP-capable listener.	If the listener is  8-bit-clean	 (as  all  the
       major ones now are) the right thing will probably result.

       The 'dropstatus' option controls whether nonempty Status and X-Mozilla-
       Status lines are retained in fetched mail (the default)	or  discarded.
       Retaining  them	allows	your  MUA  to  see what messages (if any) were
       marked seen on the server.  On the other hand, it can confuse some new-
       mail notifiers, which assume that anything with a Status line in it has
       been seen.  (Note: the empty Status lines inserted by  some  buggy  POP
       servers are unconditionally discarded.)

       The  'dropdelivered'  option controls whether Delivered-To headers will
       be kept in fetched mail (the default) or discarded. These  headers  are
       added by Qmail and Postfix mailservers in order to avoid mail loops but
       may get in your way if you try to "mirror" a mailserver within the same
       domain. Use with caution.

       The  'mimedecode'  option  controls  whether  MIME  messages  using the
       quoted-printable encoding are automatically converted into  pure	 8-bit
       data.  If you are delivering mail to an ESMTP-capable, 8-bit-clean lis-
       tener (that includes all of the major MTAs like	sendmail),  then  this
       will  automatically  convert  quoted-printable message headers and data
       into 8-bit data, making it easier to understand when reading  mail.  If
       your  e-mail  programs  know  how to deal with MIME messages, then this
       option is not needed.  The mimedecode option is off by default, because
       doing  RFC2047 conversion on headers throws away character-set informa-
       tion and can lead to bad results if the encoding of the headers differs
       from the body encoding.

       The  'idle'  option is intended to be used with IMAP servers supporting
       the RFC2177 IDLE command extension, but does not strictly  require  it.
       If it is enabled, and fetchmail detects that IDLE is supported, an IDLE
       will be issued at the end of each poll.	This will tell the IMAP server
       to  hold	 the  connection  open	and notify the client when new mail is
       available.  If IDLE is not supported, fetchmail	will  simulate	it  by
       periodically  issuing NOOP. If you need to poll a link frequently, IDLE
       can save bandwidth by  eliminating  TCP/IP  connects  and  LOGIN/LOGOUT
       sequences. On the other hand, an IDLE connection will eat almost all of
       your fetchmail's time, because it will never drop  the  connection  and
       allow  other  polls  to occur unless the server times out the IDLE.  It
       also doesn't work with multiple folders; only  the  first  folder  will
       ever be polled.


       The  'properties'  option is an extension mechanism.  It takes a string
       argument, which is ignored by fetchmail itself.	 The  string  argument
       may  be	used  to  store	 configuration	information  for scripts which
       require it.  In particular, the output of  '--configdump'  option  will
       make  properties	 associated  with  a user entry readily available to a
       Python script.

   Miscellaneous Run Control Options
       The words 'here' and 'there'  have  useful  English-like	 significance.
       Normally	 'user	eric  is esr' would mean that mail for the remote user
       'eric' is to be delivered to 'esr', but you can make  this  clearer  by
       saying 'user eric there is esr here', or reverse it by saying 'user esr
       here is eric there'

       Legal protocol identifiers for use with the 'protocol' keyword are:

	   auto (or AUTO) (legacy, to be removed from future release)
	   pop2 (or POP2) (legacy, to be removed from future release)
	   pop3 (or POP3)
	   sdps (or SDPS)
	   imap (or IMAP)
	   apop (or APOP)
	   kpop (or KPOP)


       Legal authentication types are  'any',  'password',  'kerberos',	 'ker-
       beros_v4',  'kerberos_v5'  and 'gssapi', 'cram-md5', 'otp', 'msn' (only
       for POP3), 'ntlm', 'ssh', 'external' (only IMAP).  The 'password'  type
       specifies  authentication  by  normal  transmission  of a password (the
       password may be plain text or subject to	 protocol-specific  encryption
       as  in  CRAM-MD5);  'kerberos' tells fetchmail to try to get a Kerberos
       ticket at the start of each query instead, and send an arbitrary string
       as the password; and 'gssapi' tells fetchmail to use GSSAPI authentica-
       tion.  See the description of the 'auth' keyword for more.

       Specifying 'kpop' sets POP3 protocol over port 1109  with  Kerberos  V4
       authentication.	These defaults may be overridden by later options.

       There  are  some	 global option statements: 'set logfile' followed by a
       string sets the same global specified  by  --logfile.   A  command-line
       --logfile option will override this. Note that --logfile is only effec-
       tive if fetchmail detaches itself from the  terminal  and  the  logfile
       already	exists	before	fetchmail is run, and it overrides --syslog in
       this case.  Also, 'set daemon' sets the poll interval as --daemon does.
       This can be overridden by a command-line --daemon option; in particular
       --daemon 0 can be used to force foreground operation. The 'set postmas-
       ter'  statement	sets  the  address to which multidrop mail defaults if
       there are no local matches.  Finally, 'set syslog' sends	 log  messages
       to syslogd(8).


DEBUGGING FETCHMAIL
   Fetchmail crashing
       There are various ways in that fetchmail may "crash", i. e. stop opera-
       tion suddenly and unexpectedly. A "crash" usually refers	 to  an	 error
       condition  that	the  software  did  not handle by itself. A well-known
       failure mode is the "segmentation fault" or "signal 11" or "SIGSEGV" or
       just  "segfault" for short. These can be caused by hardware or by soft-
       ware problems. Software-induced segfaults  can  usually	be  reproduced
       easily and in the same place, whereas hardware-induced segfaults can go
       away if the computer is rebooted, or powered off for a few  hours,  and
       can  happen  in	random locations even if you use the software the same
       way.

       For solving hardware-induced segfaults, find the faulty	component  and
       repair  or  replace it.	The Sig11 FAQ <http://www.bitwizard.nl/sig11/>
       may help you with details.

       For solving software-induced  segfaults,	 the  developers  may  need  a
       "stack backtrace".


   Enabling fetchmail core dumps
       By  default,  fetchmail	suppresses  core  dumps as these might contain
       passwords and other  sensitive  information.  For  debugging  fetchmail
       crashes,	 obtaining  a  "stack backtrace" from a core dump is often the
       quickest way to solve the problem, and when posting your problem	 on  a
       mailing list, the developers may ask you for a "backtrace".

       1.  To  get  useful backtraces, fetchmail needs to be installed without
       getting stripped	 of  its  compilation  symbols.	  Unfortunately,  most
       binary  packages	 that  are installed are stripped, and core files from
       symbol-stripped programs are worthless. So you may  need	 to  recompile
       fetchmail. On many systems, you can type

	       file `which fetchmail`

       to  find	 out  if  fetchmail  was  symbol-stripped or not. If yours was
       unstripped, fine, proceed, if it was stripped, you  need	 to  recompile
       the  source code first. You do not usually need to install fetchmail in
       order to debug it.

       2. The shell environment that starts fetchmail  needs  to  enable  core
       dumps.  The  key	 is the "maximum core (file) size" that can usually be
       configured with a tool named "limit" or "ulimit". See the documentation
       for  your  shell	 for  details.	In the popular bash shell, "ulimit -Sc
       unlimited" will allow the core dump.

       3. You need to tell fetchmail, too, to allow core dumps.	 To  do	 this,
       run  fetchmail with the -d0 -v options.	It is often easier to also add
       --nosyslog -N as well.

       Finally, you need to reproduce the crash. You can just start  fetchmail
       from  the directory where you compiled it by typing ./fetchmail, so the
       complete command line will start with ./fetchmail -Nvd0 --nosyslog  and
       perhaps list your other options.

       After the crash, run your debugger to obtain the core dump.  The debug-
       ger will often be GNU GDB, you can then type (adjust  paths  as	neces-
       sary) gdb ./fetchmail fetchmail.core and then, after GDB has started up
       and read all its files, type backtrace full, save the  output  (copy  &
       paste  will  do,	 the  backtrace will be read by a human) and then type
       quit to leave gdb.  Note: on some systems, the core files have  differ-
       ent  names, they might contain a number instead of the program name, or
       number and name, but it will usually have "core" as part of their name.


INTERACTION WITH RFC 822
       When trying to determine the originating address of a  message,	fetch-
       mail looks through headers in the following order:

	       Return-Path:
	       Resent-Sender: (ignored if it doesn't contain an @ or !)
	       Sender: (ignored if it doesn't contain an @ or !)
	       Resent-From:
	       From:
	       Reply-To:
	       Apparently-From:

       The  originating	 address is used for logging, and to set the MAIL FROM
       address when forwarding to SMTP.	 This order is intended to cope grace-
       fully  with  receiving  mailing	list  messages	in multidrop mode. The
       intent is that if a local address doesn't  exist,  the  bounce  message
       won't  be  returned  blindly  to	 the author or to the list itself, but
       rather to the list manager (which is less annoying).

       In multidrop mode, destination headers are processed as follows: First,
       fetchmail  looks	 for  the header specified by the 'envelope' option in
       order to	 determine  the	 local	recipient  address.  If	 the  mail  is
       addressed  to  more than one recipient, the Received line won't contain
       any information regarding recipient addresses.

       Then fetchmail looks for the Resent-To:,	 Resent-Cc:,  and  Resent-Bcc:
       lines.	If  they  exist,  they should contain the final recipients and
       have precedence over their To:/Cc:/Bcc: counterparts.  If the  Resent-*
       lines  don't  exist,  the  To:,	Cc:, Bcc: and Apparently-To: lines are
       looked for. (The presence of a Resent-To: is taken to  imply  that  the
       person  referred	 by  the To: address has already received the original
       copy of the mail.)


CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES
       Note that although there are password declarations in a	good  many  of
       the  examples below, this is mainly for illustrative purposes.  We rec-
       ommend stashing account/password pairs in your $HOME/.netrc file, where
       they  can  be  used  not just by fetchmail but by ftp(1) and other pro-
       grams.

       The basic format is:


	      poll SERVERNAME protocol PROTOCOL username NAME  password	 PASS-
	      WORD


       Example:


	      poll pop.provider.net protocol pop3 username "jsmith" password "secret1"


       Or, using some abbreviations:


	      poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" password "secret1"


       Multiple servers may be listed:


	      poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 user "jsmith" pass "secret1"
	      poll other.provider.net proto pop2 user "John.Smith" pass "My^Hat"


       Here's the same version with more whitespace and some noise words:


	      poll pop.provider.net proto pop3
		   user "jsmith", with password secret1, is "jsmith" here;
	      poll other.provider.net proto pop2:
		   user "John.Smith", with password "My^Hat", is "John.Smith" here;


       If  you	need  to include whitespace in a parameter string or start the
       latter with a number, enclose the string in double quotes.  Thus:


	      poll mail.provider.net with proto pop3:
		   user "jsmith" there has password "4u but u can't krak this"
		   is jws here and wants mda "/bin/mail"


       You may have an	initial	 server	 description  headed  by  the  keyword
       'defaults'  instead  of	'poll'	followed  by a name.  Such a record is
       interpreted as defaults for all queries to use. It may  be  overwritten
       by individual server descriptions.  So, you could write:


	      defaults proto pop3
		   user "jsmith"
	      poll pop.provider.net
		   pass "secret1"
	      poll mail.provider.net
		   user "jjsmith" there has password "secret2"


       It's  possible  to  specify  more than one user per server.  The 'user'
       keyword leads off a user description, and every user specification in a
       multi-user entry must include it.  Here's an example:


	      poll pop.provider.net proto pop3 port 3111
		   user "jsmith" with pass "secret1" is "smith" here
		   user jones with pass "secret2" is "jjones" here keep


       This  associates	 the  local username 'smith' with the pop.provider.net
       username	 'jsmith'  and	the   local   username	 'jjones'   with   the
       pop.provider.net	 username  'jones'.   Mail  for 'jones' is kept on the
       server after download.


       Here's what a simple retrieval configuration for	 a  multidrop  mailbox
       looks like:


	      poll pop.provider.net:
		   user maildrop with pass secret1 to golux 'hurkle'='happy' snark here


       This  says  that	 the  mailbox of account 'maildrop' on the server is a
       multidrop box, and that messages in it should be parsed for the	server
       user  names  'golux', 'hurkle', and 'snark'.  It further specifies that
       'golux' and 'snark' have the same name on the client as on the  server,
       but  mail  for  server user 'hurkle' should be delivered to client user
       'happy'.


       Note  that  fetchmail,  until  version  6.3.4,  did  NOT	  allow	  full
       user@domain  specifications  here,  these would never match.  Fetchmail
       6.3.5 and newer support user@domain  specifications  on	the  left-hand
       side of a user mapping.


       Here's an example of another kind of multidrop connection:


	      poll pop.provider.net localdomains loonytoons.org toons.org
		   envelope X-Envelope-To
		   user maildrop with pass secret1 to * here


       This  also says that the mailbox of account 'maildrop' on the server is
       a multidrop box.	 It tells fetchmail that any  address  in  the	loony-
       toons.org  or  toons.org	 domains  (including sub-domain addresses like
       'joe@daffy.loonytoons.org') should be passed through to the local  SMTP
       listener	 without  modification.	  Be  careful  of mail loops if you do
       this!


       Here's an example configuration using ssh and the plugin	 option.   The
       queries	are  made  directly  on the stdin and stdout of imapd via ssh.
       Note that in this setup, IMAP authentication can be skipped.


	      poll mailhost.net with proto imap:
		   plugin "ssh %h /usr/sbin/imapd" auth ssh;
		   user esr is esr here


THE USE AND ABUSE OF MULTIDROP MAILBOXES
       Use the multiple-local-recipients feature with caution -- it can	 bite.
       All multidrop features are ineffective in ETRN and ODMR modes.

       Also,  note  that  in multidrop mode duplicate mails are suppressed.  A
       piece of mail is considered duplicate if it has the same message-ID  as
       the  message  immediately  preceding and more than one addressee.  Such
       runs of messages may be generated when copies of a message addressed to
       multiple users are delivered to a multidrop box.


   Header vs. Envelope addresses
       The  fundamental problem is that by having your mailserver toss several
       peoples' mail in a single maildrop box, you may have thrown away poten-
       tially  vital  information  about  who  each piece of mail was actually
       addressed  to  (the  'envelope  address',  as  opposed  to  the	header
       addresses in the RFC822 To/Cc headers - the Bcc is not available at the
       receiving end).	This 'envelope address' is the	address	 you  need  in
       order to reroute mail properly.

       Sometimes fetchmail can deduce the envelope address.  If the mailserver
       MTA is sendmail and the item of mail had just one  recipient,  the  MTA
       will  have  written a 'by/for' clause that gives the envelope addressee
       into its Received header. But this  doesn't  work  reliably  for	 other
       MTAs,  nor  if there is more than one recipient.	 By default, fetchmail
       looks for envelope addresses in	these  lines;  you  can	 restore  this
       default with -E "Received" or 'envelope Received'.

       As a better alternative, some SMTP listeners and/or mail servers insert
       a header in each message containing a copy of the  envelope  addresses.
       This  header  (when it exists) is often 'X-Original-To', 'Delivered-To'
       or 'X-Envelope-To'.  Fetchmail's assumption about this can  be  changed
       with the -E or 'envelope' option.  Note that writing an envelope header
       of this kind exposes the	 names	of  recipients	(including  blind-copy
       recipients)  to	all  receivers	of  the messages, so the upstream must
       store one copy of the message per recipient to avoid becoming a privacy
       problem.

       Postfix,	 since version 2.0, writes an X-Original-To: header which con-
       tains a copy of the envelope as it was received.

       Qmail and Postfix generally write a 'Delivered-To' header upon deliver-
       ing  the	 message  to  the  mail	 spool and use it to avoid mail loops.
       Qmail virtual domains however will prefix the user name with  a	string
       that  normally matches the user's domain. To remove this prefix you can
       use the -Q or 'qvirtual' option.

       Sometimes, unfortunately, neither of these methods works.  That is  the
       point  when you should contact your ISP and ask them to provide such an
       envelope header, and you should not use multidrop  in  this  situation.
       When  they  all fail, fetchmail must fall back on the contents of To/Cc
       headers (Bcc headers are not available - see below) to try to determine
       recipient addressees -- and these are unreliable.  In particular, mail-
       ing-list software often ships mail with only the list broadcast address
       in the To header.

       Note that a future version of fetchmail may remove To/Cc parsing!

       When fetchmail cannot deduce a recipient address that is local, and the
       intended recipient address was anyone other than	 fetchmail's  invoking
       user,  mail  will  get  lost.  This is what makes the multidrop feature
       risky without proper envelope information.

       A related problem is that when you blind-copy a mail message,  the  Bcc
       information  is carried only as envelope address (it's removed from the
       headers by the sending mail server, so fetchmail can  see  it  only  if
       there  is an X-Envelope-To header).  Thus, blind-copying to someone who
       gets mail over a fetchmail multidrop link  will	fail  unless  the  the
       mailserver  host routinely writes X-Envelope-To or an equivalent header
       into messages in your maildrop.

       In conclusion, mailing lists and Bcc'd mail can only work if the server
       you're fetching from

       (1)    stores one copy of the message per recipient in your domain and

       (2)    records  the  envelope information in a special header (X-Origi-
	      nal-To, Delivered-To, X-Envelope-To).


   Good Ways To Use Multidrop Mailboxes
       Multiple local names can be used to administer a mailing list from  the
       client side of a fetchmail collection.  Suppose your name is 'esr', and
       you want to both pick up your own mail  and  maintain  a	 mailing  list
       called  (say)  "fetchmail-friends", and you want to keep the alias list
       on your client machine.

       On your server, you can alias 'fetchmail-friends' to  'esr';  then,  in
       your .fetchmailrc, declare 'to esr fetchmail-friends here'.  Then, when
       mail including 'fetchmail-friends' as a local address gets fetched, the
       list name will be appended to the list of recipients your SMTP listener
       sees.  Therefore it will undergo alias expansion locally.  Be  sure  to
       include	'esr'  in  the	local alias expansion of fetchmail-friends, or
       you'll never see mail sent only to the list.  Also be  sure  that  your
       listener	 has  the  "me-too"  option  set (sendmail's -oXm command-line
       option or OXm declaration) so your name isn't removed from alias expan-
       sions in messages you send.

       This  trick  is not without its problems, however.  You'll begin to see
       this when a message comes in that is addressed only to a	 mailing  list
       you  do not have declared as a local name.  Each such message will fea-
       ture an 'X-Fetchmail-Warning' header which is generated because	fetch-
       mail  cannot  find a valid local name in the recipient addresses.  Such
       messages default (as was described above) to being sent	to  the	 local
       user  running fetchmail, but the program has no way to know that that's
       actually the right thing.


   Bad Ways To Abuse Multidrop Mailboxes
       Multidrop mailboxes and fetchmail serving multiple users in daemon mode
       do not mix.  The problem, again, is mail from mailing lists, which typ-
       ically does not have an individual recipient address  on	 it.	Unless
       fetchmail can deduce an envelope address, such mail will only go to the
       account running fetchmail (probably root).   Also,  blind-copied	 users
       are very likely never to see their mail at all.

       If  you're tempted to use fetchmail to retrieve mail for multiple users
       from a single mail drop via POP or IMAP, think again  (and  reread  the
       section	on  header and envelope addresses above).  It would be smarter
       to just let the mail sit in the mailserver's queue and use  fetchmail's
       ETRN  or ODMR modes to trigger SMTP sends periodically (of course, this
       means you have to poll more frequently  than  the  mailserver's	expiry
       period).	 If you can't arrange this, try setting up a UUCP feed.

       If  you	absolutely must use multidrop for this purpose, make sure your
       mailserver writes an envelope-address header that  fetchmail  can  see.
       Otherwise you will lose mail and it will come back to haunt you.


   Speeding Up Multidrop Checking
       Normally, when multiple users are declared fetchmail extracts recipient
       addresses as described above and checks each host part with DNS to  see
       if it's an alias of the mailserver.  If so, the name mappings described
       in the "to ... here" declaration are done and the mail  locally	deliv-
       ered.

       This is a convenient but also slow method.  To speed it up, pre-declare
       mailserver aliases with 'aka'; these are checked before DNS lookups are
       done.   If you're certain your aka list contains all DNS aliases of the
       mailserver (and all MX names pointing at it - note this may change in a
       future  version)	 you  can  declare  'no	 dns'  to suppress DNS lookups
       entirely and only match against the aka list.


SOCKS
       Support for socks4/5 is a compile time configuration option. Once  com-
       piled  in, fetchmail will always use the socks libraries and configura-
       tion on your system, there are no run-time switches in fetchmail -  but
       you  can	 still configure SOCKS: you can specify which SOCKS configura-
       tion file is used in the SOCKS_CONF environment variable.

       For instance, if you wanted to bypass the SOCKS	proxy  altogether  and
       have    fetchmail    connect    directly,    you	   could   just	  pass
       SOCKS_CONF=/dev/null in the environment, for example  (add  your	 usual
       command line options - if any - to the end of this line):

       env SOCKS_CONF=/dev/null fetchmail


EXIT CODES
       To  facilitate  the  use	 of fetchmail in shell scripts, an exit status
       code is returned to give an indication of what occurred during a	 given
       connection.

       The exit codes returned by fetchmail are as follows:

       0      One  or more messages were successfully retrieved (or, if the -c
	      option was selected, were found waiting but not retrieved).

       1      There was no mail awaiting retrieval.  (There may have been  old
	      mail still on the server but not selected for retrieval.) If you
	      do not want "no mail" to be an error  condition  (for  instance,
	      for cron jobs), use a POSIX-compliant shell and add

	      || [ $? -eq 1 ]

	      to  the end of the fetchmail command line, note that this leaves
	      0 untouched, maps 1 to 0, and maps all other  codes  to  1.  See
	      also item #C8 in the FAQ.

       2      An  error	 was  encountered  when attempting to open a socket to
	      retrieve mail.  If you don't know what a socket is, don't	 worry
	      about  it	 -- just treat this as an 'unrecoverable error'.  This
	      error can also be because a protocol fetchmail wants to  use  is
	      not listed in /etc/services.

       3      The  user authentication step failed.  This usually means that a
	      bad user-id, password, or APOP id was specified.	Or it may mean
	      that you tried to run fetchmail under circumstances where it did
	      not have standard input attached to a  terminal  and  could  not
	      prompt for a missing password.

       4      Some sort of fatal protocol error was detected.

       5      There  was  a  syntax  error in the arguments to fetchmail, or a
	      pre- or post-connect command failed.

       6      The run control file had bad permissions.

       7      There was an error condition reported by the server.   Can  also
	      fire if fetchmail timed out while waiting for the server.

       8      Client-side  exclusion error.  This means fetchmail either found
	      another copy of itself already running, or failed in such a  way
	      that it isn't sure whether another copy is running.

       9      The user authentication step failed because the server responded
	      "lock busy".  Try again after a brief pause!  This error is  not
	      implemented  for	all  protocols,	 nor  for all servers.	If not
	      implemented for your server, "3" will be returned	 instead,  see
	      above.  May be returned when talking to qpopper or other servers
	      that can respond with "lock busy" or some similar text  contain-
	      ing the word "lock".

       10     The fetchmail run failed while trying to do an SMTP port open or
	      transaction.

       11     Fatal DNS error.	Fetchmail encountered an error while  perform-
	      ing a DNS lookup at startup and could not proceed.

       12     BSMTP batch file could not be opened.

       13     Poll terminated by a fetch limit (see the --fetchlimit option).

       14     Server busy indication.

       23     Internal error.  You should see a message on standard error with
	      details.

       24 - 26, 28, 29
	      These are internal codes and should not appear externally.

       When fetchmail queries more than one host, return status is  0  if  any
       query  successfully retrieved mail. Otherwise the returned error status
       is that of the last host queried.


FILES
       ~/.fetchmailrc
	    default run control file

       ~/.fetchids
	    default location of file recording	last  message  UIDs  seen  per
	    host.

       ~/.fetchmail.pid
	    lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (non-root mode).

       ~/.netrc
	    your FTP run control file, which (if present) will be searched for
	    passwords as a last resort before prompting for one interactively.

       /var/run/fetchmail.pid
	    lock file to help prevent concurrent runs (root mode,  Linux  sys-
	    tems).

       /etc/fetchmail.pid
	    lock  file	to  help  prevent  concurrent runs (root mode, systems
	    without /var/run).


ENVIRONMENT
       FETCHMAILHOME
	      If this environment variable is set  to  a  valid	 and  existing
	      directory	 name,	fetchmail will read $FETCHMAILHOME/fetchmailrc
	      (the dot is missing in this case), $FETCHMAILHOME/.fetchids  and
	      $FETCHMAILHOME/.fetchmail.pid  rather  than from the user's home
	      directory.  The .netrc file is always  looked  for  in  the  the
	      invoking	user's	home  directory	 regardless of FETCHMAILHOME's
	      setting.


       FETCHMAILUSER
	      If this environment variable is set, it is used as the  name  of
	      the calling user (default local name) for purposes such as mail-
	      ing error notifications.	Otherwise, if either  the  LOGNAME  or
	      USER  variable  is  correctly  set  (e.g.	 the corresponding UID
	      matches the session user ID) then	 that  name  is	 used  as  the
	      default  local  name.   Otherwise	 getpwuid(3)  must  be able to
	      retrieve a password entry for the	 session  ID  (this  elaborate
	      logic  is	 designed  to  handle  the  case of multiple names per
	      userid gracefully).


       FETCHMAIL_INCLUDE_DEFAULT_X509_CA_CERTS
	      (since v6.3.17): If this environment variable  is	 set  and  not
	      empty, fetchmail will always load the default X.509 trusted cer-
	      tificate	locations  for	SSL/TLS	 CA  certificates,   even   if
	      --sslcertfile and --sslcertpath are given.  The latter locations
	      take precedence over the system default locations.  This is use-
	      ful in case there are broken certificates in the system directo-
	      ries and the user has no administrator privileges to remedy  the
	      problem.


       HOME_ETC
	      If   the	 HOME_ETC   variable   is  set,	 fetchmail  will  read
	      $HOME_ETC/.fetchmailrc instead of ~/.fetchmailrc.

	      If HOME_ETC and FETCHMAILHOME are both  set,  HOME_ETC  will  be
	      ignored.


       SOCKS_CONF
	      (only  if SOCKS support is compiled in) this variable is used by
	      the socks library to find out which configuration file it should
	      read. Set this to /dev/null to bypass the SOCKS proxy.


SIGNALS
       If  a fetchmail daemon is running as root, SIGUSR1 wakes it up from its
       sleep phase and forces a poll of all non-skipped servers. For  compati-
       bility  reasons, SIGHUP can also be used in 6.3.X but may not be avail-
       able in future fetchmail versions.

       If fetchmail is running in daemon mode as non-root, use SIGUSR1 to wake
       it  (this  is  so SIGHUP due to logout can retain the default action of
       killing it).

       Running fetchmail in foreground while a background fetchmail is running
       will do whichever of these is appropriate to wake it up.


BUGS AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
       Please  check  the NEWS file that shipped with fetchmail for more known
       bugs than those listed here.

       Fetchmail cannot handle user names that	contain	 blanks	 after	a  "@"
       character, for instance "demonstr@ti on". These are rather uncommon and
       only hurt when using UID-based --keep setups, so the 6.3.X versions  of
       fetchmail won't be fixed.

       The  assumptions	 that the DNS and in particular the checkalias options
       make are not often sustainable. For instance, it	 has  become  uncommon
       for  an	MX server to be a POP3 or IMAP server at the same time. There-
       fore the MX lookups may go away in a future release.

       The mda and plugin options interact badly.  In order to	collect	 error
       status from the MDA, fetchmail has to change its normal signal handling
       so that dead plugin processes don't get reaped until  the  end  of  the
       poll  cycle.   This  can	 cause resource starvation if too many zombies
       accumulate.  So either don't deliver to a MDA  using  plugins  or  risk
       being overrun by an army of undead.

       The  --interface	 option does not support IPv6 and it is doubtful if it
       ever will, since there is no  portable  way  to	query  interface  IPv6
       addresses.

       The  RFC822  address  parser  used  in  multidrop  mode	chokes on some
       @-addresses that are technically legal but bizarre.   Strange  uses  of
       quoting and embedded comments are likely to confuse it.

       In  a  message  with  multiple envelope headers, only the last one pro-
       cessed will be visible to fetchmail.

       Use of some of these protocols requires that  the  program  send	 unen-
       crypted	passwords  over the TCP/IP connection to the mailserver.  This
       creates a risk that name/password pairs might be snaffled with a packet
       sniffer	or  more  sophisticated	 monitoring software.  Under Linux and
       FreeBSD, the --interface option can be  used  to	 restrict  polling  to
       availability  of	 a  specific interface device with a specific local or
       remote IP address, but snooping is still possible if  (a)  either  host
       has a network device that can be opened in promiscuous mode, or (b) the
       intervening network link can be tapped.	We recommend the use of ssh(1)
       tunnelling  to  not  only  shroud your passwords but encrypt the entire
       conversation.

       Use of the %F or %T escapes in an mda  option  could  open  a  security
       hole, because they pass text manipulable by an attacker to a shell com-
       mand.  Potential shell characters are replaced by '_' before execution.
       The hole is further reduced by the fact that fetchmail temporarily dis-
       cards any suid privileges it may have while running the MDA.  For maxi-
       mum  safety, however, don't use an mda command containing %F or %T when
       fetchmail is run from the root account itself.

       Fetchmail's method of sending bounces due to  errors  or	 spam-blocking
       and  spam  bounces  requires that port 25 of localhost be available for
       sending mail via SMTP.

       If you modify ~/.fetchmailrc while a background instance is running and
       break  the syntax, the background instance will die silently.  Unfortu-
       nately, it can't die noisily because we don't yet know  whether	syslog
       should  be  enabled.   On  some systems, fetchmail dies quietly even if
       there is no syntax error; this seems to have something to do with buggy
       terminal ioctl code in the kernel.

       The  -f	-  option (reading a configuration from stdin) is incompatible
       with the plugin option.

       The 'principal' option only handles Kerberos IV, not V.

       Interactively entered passwords are truncated after 63  characters.  If
       you  really  need to use a longer password, you will have to use a con-
       figuration file.

       A backslash as the last character  of  a	 configuration	file  will  be
       flagged as a syntax error rather than ignored.

       The  BSMTP error handling is virtually nonexistent and may leave broken
       messages behind.

       Send comments, bug reports, gripes, and the like to the fetchmail-devel
       list <fetchmail-devel@lists.berlios.de>


       An  HTML FAQ <http://fetchmail.berlios.de/fetchmail-FAQ.html> is avail-
       able at the fetchmail home page, it should also accompany your  instal-
       lation.


AUTHOR
       Fetchmail  is currently maintained by Matthias Andree and Rob Funk with
       major assistance from Sunil Shetye (for code) and  Rob  MacGregor  (for
       the mailing lists).

       Most of the code is from Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> .  Too
       many other people to name here have contributed code and patches.

       This program is descended from and replaces popclient, by  Carl	Harris
       <ceharris@mal.com>  ;  the  internals  have become quite different, but
       some of its interface design is directly traceable  to  that  ancestral
       program.

       This  manual page has been improved by Matthias Andree, R. Hannes Bein-
       ert, and Hector Garcia.


SEE ALSO
       README, README.SSL, README.SSL-SERVER, The Fetchmail FAQ <http://
       www.fetchmail.info/fetchmail-FAQ.html>, mutt(1), elm(1), mail(1), send-
       mail(8), popd(8), imapd(8), netrc(5).


       The fetchmail home page.	 <http://fetchmail.berlios.de/>


       The maildrop home page.	<http://www.courier-mta.org/maildrop/>


APPLICABLE STANDARDS
       Note that this list is just a collection of references and not a state-
       ment  as	 to  the actual protocol conformance or requirements in fetch-
       mail.

       SMTP/ESMTP:
	    RFC 821, RFC 2821, RFC 1869, RFC 1652, RFC	1870,  RFC  1983,  RFC
	    1985, RFC 2554.

       mail:
	    RFC 822, RFC 2822, RFC 1123, RFC 1892, RFC 1894.

       POP2:
	    RFC 937

       POP3:
	    RFC	 1081,	RFC  1225, RFC 1460, RFC 1725, RFC 1734, RFC 1939, RFC
	    1957, RFC 2195, RFC 2449.

       APOP:
	    RFC 1939.

       RPOP:
	    RFC 1081, RFC 1225.

       IMAP2/IMAP2BIS:
	    RFC 1176, RFC 1732.

       IMAP4/IMAP4rev1:
	    RFC 1730, RFC 1731, RFC 1732, RFC 2060, RFC 2061,  RFC  2195,  RFC
	    2177, RFC 2683.

       ETRN:
	    RFC 1985.

       ODMR/ATRN:
	    RFC 2645.

       OTP: RFC 1938.

       LMTP:
	    RFC 2033.

       GSSAPI:
	    RFC 1508.

       TLS: RFC 2595.



fetchmail		       fetchmail 6.3.17			  fetchmail(1)