getmail documentation
This is the documentation for getmail version 4. Version 4 includes
numerous changes from version 3.x; if you are using getmail version 3,
please refer to the documentation included with that version of the
software.
getmail is Copyright © 1998-2009 Charles Cazabon.
getmail is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2
(only). If you wish to obtain a license to distribute getmail under
other terms, please contact me directly.
Table of Contents
* getmail documentation
*
+ getmail documentation
+
o Features
o Differences from previous versions
o Requirements
o Obtaining getmail
o Installing getmail
o getmail mailing lists
* getmail configuration
*
+ Configuring getmail
+
o Creating a getmail rc file
o
# Parameter types and formats
#
@ string
@ integer
@ boolean
@ tuple of quoted strings
@ tuple of integers
@ tuple of 2-tuples
# Creating the [retriever] section
#
@ What is a "multidrop" mailbox? How do I know
if I have one?
@ Common retriever parameters
@ SimplePOP3Retriever
@ BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever
@ SimpleIMAPRetriever
@ SimplePOP3SSLRetriever
@ BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever
@ SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever
@ MultidropPOP3Retriever
@ MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever
@ MultidropSDPSRetriever
@ MultidropIMAPRetriever
@ MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever
# Retriever examples
# Creating the [destination] section
#
@ Maildir
@ Mboxrd
@ MDA_external
@ MultiDestination
@ MultiSorter
@ MultiGuesser
@ MDA_qmaillocal
# Creating the [options] section
#
@ [options] example
# Creating the [filter-something] sections
#
@ Filter_classifier
@ Filter_external
@ Filter_TMDA
@ [filter-something] examples
# getmail rc file examples
+ Running getmail
+
o Commandline options
o Using getmail as an MDA
o
# Using the getmail_maildir MDA
#
@ Example
# Using the getmail_mbox MDA
#
@ Example
o Using getmail_fetch to retrieve mail from scripts
* getmail troubleshooting
*
+ Troubleshooting problems
+
o Error messages
o Warning messages
o Unexpected Behaviour
* getmail frequently-asked questions (FAQs)
*
+ Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQs)
+
o About getmail
o Configuring getmail
o How do I ...
o Using getmail with other software
o I think I found this bug in getmail ...
Configuring getmail
Once getmail is installed, you need to configure it before you can
retrieve mail with it. Follow these steps:
1. Create a data/configuration directory. The default is
$HOME/.getmail/. If you choose a different location, you will need
to specify it on the getmail command line. In general, other users
should not be able to read the contents of this directory, so you
should set the permissions on it appropriately.
mkdir -m 0700 $HOME/.getmail
2. Create a configuration file in the configuration/data directory.
The default name is getmailrc. If you choose a different filename,
you will need to specify it on the getmail command line. If you
want to retrieve mail from more than one mail account, you will
need to create a separate rc file for each account getmail should
retrieve mail from.
Creating a getmail rc file
The configuration file format is designed to be easy to understand
(both for getmail, and for the user). It is broken down into small
sections of related parameters by section headers which appear on
lines by themselves, enclosed in square brackets, like this:
[section name]
Each section contains a series of parameters, declared as follows:
parameter_name = parameter_value
A parameter value, if necessary, can span multiple lines. To indicate
that the second and subsequent lines form a continuation of the
previous line, they need to begin with leading whitespace, like this:
first_parameter = value
first parameter value continues here
second_parameter = value
You can annotate your configuration files with comments by putting
them on lines which begin with a pound sign, like this:
first_parameter = value
# I chose this value because of etc.
second_parameter = value
Each rc file requires at least two specific sections. The first is
retriever, which tells getmail about the mail account to retrieve
messages from. The second is destination, which tells getmail what to
do with the retrieved messages. There is also an optional section
named options , which gives getmail general configuration information
(such as whether to log its actions to a file), and other sections can
be used to tell getmail to filter retrieved messages through other
programs, or to deliver messages for particular users in a particular
way.
Parameter types and formats
Several different types of parameters are used in getmail rc files:
* string
* integer
* boolean
* tuple of quoted strings
* tuple of integers
* tuple of 2-tuples
Each parameter type has a specific format that must be used to
represent it in the getmail rc file. They are explained below. Each
parameter documented later specifies its type explicitly.
string
Specify a string parameter value with no special syntax:
parameter = my value
integer
Specify an integer parameter value with no special syntax:
parameter = 4150
boolean
A boolean parameter is true or false; you can specify its value with
the (case-insensitive) words "true" and "false". The values "yes",
"on" and 1 are accepted as equivalent to "true", while values "no",
"off" and 0 are accepted as equivalent to "false". Some examples:
parameter = True
parameter = false
parameter = NO
parameter = 1
tuple of quoted strings
A tuple of quoted strings is essentially a list of strings, with each
string surrounded by matching double- or single-quote characters to
indicate where it begins and ends. The list must be surrounded by
open- and close-parenthesis characters. A tuple may have to be a
specific number of strings; for instance, a "2-tuple" must consist of
two quoted strings, while a "4-tuple" must have exactly four. In most
cases, the number of strings is not required to be a specific number,
and it will not be specified in this fashion.
In general, a tuple of quoted strings parameter values should look
like this:
parameter = ('first string', 'second string',
"third string that contains a ' character")
However, tuples of 0 or 1 strings require special treatment. The empty
tuple is specified with just the open- and close-parenthesis
characters:
parameter = ()
A tuple containing a single quoted string requires a comma to indicate
it is a tuple:
parameter = ("single string", )
tuple of integers
This is very similar to a tuple of quoted strings, above, minus the
quotes. Some examples:
parameter = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
parameter = (37, )
parameter = ()
tuple of 2-tuples
This is a tuple of items, each of which is a 2-tuple of quoted
strings. You can think of this as a list of pairs of quoted strings.
# Three pairs
parameter = (
("first-a", "first-b"),
("second-a", "second-b"),
("third-a", "third-b"),
)
# One pair
parameter = (
("lone-a", "lone-b"),
)
Creating the [retriever] section
The retriever section of the rc file tells getmail what mail account
to retrieve mail from, and how to access that account. Begin with the
section header line as follows:
[retriever]
Then, include a type string parameter to tell getmail what type of
mail retriever to use to retrieve mail from this account. The possible
values are:
* SimplePOP3Retriever -- for single-user POP3 mail accounts.
* BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever -- for broken POP3 servers that do not
support the UIDL command, or which do not uniquely identify
messages; this provides basic support for single-user POP3 mail
accounts on such servers.
* SimpleIMAPRetriever -- for single-user IMAP mail accounts.
* SimplePOP3SSLRetriever -- same as SimplePOP3Retriever, but uses
SSL encryption.
* BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever -- same as BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever, but
uses SSL encryption.
* SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever -- same as SimpleIMAPRetriever, but uses
SSL encryption.
* MultidropPOP3Retriever -- for domain mailbox (multidrop) POP3 mail
accounts.
* MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever -- same as MultidropPOP3Retriever, but
uses SSL encryption.
* MultidropSDPSRetriever -- for domain mailbox SDPS mail accounts,
as provided by the UK ISP Demon.
* MultidropIMAPRetriever -- for domain mailbox (multidrop) IMAP mail
accounts.
* MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever -- same as MultidropIMAPRetriever, but
uses SSL encryption.
What is a "multidrop" mailbox? How do I know if I have one?
Some ISPs, mailhosts, and other service providers provide a mail
service they refer to as a "domain mailbox" or "multidrop mailbox".
This is where they register a domain for you, and mail addressed to
any local-part in that domain ends up in a single mailbox accessible
via POP3, with the message envelope (envelope sender address and
envelope recipient address) recorded properly in the message header,
so that it can be re-constructed after you retrieve the messages with
POP3 or IMAP. The primary benefit of this is that you can run your own
MTA (qmail, Postfix, sendmail, Exchange, etc.) for your domain without
having to have an SMTP daemon listening at a static IP address.
Unfortunately, a lot of what is advertised and sold as multidrop
service really isn't. In many cases, the envelope recipient address of
the message is not properly recorded, so the envelope information is
lost and cannot be reconstructed. If the envelope isn't properly
preserved, it isn't a domain mailbox, and you therefore can't use a
multidrop retriever with that mailbox.
To determine if you have a multidrop mailbox, check the following
list: if any of these items are not true, you do not have a multidrop
mailbox.
* the mailbox must receive one copy of the message for each envelope
recipient in the domain; if the message was addressed to three
local-parts in the domain, the mailbox must receive three separate
copies of the message.
* the envelope sender address must be recorded in a header field
named Return-Path at the top of the message. If the message
(incorrectly) already contained such a header field, it must be
deleted before the envelope sender address is recorded.
* the envelope recipient address must be recorded in a new header
field. These may be named various things, but are commonly
Delivered-To, X-Envelope-To, and similar values. In the case of
messages which had multiple recipients in the domain, this must be
a single address, reflecting the particular recipient of this copy
of the message. Note that this field (and the envelope recipient
address) are not related to informational header fields created by
the originating MUA, like To or cc.
If you're not sure whether you have a multidrop mailbox, you probably
don't. You probably want to use SimplePOP3Retriever (for POP3 mail
accounts) or SimpleIMAPRetriever (for IMAP mail accounts) retrievers.
Specify the mail account type with one of the above values, like this:
type = typename
Then, include lines for any parameters and their values which are
required by the retriever. The parameters and their types are
documented below.
Common retriever parameters
All retriever types take several common required parameters:
* server (string) -- the name or IP address of the server to
retrieve mail from
* username (string) -- username to provide when logging in to the
mail server
All retriever types also take several optional parameters:
* port (integer) -- the TCP port number to connect to. If not
provided, the default is a port appropriate for the protocol (110
for POP3, etc.)
* password (string) -- password to use when logging in to the mail
server. If not provided (and not using Kerberos authentication --
see below), getmail will prompt you to enter the password when
getmail is run.
All IMAP retriever types also take the following optional parameters:
* mailboxes (tuple of quoted strings) -- a list of mailbox paths to
retrieve mail from, expressed as a Python tuple. If not specified,
the default is to retrieve mail from the mail folder named INBOX.
You might want to retrieve messages from several different mail
folders, using a configuration like this:
mailboxes = ("INBOX", "INBOX.spam",
"mailing-lists.model-railroading")
Note that the format for hierarchical folder names is determined
by the IMAP server, not by getmail. Consult your server's
documentation or postmaster if you're unsure what form your server
uses.
* move_on_delete (string) -- if set, messages are moved to the named
mail folder before being deleted from their original location.
Note that if you configure getmail not to delete retrieved
messages (the default behaviour), they will not be moved at all.
* use_kerberos (boolean) -- whether to use Kerberos authentication
with the IMAP server. If not set, normal password-based
authenticaion is used. Note that when you use Kerberos
authentication, it is up to you to ensure you have a valid
Kerberos ticket (perhaps by running a ticket-renewing agent such
as kstart or similar). This feature requires that a recent version
of pykerberos with GSS support is installed; check your OS
distribution or see http://honk.sigxcpu.org/projects/pykerberos/"
for details.
SimplePOP3Retriever
The SimplePOP3Retriever class takes the common retriever parameters
above, plus the following optional parameters:
* use_apop (boolean) -- if set to True, getmail will use APOP-style
authentication to log in to the server instead of normal USER/PASS
authentication. This is not supported by many POP3 servers. Note
that APOP adds much less security than might be supposed;
weaknesses in its hashing algorithm mean that an attacker can
recover the first three characters of the password after snooping
on only a few hundred authentications between a client and server
-- see http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/464477/30/0/threaded
for details. The default is False.
* timeout (integer) -- how long (in seconds) to wait for socket
operations to complete before considering them failed. If not
specified, the default is 180 seconds. You may need to increase
this value in particularly poor networking conditions.
* delete_dup_msgids (boolean) -- if set to True, and the POP3 server
identifies multiple messages as having the same "unique"
identifier, all but the first will be deleted without retrieving
them.
BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever
This retriever class is intended only for use with broken POP3 servers
that either do not implement the UIDL command, or which do not
properly assign unique identifiers to messages (preventing getmail
from determining which messages it has seen before). It will identify
every message in the mailbox as a new message, and therefore if you
use this retriever class and opt not to delete messages after
retrieval, it will retrieve those messages again the next time getmail
is run. Use this retriever class only if your mailbox is hosted on
such a broken POP3 server, and the server does not provide another
means of getmail accessing it (i.e., IMAP).
The BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever class takes the common retriever
parameters above, plus the following optional parameters:
* use_apop (boolean) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
* timeout (integer) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
SimpleIMAPRetriever
The SimpleIMAPRetriever class takes the common retriever parameters
above, plus the following optional parameters:
* timeout (integer) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
SimplePOP3SSLRetriever
The SimplePOP3SSLRetriever class takes the common retriever parameters
above, plus the following optional parameters:
* use_apop (boolean) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
* delete_dup_msgids (boolean) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for
definition.
* keyfile (string) -- use the specified PEM-formatted key file in
the SSL negotiation. Note that no certificate or key validation is
done.
* certfile (string) -- use the specified PEM-formatted certificate
file in the SSL negotiation. Note that no certificate or key
validation is done.
BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever
The BrokenUIDLPOP3SSLRetriever class takes the common retriever
parameters above, plus the following optional parameters:
* use_apop (boolean) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
* keyfile (string) -- see SimplePOP3SSLRetriever for definition.
* certfile (string) -- see SimplePOP3SSLRetriever for definition.
SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever
The SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever class takes the common retriever parameters
above, plus the following optional parameters:
* mailboxes (tuple of quoted strings) -- see SimpleIMAPRetriever for
definition.
* move_on_delete (string) -- see SimpleIMAPRetriever for definition.
* keyfile (string) -- see SimplePOP3SSLRetriever for definition.
* certfile (string) -- see SimplePOP3SSLRetriever for definition.
MultidropPOP3Retriever
The MultidropPOP3Retriever class takes the common retriever parameters
above, plus the following required parameter:
* envelope_recipient (string) -- the name and position of the header
field which records the envelope recipient address. This is set to
a value of the form field_name : field_position . The first
(topmost) Delivered-To: header field would be specified as:
envelope_recipient = delivered-to:1
The MultidropPOP3Retriever also takes the following optional
parameters:
* use_apop (boolean) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
* timeout (integer) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever
The MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever class takes the common retriever
parameters above, plus the following required parameter:
* envelope_recipient (string) -- see MultidropPOP3Retriever for
definition.
The MultidropPOP3SSLRetriever class alo takes the following optional
parameters:
* use_apop (boolean) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
* keyfile (string) -- see SimplePOP3SSLRetriever for definition.
* certfile (string) -- see SimplePOP3SSLRetriever for definition.
MultidropSDPSRetriever
The MultidropSDPSRetriever class takes the common retriever parameters
above, plus the following optional parameters:
* timeout (integer) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
MultidropIMAPRetriever
The MultidropIMAPRetriever class takes the common retriever parameters
above, plus the following required parameter:
* envelope_recipient (string) -- see MultidropPOP3Retriever for
definition.
The MultidropIMAPRetriever class also takes the following optional
parameters:
* timeout (integer) -- see SimplePOP3Retriever for definition.
* mailboxes (tuple of quoted strings) -- see SimpleIMAPRetriever for
definition.
* move_on_delete (string) -- see SimpleIMAPRetriever for definition.
MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever
The MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever class takes the common retriever
parameters above, plus the following required parameter:
* envelope_recipient (string) -- see MultidropPOP3Retriever for
definition.
The MultidropIMAPSSLRetriever class also takes following optional
parameters:
* mailboxes (tuple of quoted strings) -- see SimpleIMAPRetriever for
definition.
* move_on_delete (string) -- see SimpleIMAPRetriever for definition.
* keyfile (string) -- see SimplePOP3SSLRetriever for definition.
* certfile (string) -- see SimplePOP3SSLRetriever for definition.
Retriever examples
A typical POP3 mail account (the basic kind of mailbox provided by
most internet service providers (ISPs)) would use a retriever
configuration like this:
[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = popmail.isp.example.net
username = account_name
password = my_mail_password
If your ISP provides POP3 access on a non-standard port number, you
would need to include the port parameter:
[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3Retriever
server = popmail.isp.example.net
port = 8110
username = account_name
password = my_mail_password
If your ISP provides POP3-over-SSL and you wanted to use that, your
retriever configuration might look like this:
[retriever]
type = SimplePOP3SSLRetriever
server = popmail.isp.example.net
username = account_name
password = my_mail_password
If you have an IMAP mail account and want to retrieve messages from
several mail folders under that account, and you want to move messages
to a special folder when deleting them, you would use a retriever
configuration like this:
[retriever]
type = SimpleIMAPRetriever
server = imapmail.isp.example.net
username = account_name
password = my_mail_password
mailboxes = ("INBOX", "lists.unix", "lists.getmail")
move_on_delete = mail.deleted
If you are retrieving your company's mail from a domain POP3 mailbox
for delivery to multiple local users, you might use a retriever
configuration like this:
[retriever]
type = MultidropPOP3Retriever
server = imapmail.isp.example.net
username = account_name
password = company_maildrop_password
envelope_recipient = delivered-to:1
Creating the [destination] section
The destination section of the rc file tells getmail what to do with
retrieved messages. Begin with the section header line as follows:
[destination]
Then, include a type string parameter to tell getmail what type of
mail destination this is. The possible values are:
* Maildir -- deliver all messages to a local qmail-style maildir
* Mboxrd -- deliver all messages to a local mboxrd-format mbox file
with fcntl-type locking.
* MDA_external -- use an external message delivery agent (MDA) to
deliver messages. Typical MDAs include maildrop, procmail, and
others.
* MultiDestination -- unconditionally deliver messages to multiple
destinations (maildirs, mbox files, external MDAs, or other
destinations).
* MultiSorter -- sort messages according to the envelope recipient
(requires a domain mailbox retriever) and deliver to a variety of
maildirs, mbox files, external MDAs, or other destinations based
on regular expressions matching the recipient address of each
message. Messages not matching any of the regular expressions are
delivered to a default "postmaster" destination.
* MultiGuesser -- sort messages according to getmail's best guess at
what the envelope recipient of the message might have been, and
deliver to a variety of maildirs, mbox files, external MDAs, or
other destinations based on regular expressions matching those
addresses. Messages not matching any of the regular expressions
are delivered to a default "postmaster" destination.
* MDA_qmaillocal -- use qmail-local to deliver messages according to
instructions in a .qmail file.
Maildir
The Maildir destination delivers to a qmail-style maildir. The maildir
must already exist, and must contain all of the subdirectories
required by the maildir format. getmail will not create the maildir if
it does not exist. If you're not familiar with the maildir format, the
requirements in a nutshell are: it must be a directory containing
three writable subdirectories cur, new, and tmp, and they must all
reside on the same filesystem.
The Maildir destination takes one required parameter:
* path (string) -- the path to the maildir, ending in slash (/).
This value will be expanded for leading ~ or ~USER and environment
variables in the form $VARNAME or ${VARNAME}. You might want to
deliver messages to a maildir named Maildir in your home
directory; you could do this with a configuration like this:
[destination]
type = Maildir
path = ~/Maildir/
The Maildir destination also takes two optional parameters:
* user (string) -- on Unix-like systems, if supplied, getmail will
change the effective UID to that of the named user before
delivering messages to the maildir. Note that this typically
requires root privileges. getmail will not deliver to maildirs as
root, so this "optional" parameter is required in that situation.
* filemode (string) -- if supplied, getmail will cause the delivered
message files in the maildir to have at most these permissions
(given in standard Unix octal notation). Note that the current
umask is masked out of the given value at file creation time. The
default value, which should be appropriate for most users, is
"0600".
Mboxrd
The Mboxrd destination delivers to an mboxrd-format mbox file with
either fcntl-type (lockf) or flock-type file locking. The file must
already exist and appear to be a valid mboxrd file before getmail will
try to deliver to it -- getmail will not create the file if it does
not exist. If you want to create a new mboxrd file for getmail to use,
simply create a completely empty (0-byte) file.
You must ensure that all other programs accessing any the mbox file
expect mboxrd-format mbox files and the same type of file locking that
you configure getmail to use; failure to do so can cause mbox
corruption. If you do not know what type of file locking your system
expects, ask your system administrator. If you are the system
administrator and don't know what type of file locking your system
expects, do not use Mboxrd files; use Maildirs instead. Note that
delivering to mbox files over NFS can be unreliable and should be
avoided; this is the case with any MDA.
The Mboxrd destination takes one required parameter:
* path (string) -- the path to the mbox file. This value will be
expanded for leading ~ or ~USER and environment variables in the
form $VARNAME or ${VARNAME}. You might want to deliver messages to
an mbox file named inbox in your home directory; you could do this
with a configuration like this:
[destination]
type = Mboxrd
path = ~/inbox
The Mboxrd destination also takes two optional parameters:
* user (string) -- on Unix-like systems, if supplied, getmail will
change the effective UID to that of the named user before
delivering messages to the mboxrd file. Note that this typically
requires root privileges. getmail will not deliver to mbox files
as root, so this "optional" parameter is required in that
situation.
* locktype (string) -- which type of file locking to use; may be
"lockf" (for fcntl locking) or "flock". The default in getmail
4.7.0 and later is lockf.
MDA_external
MDA_external delivers messages by running an external program (known
as a message delivery agent, or MDA) and feeding it the message on its
standard input. Some typical MDAs include maildrop and procmail.
The MDA_external destination takes one required parameter:
* path (string) -- the path to the command to run. This value will
be expanded for leading ~ or ~USER and environment variables in
the form $VARNAME or ${VARNAME}.
The MDA_external destination also takes several optional parameters:
* arguments (tuple of quoted strings) -- arguments to be supplied to
the command. The following substrings will be substituted with the
equivalent values from the message:
+ %(sender) -- envelope return-path address
If the message is retrieved with a multidrop retriever class, the
message recipient (and parts of it) are also available with the
following replacement substrings:
+ %(recipient) -- envelope recipient address
+ %(local) -- local-part of the envelope recipient address
+ %(domain) -- domain-part of the envelope recipient address
The default value of the arguments parameter is (), so no
arguments are supplied to the command.
* unixfrom (boolean) -- whether to include a Unix-style mbox From_
line at the beginning of the message supplied to the command.
Defaults to false. Some MDAs expect such a line to be present and
will fail to operate if it is missing.
* user (string) -- if supplied, getmail will change the effective
UID to that of the named user. Note that this typically requires
root privileges.
* group (string) -- if supplied, getmail will change the effective
GID to that of the named group. Note that this typically requires
root privileges.
* allow_root_commands (boolean) -- if set, getmail will run external
commands even if it is currently running with root privileges. The
default is false, which causes getmail to raise an exception if it
is asked to run an external command as root. Note that setting
this option has serious security implications. Don't use it if you
don't know what you're doing. I strongly recommend against running
external processes as root.
* ignore_stderr (boolean) -- if set, getmail will not consider it an
error if the program writes to stderr. The default is false, which
causes getmail to consider the delivery failed and leave the
message on the server, proceeding to the next message. This
prevents loss of mail if the MDA writes to stderr but fails to
exit nonzero when it encounters an error. Note that setting this
option has serious implications; some MDAs can fail to deliver a
message but still exit 0, which can cause loss of mail if this
option is set. Only change this setting if you are confident your
MDA always exits nonzero on error.
A basic invocation of an external MDA might look like this:
[destination]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/mymda
arguments = ("--log-errors", )
Something more complex might look like this:
[destination]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/mymda
# Switch to fred's UID and the mail group GID before delivering his mail
user = fred
group = mail
arguments = ("--strip-forbidden-attachments", "--recipient=%(recipient)")
MultiDestination
MultiDestination doesn't do any message deliveries itself; instead, it
lets you specify a list of one or more other destinations which it
will pass each message to. You can use this to deliver each message to
several different destinations.
The MultiDestination destination takes one required parameter:
* destinations (tuple of quoted strings) -- the destinations which
the messages will be passed to. A destination is a string that
refers to another configuration file section by name (shortcuts
for maildirs and mboxrd files are also provided; see below), like
this:
destinations = ('[other-destination-1]', '[other-destination-2]')
[other-destination-1]
type = Mboxrd
path = /var/spool/mail/alice
user = alice
[other-destination-2]
type = Maildir
path = /home/joe/Maildir/
user = joe
Because Maildir and Mboxrd destinations are common, you can
specify them directly as a shortcut if they do not require a user
parameter. If the string (after expansion; see below) starts with
a dot or slash and ends with a slash, it specifies the path of a
Maildir destination, while if it starts with a dot or a slash and
does not end with a slash, it specifies the path of a Mboxrd
destination.
For instance, you can deliver mail to two maildirs with the
following:
destinations = ('~/Mail/inbox/', '~/Mail/archive/current/')
Each destination string is first expanded for leading ~ or ~USER
and environment variables in the form $VARNAME or ${VARNAME}.
Some examples:
* To deliver to a maildir named Maildir in the home directory of
user jeff, when getmail is run as that user:
[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = ("~jeff/Maildir/", )
* To deliver to an mboxrd file:
[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = ("/var/spool/mail/alice", )
* To deliver with an external MDA:
[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = ("[procmail-as-bob]", )
[procmail-as-bob]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/procmail
arguments = ('~bob/.procmailrc', '-f', '%(sender)')
user = bob
Of course, the whole point of MultiDestination is to allow you to
specify multiple destinations, like this:
[destination]
type = MultiDestination
destinations = (
"~jeff/Mail/inbox",
"[procmail-as-jeff]",
"/var/mail-archive/incoming"
)
[procmail-as-jeff]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/procmail
arguments = ('~jeff/.procmailrc', '-f', '%(sender)')
user = jeff
MultiSorter
MultiSorter compares the envelope recipient address of messages
against a list of user-supplied regular expressions and delivers the
message to the destination (maildir, mboxrd file, or other) associated
with any matching patterns. A message can match multiple patterns and
therefore be delivered to multiple matching destinations. Any message
which matches none of the patterns is delivered to a default
destination for the postmaster.
Because MultiSorter requires the envelope recipient to operate, it
must be used with a domain mailbox retriever. If you instead want to
do some basic message sorting based on getmail's best guess as to the
envelope recipient of the message, see the MultiGuesser destination
class below.
The MultiSorter destination takes one required parameter:
* default (string) -- the destination for messages which aren't
matched by any of the "locals" regular expressions. The
destination can be a maildir, mboxrd file, or other destination.
See MultiDestination for an explanation of how the type of
destination is interpreted from this value.
The MultiSorter destination also takes one optional parameter:
* locals (tuple of 2-tuples) -- zero or more regular expression -
destination pairs. Messages will be delivered to each destination
for which the envelope recipient matches the given regular
expression. The regular expression and destination are supplied as
two quoted strings in a tuple; locals is then a tuple of such
pairs of strings. Destinations are specified in the same manner as
with the "default" parameter, above.
Important note: if your regular expression contains backslashes (by
themselves, or as part of an escaped character or symbol like \n or \W
), you need to tell the parser that this expression must be parsed
"raw" by prepending the string with an "r":
locals = (
(r'jeff\?\?\?@.*', '[jeff]'),
('alice@', '[alice]')
)
locals = (
('jeff@.*', '[jeff]'),
(r'alice\D+@', '[alice]')
)
Note that if you don't understand regular expressions, you don't need
to worry about it. In general, an email address is a regular
expression that matches itself. The only significant times this isn't
the case is when the address contains odd punctuation characters like
^, $, \, or [. Handy hints:
* the regular expression . (dot) matches anything
* matches can occur anywhere in the address. If you want to only
match at the beginning, start your expression with the ^
character. If you only want to match the whole address, also end
your expression with a dollar sign $.
Using regular expressions:
* The regular expression joe@example.org matches the addresses
joe@example.org, joe@example.org.net, and heyjoe@example.org.
* The regular expression ^jeff@ matches the addresses
jeff@example.org and jeff@example.net, but not
otherjeff@example.org.
* The regular expression sam matches the addresses sam@example.org,
samantha@example.org, asam@example.org, and
chris@isam.example.net.
Some examples:
*
+ Deliver mail matching jeff@example.net to ~jeff/Maildir/
+ Deliver mail matching alice@anything to ~alice/inbox
+ Deliver all other mail to ~bob/Maildir/
[destination]
type = MultiSorter
default = [bob-default]
locals = (
('jeff@example.net', '[jeff]'),
('alice@', '[alice]')
)
[jeff]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeff/Maildir/
user = jeff
[alice]
type = Mboxrd
path = ~alice/inbox
user = alice
[bob-default]
type = Maildir
path = ~bob/Maildir/
user = bob
*
+ Deliver mail for jeff, bob, and alice to maildirs in their
home directories
+ Deliver copies of all messages to samantha's mail archive
+ Deliver copies of all messages to a program that logs certain
information. This program should run as the user log, and
command arguments should tell it to record the info to
/var/log/mail/info
[destination]
type = MultiSorter
default = doesn't matter, this won't be used, as locals will always match
locals = (
('^jeff@', '[jeff]'),
('^bob@', '[bob]'),
('^alice@', '[alice]'),
('.', '[copies]'),
('.', '[info]')
)
[alice]
type = Maildir
path = ~alice/Maildir/
user = alice
[bob]
type = Maildir
path = ~bob/Maildir/
user = bob
[jeff]
type = Maildir
path = ~jeff/Maildir/
user = jeff
[copies]
type = Maildir
path = ~samantha/Mail/archive/copies/
user = samantha
[info]
type = MDA_external
path = /path/to/infologger
arguments = ('--log=/var/log/mail/info', '--sender=%(sender)', '--recipient=%(r
ecipient))
user = log
MultiGuesser
MultiGuesser tries to guess what the envelope recipient address of the
message might have been, by comparing addresses found in the message
header against a list of user-supplied regular expressions, and
delivers the message to the destination (maildir, mboxrd file, or
other) associated with any matching patterns. A message can match
multiple patterns and therefore be delivered to multiple matching
destinations. Any message which matches none of the patterns is
delivered to a default destination for the postmaster. In this
fashion, you can do basic mail filtering and sorting with getmail
without using an external filtering message delivery agent (MDA) (such
as maildrop or procmail), if and only if the message recipient is the
criteria you want to filter on.
If you want to filter based on arbitrary message critera, like "What
address is in the To: header field?" or "Who is the message from?",
then use the filtering MDA of your choice, called from a getmail
MDA_external destination.
MultiGuesser is similar to MultiSorter, except that it does not
operate on the true envelope recipient address, and therefore does not
require a domain mailbox retriever. Because it is "guessing" at the
intended recipient of the message based on the contents of the message
header, it is fallible -- for instance, the address of a recipient of
a mailing list message may not appear in the header of the message at
all. If your locals regular expression patterns are only looking for
that address, MultiGuesser will then have to deliver it to the
destination specified as the default recipient.
This functionality is very similar to the guessing functionality of
getmail version 2, which was removed in version 3. MultiGuesser
extracts a list of addresses from the message header like this:
1. it looks for addresses in any Delivered-To: header fields.
2. if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
Envelope-To: header fields.
3. if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
X-Envelope-To: header fields.
4. if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
Apparently-To: header fields.
5. if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any
Resent-to: or Resent-cc: header fields (or Resent-bcc:, which
shouldn't be present).
6. if no addresses have been found, it looks for addresses in any To:
or cc: header fields (or bcc:, which shouldn't be present).
The MultiGuesser destination takes one required parameter:
* default (string) -- see MultiSorter for definition.
The MultiGuesser destination also takes one optional parameter:
* locals (tuple of 2-tuples) -- see MultiSorter for definition.
Examples:
If you have a simple POP3 account (i.e. it's not a multidrop mailbox)
and you want to deliver your personal mail to your regular maildir,
but deliver mail from a couple of mailing lists (identified by the
list address appearing in the message header) to separate maildirs,
you could use a MultiGuesser configuration like this:
[destination]
type = MultiGuesser
default = ~/Maildir/
locals = (
("list-address-1@list-domain-1", "~/Mail/mailing-lists/list-1/"),
("list-address-2@list-domain-2", "~/Mail/mailing-lists/list-2/"),
)
See MultiSorter above for other examples of getmail rc usage; the only
difference is the type parameter specifying the MultiGuesser
destination.
MDA_qmaillocal
MDA_qmaillocal delivers messages by running the qmail-local program as
an external MDA. qmail-local uses .qmail files to tell it what to do
with messages. If you're not already familiar with qmail, you don't
need to use this destination class.
The MDA_qmaillocal destination takes several optional parameters:
* qmaillocal (string) -- path to the qmail-local program. The
default value is /var/qmail/bin/qmail-local.
* user (string) -- supplied to qmail-local, and also tells getmail
to change the current effective UID to that of the named user
before running qmail-local. Note that this typically requires root
privileges. The default value is the account name of the current
effective UID.
* group (string) -- if supplied, getmail will change the effective
GID to that of the named group before running qmail-local. Note
that this typically requires root privileges.
* homedir (string) -- supplied to qmail-local. The default value is
the home directory of the account with the current effective UID.
* localdomain (string) -- supplied to qmail-local as its domain
argument. The default value is the fully-qualified domain name of
the local host.
* defaultdelivery (string) -- supplied to qmail-local as its
defaultdelivery argument. The default value is ./Maildir/.
* conf-break (string) -- supplied to qmail-local as its dash
argument. The default value is -.
* localpart_translate (2-tuple of quoted strings) -- if supplied,
the recipient address of the message (which is used to construct
the local argument (among others) to qmail-local) will have any
leading instance of the first string replaced with the second
string. This can be used to remap recipient addresses, trim
extraneous prefixes (such as the qmail virtualdomain prepend
value), or perform other tasks. The default value is ('', '')
(i.e., no translation).
* strip_delivered_to (boolean) -- if set, Delivered-To: header
fields will be removed from the message before handing it to
qmail-local. This may be necessary to prevent qmail-local falsely
detecting a looping message if (for instance) the system
retrieving messages otherwise believes it has the same domain name
as the retrieval server. Inappropriate use of this option may
cause message loops. The default value is False.
* allow_root_commands (boolean) -- if set, getmail will run
qmail-local even if it is currently running with root privileges.
The default is false, which causes getmail to raise an exception
if it is asked to run an external command as root. Note that
setting this option has serious security implications. Don't use
it if you don't know what you're doing. I strongly recommend
against running external processes as root.
A basic invocation of qmail-local might look like this:
[destination]
type = MDA_qmaillocal
user = joyce
Something more complex might look like this:
[destination]
type = MDA_qmaillocal
user = joyce
# The mail domain isn't the normal FQDN of the server running getmail
localdomain = host.example.net
# Trim the server's virtualdomain prepend value from message recipient before
# sending it to qmail-local
localpart_translate = ('mailhostaccount-', '')
Creating the [options] section
The optional options section of the rc file can be used to alter
getmail's default behaviour. The parameters supported in this section
are as follows:
* verbose (integer) -- controls getmail's verbosity. If set to 2,
getmail prints messages about each of its actions. If set to 1, it
prints messages about retrieving and deleting messages (only). If
set to 0, getmail will only print warnings and errors. Default: 1.
* read_all (boolean) -- if set, getmail retrieves all available
messages. If unset, getmail only retrieves messages it has not
seen before. Default: True.
* delete (boolean) -- if set, getmail will delete messages after
retrieving and successfully delivering them. If unset, getmail
will leave messages on the server after retrieving them. Default:
False.
* delete_after (integer) -- if set, getmail will delete messages
this number of days after first seeing them, if they have been
retrieved and delivered. This, in effect, leaves messages on the
server for a configurable number of days after retrieving them.
Note that the delete parameter has higher priority; if both are
set, the messages will be deleted immediately. Default: 0, which
means not to enable this feature.
* max_bytes_per_session (integer) -- if set, getmail will retrieve
messages totalling up to this number of bytes before closing the
session with the server. This can be useful if you do not want
large messages causing large bursts of network traffic. Default:
0, which means not to enable this feature. Note that message sizes
reported by the server are used, and therefore may vary slightly
from the actual size on disk after message retrieval.
* max_message_size (integer) -- if set, getmail will not retrieve
messages larger than this number of bytes. Default: 0, which means
not to enable this feature.
* max_messages_per_session (integer) -- if set, getmail will process
a maximum of this number of messages before closing the session
with the server. This can be useful if your network or the server
is particuarly unreliable. Default: 0, which means not to enable
this feature.
* delivered_to (boolean) -- if set, getmail adds a Delivered-To:
header field to the message. If unset, it will not do so. Default:
True. Note that this field will contain the envelope recipient of
the message if the retriever in use is a multidrop retriever;
otherwise it will contain the string "unknown".
* received (boolean) -- if set, getmail adds a Received: header
field to the message. If unset, it will not do so. Default: True.
* message_log (string) -- if set, getmail will record a log of its
actions to the named file. The value will be expanded for leading
~ or ~USER and environment variables in the form $VARNAME or
${VARNAME}. Default: '' (the empty string), which means not to
enable this feature.
* message_log_syslog (boolean) -- if set, getmail will record a log
of its actions using the system logger. Note that syslog is
inherently unreliable and can lose log messages. Default: False.
* message_log_verbose (boolean) -- if set, getmail will log to the
message log file (or syslog) information about messages not
retrieved and the reason for not retrieving them, as well as
starting and ending information lines. By default, it will log
only about messages actually retrieved, and about error
conditions. Note that this has no effect if neither message_log
nor message_log_syslog is in use. Default: False.
Most users will want to either enable the delete option (to delete
mail after retrieving it), or disable the read_all option (to only
retrieve previously-unread mail).
The verbose, read_all, and delete parameters can be overridden at run
time with commandline options.
[options] example
To configure getmail to operate quietly, to retrieve only new mail, to
delete messages after retrieving them, and to log its actions to a
file, you could provide the following in your getmail rc file(s):
[options]
verbose = 0
read_all = false
delete = true
message_log = ~/.getmail/log
Creating the [filter-something] sections
The filter-something section(s) of the rc file (which are not
required) tell getmail to process messages in some way after
retrieving them, but before delivering them to your destinations.
Filters can tell getmail to drop a message (i.e. not deliver it at
all), add information to the message header (i.e. for a spam-
classification system or similar), or modify message content (like an
antivirus system stripping suspected MIME parts from messages).
You can specify any number of filters; provide a separate rc file
section for each, naming each of them filter-something. They will be
run in collated order, so it's likely simplest to name them like this:
* [filter-1]
* [filter-2]
* [filter-3]
Begin with the section header line as follows:
[filter-something]
Then, include a type string parameter to tell getmail what type of
filter. The possible values are:
* Filter_classifier -- run the message through an external program,
and insert the output of the program into
X-getmail-filter-classifier: header fields in the message.
Messages can be dropped by having the filter return specific exit
codes.
* Filter_external -- supply the message to an external program,
which can then modify the message in any fashion. The program must
print the modified message to stdout. getmail reads the modified
message from the program in this fasion before proceeding to the
next filter or destination. Messages can be dropped by having the
filter return specific exit codes.
* Filter_TMDA -- run the message through the tmda-filter program for
use with the Tagged Message Delivery Agent (TMDA) package. If
tmda-filter returns 0, the message will be passed to the next
filter (or destination). If it returns 99, the message will be
dropped, and TMDA is responsible for sending a challenge message,
queuing the original, etc., as with normal TMDA operation in a
.qmail, .courier, or .forward file.
By default, if a filter writes anything to stderr, getmail will
consider the delivery to have encountered an error. getmail will leave
the message on the server and proceed to the next message. You must
configure any filter you use not to emit messages to stderr except on
errors -- please see the documentation for your filter program for
details. Optionally, if you know your filter can emit warnings on
stderr under non-error conditions, you can set the ignore_stderr
option.
Filter_classifier
Filter_classifier runs the message through an external program,
placing the output of that program into X-getmail-filter-classifier:
header fields. It can also cause messages to be dropped by exiting
with a return code listed in the exitcodes_drop parameter.
Filter_classifier has one required parameter:
* path (string) -- the path to the command to run. This value will
be expanded for leading ~ or ~USER and environment variables in
the form $VARNAME or ${VARNAME}.
In addition, Filter_classifier takes the following optional
parameters:
* arguments (tuple of quoted strings) -- arguments to be supplied to
the command. The following substrings will be substituted with the
equivalent values from the message:
+ %(sender) -- envelope return-path address
If the message is retrieved with a multidrop retriever class, the
message recipient (and parts of it) are also available with the
following replacement substrings:
+ %(recipient) -- envelope recipient address
+ %(local) -- local-part of the envelope recipient address
+ %(domain) -- domain-part of the envelope recipient address
The default value of the arguments parameter is (), so no
arguments are supplied to the command.
* unixfrom (boolean) -- whether to include a Unix-style mbox From_
line at the beginning of the message supplied to the command.
Default: False.
* user (string) -- if supplied, getmail will change the effective
UID to that of the named user. Note that this typically requires
root privileges.
* group (string) -- if supplied, getmail will change the effective
GID to that of the named group. Note that this typically requires
root privileges.
* allow_root_commands (boolean) -- if set, getmail will run external
commands even if it is currently running with root privileges. The
default is false, which causes getmail to raise an exception if it
is asked to run an external command as root. Note that setting
this option has serious security implications. Don't use it if you
don't know what you're doing. I strongly recommend against running
external processes as root.
* ignore_stderr (boolean) -- if set, getmail will not consider it an
error if the filter writes to stderr. The default is false, which
causes getmail to consider the delivery failed and leave the
message on the server, proceeding to the next message. This
prevents loss of mail if the filter writes to stderr but fails to
exit nonzero when it encounters an error. Note that setting this
option has serious implications; some poorly-written programs
commonly used as mail filters can can mangle or drop mail but
still exit 0, their only clue to failure being warnings emitted on
stderr. Only change this setting if you are confident your filter
always exits nonzero on error.
* exitcodes_drop (tuple of integers) -- if the filter returns an
exit code in this list, the message will be dropped. The default
is (99, 100).
* exitcodes_keep (tuple of integers) -- if the filter returns an
exit code other than those in exitcodes_drop and exitcodes_keep,
getmail assumes the filter encountered an error. getmail will then
not proceed, so that the message is not lost. The default is (0,
).
Filter_external
Filter_external runs the message through an external program, and
replaces the message with the output of that program, allowing the
filter to make arbitrary changes to messages. It can also cause
messages to be dropped by exiting with a return code listed in the
exitcodes_drop parameter.
Filter_external has one required parameter:
* path (string) -- see Filter_classifier for definition.
In addition, Filter_external takes the following optional parameters:
* arguments (tuple of quoted strings) -- see Filter_classifier for
definition.
* unixfrom (boolean) -- see Filter_classifier for definition.
* user (string) -- see Filter_classifier for definition.
* group (string) -- see Filter_classifier for definition.
* allow_root_commands (boolean) -- see Filter_classifier for
definition.
* ignore_stderr (boolean) -- see Filter_classifier for definition.
* exitcodes_drop (tuple of integers) -- see Filter_classifier for
definition.
* exitcodes_keep (tuple of integers) -- see Filter_classifier for
definition.
Filter_TMDA
Filter_external runs the message through the external program
tmda-filter, allowing the use of the Tagged Message Delivery Agent
(TMDA) package. As TMDA relies on the message envelope, this filter
requires the use of a multidrop retriever class to function. It sets
the three environment variables SENDER, RECIPIENT, and EXT prior to
running tmda-filter.
I've tested this filter, and it Works For Me(TM), but I'm not a
regular TMDA user. I would appreciate any feedback about its use from
TMDA users.
Filter_TMDA has no required parameters. It has the following optional
parameters:
* path (string) -- the path to the tmda-filter binary. Default:
/usr/local/bin/tmda-filter. This value will be expanded for
leading ~ or ~USER and environment variables in the form $VARNAME
or ${VARNAME}.
* user (string) -- see Filter_classifier for definition.
* group (string) -- see Filter_classifier for definition.
* allow_root_commands (boolean) -- see Filter_classifier for
definition.
* ignore_stderr (boolean) -- see Filter_classifier for definition.
* conf-break (string) -- this value will be used to split the
local-part of the envelope recipient address to determine the
value of the EXT environment variable. For example, if the
envelope sender address is sender-something@host.example.org, and
the envelope recipient address is user-ext-ext2@host.example.net,
and conf-break is set to -, getmail will set the environment
variables SENDER to "sender-something@host.example.org", RECIPIENT
to "user-ext-ext2@host.example.net", and EXT to "ext-ext2".
Default: "-".
[filter-something] examples
You might filter spam messages in your MUA based on information added
to the message header by a spam-classification program. You could have
that information added to the message header with a filter
configuration like this:
[filter-3]
type = Filter_classifier
path = /path/to/my-classifier
arguments = ('--message-from-stdin', '--report-to-stdout')
user = nobody
You might use a program to prevent users from accidentally destroying
their data by stripping suspected attachments from messages. You could
have that information added to the message header with a filter
configuration like this:
[filter-3]
type = Filter_external
path = /path/to/my-mime-filter
arguments = ('--message-from-stdin', '--remove-all-but-attachment-types=text/pl
ain,text/rfc822')
user = nobody
You might use TMDA to challenge messages from unknown senders. If the
default parameters are fine for your configuration, this is as simple
as:
[filter-3]
type = Filter_TMDA
getmail rc file examples
Several examples of different getmail rc configuration are available
in the included file getmailrc-examples.
Running getmail
To use getmail, simply run the script getmail, which is typically
installed in /usr/local/bin/ by default. getmail will read the default
getmail rc file (getmailrc) from the default configuration/data
directory (~/.getmail/) and begin operating.
You can modify this behaviour by supplying commandline options to
getmail.
Commandline options
getmail understands the following options:
* --version -- show getmail's version number and exit
* --help or -h -- show a brief usage summary and exit
* --getmaildir=DIR or -gDIR -- use DIR for configuration and data
files
* --rcfile=FILE or -rFILE -- read getmail rc file FILE instead of
the default. The file path is assumed to be relative to the
getmaildir directory unless this value starts with a slash (/).
This option can be given multiple times to have getmail retrieve
mail from multiple accounts.
* --dump -- read rc files, dump configuration, and exit (debugging)
* --trace -- print extended debugging information
In addition, the following commandline options can be used to override
any values specified in the [options] section of the getmail rc files:
* --verbose or -v -- operate more verbosely. Can be given multiple
times.
* --quiet or -q -- print only warnings or errors while running
* --delete or -d -- delete messages after retrieving
* --dont-delete or -l -- do not delete messages after retrieving
* --all or -a -- retrieve all messages
* --new or -n -- retrieve only new (unseen) messages
For instance, if you want to retrieve mail from two different mail
accounts, create a getmail rc file for each of them (named, say,
getmailrc-account1 and getmailrc-account2) and put them in ~/.getmail/
. Then run getmail as follows:
$ getmail --rcfile getmailrc-account1 --rcfile getmailrc-account2
If those files were located in a directory other than the default, and
you wanted to use that directory for storing the data files as well,
you could run getmail as follows:
$ getmail --getmaildir /path/to/otherdir --rcfile getmailrc-account1 --rcfile g
etmailrc-account2
Using getmail as an MDA
getmail includes helper scripts which allow you to use it to deliver
mail from other programs to maildirs or mboxrd files.
Using the getmail_maildir MDA
The getmail_maildir script can be used as an MDA from other programs
to deliver mail to maildirs. It reads the mail message from stdin, and
delivers it to a maildir path provided as an argument on the
commandline. This path must (after expansion by the shell, if
applicable) start with a dot or slash and end with a slash.
getmail_maildir uses the contents of the SENDER environment variable
to construct a Return-Path: header field and the contents of the
RECIPIENT environment variable to construct a Delivered-To: header
field at the top of the message.
getmail_maildir also accepts the options --verbose or -v which tell it
to print a status message on success. The default is to operate
silently unless an error occurs.
Example
You could deliver a message to a maildir named Maildir located in your
home directory by running the following command with the message on
stdin:
$ getmail_maildir $HOME/Maildir/
Using the getmail_mbox MDA
The getmail_mbox script can be used as an MDA from other programs to
deliver mail to mboxrd-format mbox files. It reads the mail message
from stdin, and delivers it to an mbox path provided as an argument on
the commandline. This path must (after expansion by the shell, if
applicable) start with a dot or slash and not end with a slash.
getmail_maildir uses the contents of the SENDER environment variable
to construct a Return-Path: header field and mbox From_ line and the
contents of the RECIPIENT environment variable to construct a
Delivered-To: header field at the top of the message.
getmail_mbox also accepts the options --verbose or -v which tell it to
print a status message on success. The default is to operate silently
unless an error occurs.
Example
You could deliver a message to an mboxrd-format mbox file named inbox
located in a directory named mail in your home directory by running
the following command with the message on stdin:
$ getmail_mbox $HOME/mail/inbox
Using getmail_fetch to retrieve mail from scripts
getmail includes the getmail_fetch helper script, which allows you to
retrieve mail from a POP3 server without the use of a configuration
file. It is primarily intended for use in automated or scripted
environments, but can be used to retrieve mail normally.
See the getmail_fetch manual page for details on the use of
getmail_fetch.
