fetchmail/sendmail. do I need it?

[Floods]

I already have fetchmail setup, and sendmail setup enough to work, but not exactly how I want it.

My real question is, do I really need sendmail and fetchmail setup just to send and receive emails? I'm using my ISP's email, pop3.direcway.com, and is it needed to use them? Right now, after configuring sendmail for a while, I think it's only used as an smtp server, which I don't believe I need.

If I do need to use them, then here's my problems. Every time someone sends me an email (or I believe every time, only one person has brought it up but the others aren't as computer literate as he), my mail daemon automatically responds with an error email, saying user fragile or generationjoey @localhost do not exist. Here is the email exactly.


Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



Begin forwarded message:

From: FETCHMAIL-DAEMON@floods[box].mshome.net
Date: Tue Jul 27, 2004 3:47:15 AM Pacific/Honolulu
To: uncle_saturn@myrealbox.com

Some addresses were rejected by the MDA fetchmail forwards to.

Reporting-MTA: dns; localhost

Final-Recipient: rfc822; fragile@localhost
Last-Attempt-Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 09:47:16 -0400 (EDT)
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Diagnostic-Code: 550 5.1.1 <fragile@localhost>... User unknown

Content-Type: application/octet-stream; x-unix-mode=0666; name=mime-attachment
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=mime-attachment


it also has a file named mime-attached, which I'm not sure what is since hotmail won't allow me to download it. I believe it's an email I keep seeing in my root inbox, which looks like this.

Return-path: <newsletter@experts-exchange.com>
Received: from a34-mta03.direcway.com (a34-mta03 [66.82.4.104])
by mail01.direcway.com
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.12 (built Feb 13 2003))
with ESMTP id <0I1J00DVFAYMMC@mail01.direcway.com> for
generationjoey@ims-ms-daemon; Tue, 27 Jul 2004 19:37:35 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from a34-corems04.direcpc.com (a34-corems04.direcpc.com [66.82.4.84])
by a34-mta03.direcway.com
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.12 (built Feb 13 2003))
with SMTP id <0I1J00GZXAX4LV@a34-mta03.direcway.com> for
generationjoey@direcway.com (ORCPT generationjoey@direcway.com); Tue,
27 Jul 2004 19:36:40 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from nl.experts-exchange.com
(bdsl.66.15.191.192.gte.net [64.156.132.249]) by a34-corems04.direcpc.com with
SMTP (MailShield v2.04 - LINUX Jul 17 2001 16:58:31); Tue,
27 Jul 2004 19:20:51 -0400
Received: from nl.experts-exchange.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
by nl.experts-exchange.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 612C1649BF4 for
<generationjoey@direcway.com>; Tue, 27 Jul 2004 16:12:17 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 11:43:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: newsletter@experts-exchange.com
Subject: EE Community Newsletter, July 27
To: generationjoey@direcway.com
Message-id: <26099689.1090969937395.JavaMail.newsletter@nl.expe rts-exchange.com>
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Team Noggin
Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable
X-SMTP-HELO: nl.experts-exchange.com
X-SMTP-MAIL-FROM: newsletter@experts-exchange.com
X-SMTP-RCPT-TO: generationjoey@direcway.com
X-SMTP-PEER-INFO: bdsl.66.15.191.192.gte.net [64.156.132.249]
Original-recipient: rfc822;generationjoey@direcway.com

--foo-mani-padme-hum-10568-10567-1090972063--

--i6RNlvWK010601.1090972077/floodsbox.mshome.net--


and after all that, well, I'm lost. :/
I set fetchmail to know that fragile and generationjoey are both actually floods, my user. my .fetchmailrc looks as follows.

floods@floods[box]:~$ cat .fetchmailrc
# Configuration created Sun Jul 25 23:45:35 2004 by fetchmailconf
set postmaster "floods"
set bouncemail
set no spambounce
set properties ""
set daemon 15
poll pop3.direcway.com with proto POP3
user 'fragile' there with password 'PASSWORD' is 'floods' here options fetchall
user 'generationjoey' there with password 'PASSWORD' is 'floods' here options fetchall


thanks a ton for any help, as I've been digging for answers to this for quite a while now.

[daYz]

You are right, you don't need these because you are using the servers from your ISP.
You'll only have to enter the adresses from your ISP servers in your mail program.

[Floods]

well, since I've gone this far, and I kind of like how fetchmail can get my emails and then biff tells me I have mail, can I have this setup, and have it error-free?

[JohnT]

Have you visited any of these sites for info?

http://catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/

http://catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/fetchmail-man.html

http://catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/fetchmail-FAQ.html

Look into Webmin for system administration ease.
http://www.webmin.com/

[Floods]

Yes, I have. I was under the impression that fetchmail has to have sendmail to be able to receive email? Am I correct?

[JohnT]

No Fetchmail does not require Sendmail to retrieve mail.

[Floods]

Ah, last night I set it up to use procmail to put the mail directly in my inbox, but now I'm getting corrupt mail..!

floods@floods[box]:~$ elm
Folder is corrupt!! I can't read it!!
Discarding any changes made to mail folder ...
floods@floods[box]:~$


trying to see if I did something wrong with procmail, but I get the mail just fine. if I "cat /var/spool/mail/floods" it shows the messages etc. weird? The mail is owned by my user, and in the mail group.

floods@floods[box]:~$ ls -l /var/spool/mail/floods
-rw-rw---- 1 floods mail 4272 Jul 28 11:45 /var/spool/mail/floods


and just in case.. my .fetchmailrc

# Configuration created Sun Jul 25 23:45:35 2004 by fetchmailconf
set postmaster "floods"
set bouncemail
set no spambounce
set properties ""
set daemon 15
poll pop3.direcway.com with proto POP3
user 'fragile' there with password 'password' is 'floods' here options fetchall mda procmail
user 'generationjoey' there with password 'password' is 'floods' here options fetchall mda procmail

:confused: