http://www.linux-mag.com/2003-07/email_01.html) explained how email is delivered, and also described a variety of power tools ideal for untangling a morass of messages.
" />
Last month’s feature, “Personal Post,” (available online at http://www.linux-mag.com/2003-07/email_01.html) explained how email is delivered, and also described a variety of power tools ideal for untangling a morass of messages.
Last month’s feature, “Personal Post,” (available online at http://www.linux-mag.com/2003-07/email_01.html) explained how email is delivered, and also described a variety of power tools ideal for untangling a morass of messages.
One of the tools mentioned last month was fetchmail, a great Linux utility that can centralize your email and automate tasks that would otherwise be spread across the network on multiple mail systems on multiple hosts. This month, let’s look at fetchmail in more detail, and apply it to some difficult email problems.
Setting up fetchmail to work well takes some time and requires some familiarity with email transport. Let’s quickly review how email works before we go any further. Here are the basics:
* Users compose, send, and read email with a Mail User Agent (or MUA). mutt, Outlook Express, and Mozilla are examples of an MUA.
* Email is sent from user to user by a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA), a program like sendmail or qmail.
* The header of an email message is composed of a series of fields with names like Received, Message-ID, and Content-Type.
* It’s important to understand that the addresses in header fields like From and To are not necessarily where the message originated from or where the message was delivered to! Instead, the message envelope contains the actual addresses of the sender and recipients — in the same way a paper envelope holds “snail mail” for delivery.
* Years ago, the body of a message was limited…
Please log in to view this content.
Not Yet a Member?
Register with LinuxMagazine.com and get free access to the entire archive, including:
