Carlos E. R. said the following on 12/30/2008 06:30 AM:
Postfix can not fetch mail.
I can't? The original design of 'sendmail' deemed that it was more efficient to do a turn-around to lush queues in both directions once a link was established. That was then! This is **NOT** a requirement, it is an option. It is one I don't use but have configured in 'sendmail' in the past. (*sigh*) These days I use fetchmail. I find it more flexible an can deal with sites that SMTP is a hassle for. The original sendmail used the TURN command,,later versions, like Postfix, use ETRN, based on RFC1985, "SMTP Service Extension for Remote Message Queue Starting", DeWinter J., 1996/08/14. This discuses the TURN and ETRN commands. <quote> This command uses the mechanism defined in [4] to define extensions to the SMTP service whereby a client ("sender-SMTP") may request that the server ("receiver-SMTP") start the processing of its mail queues for messages that are waiting at the server for the client machine. If any messages are at the server for the client, then the server should create a new SMTP session and send the messages at that time. </quote> There seem to be some different interpretation of this. Since ETRN was intended to address security concerns with TURN, and since the later did only weak (read none) authentication, some implementations have chosen to ask the server to call back and then drop the connection. Sadly, this is not something that works with the kind of dial-up connections that this service was intended for. Rather than say "it can't" I prefer to say that it is not part of the normal configuration and not a good idea for a number of reasons, unless you have specific requirements. Unless you are a backbone gateway between, say AOL and HOTMAIL and GMAIL, I wouldn't bother. There are going to be simpler, more easily understood, configured and maintained way of working. Fetchmail is good! Really Good. As I've discussed here before, I still think that Postfix (or exim for that matter) is a big and complex footprint or someone running a workstation and using Thunderbird or Evolution as their MTA. All Postfix is doing is handling the system generated messages, and it is a HUGE overhead or that. If you're running a server or a gateway, its a different matter. -- Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear. -- Douglas MacArthur -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org