Hello,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on Sat, 02 Sep 2000:
> I need some advice on how to properly configure Mutt on my machine.
Well, you've written to the right place. :-)
> First of all, I can't figure out how to change the display Email address
> from "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" on the messages I
> send out.
Well, there's several ways to affect what Mutt puts in the From header.
For you, the best is probably to just tell Mutt exactly what address
you want to use, with:
set from="[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
set realname="My name"
Note that this only works in Mutt 1.2 and later. If you have 1.0 or
earlier, you have to use the my_hdr command (which does work in 1.2
too, BTW):
my_hdr From: Your Name <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
There's some differences in what those two commands do, but the
differences won't affect you unless you want to use more than one
address in your outgoing emails. And oh, of course if you don't
have 1.2, then you have to use my_hdr.
Oh, in case you don't know yet, all Mutt configuration directives go
into the .muttrc file in your home directory. :-)
> Also, sendmail takes care of sending my emails but, for security
> reasons, I thought i'd configure Mutt to connect to my ISP's SMTP server
> and shutdown sendmail altogether.
Good idea, to shut down sendmail if you don't need it. And in your
setup it really isn't needed.
However, Mutt doesn't know how to talk to a remote mail server. So it
can't send email to your ISP's mail server directly. All it knows is
to run a program which then takes care of mail delivery. On most unix
systems that's sendmail, but that is really rather overkill for dialup
system. I recommend getting a mail delivery program which has been
designed for dialup use. I know of three: MasqMail, sSMTP, and
nullmailer. Links to all three can be found at the Mutt site, on the
Links page. I've personally only tried sSMTP which is dead simple,
but it's also very limited which is why I hesitate to recommend it (you
can't specify the envelope sender address, which can lead to
problems...). But I have no experience with MasqMail or nullmailer, so
I don't know if they are easy or good.
As for fetchmail requiring sendmail (or a local mail server), that's the
default configuration. However you can also specify a program which
will take care of delivering the mail. Telling fetchmail to use
something like procmail or maildrop directly will bypass the need for a
mail server. As an additional bonus of this setup, you can get your
incoming mail filtered with procmail/maildrop rules. You don't have to
use any filtering rules to begin with, but you'd be already running a
program that's capable of filtering should you want it later.
> I remember reading somewhere in the documentation that
> Mutt can retrieve my mail from my POP account. However, does sendmail
> need to be running to handle incoming mail properly?
Mutt does have very simple POP support, but it's actually recommended
that people use fetchmail. Mutt's POP support is very basic, and you
won't be able to filter the incoming emails in any way. It does not
need sendmail installed.
> Ideally, I'd like to get Mutt configured so that I can start using it
> and in time, get to know it better. It looks like a pretty capable mail
> client.
That's the best way. There's some rather good example .muttrc files on
the net, looking at them should give you ideas and explain what things
are commonly set, and so on. (Telsa's .muttrc is very good for this.
:-)
> Any ideas on the best way to setup Mutt on a standalone linux machine
> using an external POP account? Any suggestions are welcome.
The above describes how I would do it. Use fetchmail to download the
emails, pass them directly to procmail or maildrop, and let that do the
actual delivery. For sending mail out, use a dialup MTA (mail server),
I've listed three I know of above.
I hope this helps,
Mikko
--
// Mikko Hänninen, aka. Wizzu // [EMAIL PROTECTED] // http://www.iki.fi/wiz/
// The Corrs list maintainer // net.freak // DALnet IRC operator /
// Interests: roleplaying, Linux, the Net, fantasy & scifi, the Corrs /
When I try to get a life... I always get either 404 or server timeout. :-(
