* Dumas Patrice ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [010803 10:57]:
> Hi,
> Maybe you will find this question a bit stupid, but I have a conceptual
> problem.
> My setting is fetchmail->procmail->mail folders. Then I use mutt to read the
> mail folders.
> Is there a need for a spool folder in this setting ? Am I doing something not
> regular ?
>
> Sure I can live without the answer to my question but I would like to know if
> there is a standard setting which is not an embedded pop-client nor a delivery
> in /var/spool/...
>
> Pat
>
I'm not sure whether you're asking whether your system needs a file
/var/spool/mail/<user> or if mutt needs a valid $spoolfile setting.
Let me just babble on a bit and maybe your question will become more
clear, and maybe I'll hit the answer.
procmail has a setting for DEFAULT, meaning where a message is delivered
if it "falls through" the rest of the .procmailrc. Unless you've changed
it, it's value is $ORGMAIL, which defaults to /var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME.
By the sound of your question, it seems you divert all your mail away
from there at some point in time.
Either way, mutt likes to know about $spoolfile, whose default setting
is in the environment variable $MAIL. Probably, your system sets that to
/var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME.
mutt treats $spoolfile a little differently than any other folders: it
will never be removed even if empty and save_empty is set, and it can be
addressed by the shortcut "!". Apart from that, if you don't use it, it
doesn't really matter.
My guess is that you have a procmail "default-ish" recipe where most of
your mail goes. You might want to set the $MAIL environment variable to
that mailbox so that your shell will alert you when you get new mail,
and mutt will address that mailbox as $spoolfile. Even still, I'd say
removing /var/spool/mail/<username> is a Bad Idea unless the system-wide
default delivery is something else.
If I haven't answered your question, maybe you could try putting it a
little more precisely.
Vineet
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