Thanks Peter. Thanks also to Petr Novotny and Peter C. Norton, for their
assistance.
I have modified Peter's little script into something more general, that
doesn't have to be modified in order to be used. And to which one
provides the remote SMTP mail server name as a paramter -- a fully
qualified hostname. Find etrn.sh attached to this Email.
Can someone get it added to the Qmail as another utility? I realize that
it uses nc (netcat), which isn't shipped with all systems. I would
suggest a note somewhere that points out the requirment. We should also
test fetchmail (see below), and add an ETRN note to the FAQ.
On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, Peter van Dijk wrote:
> Also, a simple fetchmail line will do the job just as well. I just forgot
> what the line was :)
Now this one caught me by surprise! I've been using fetchmail to get my
POP3 mail, for several years. It never occurred to me, to look for ETRN
capabilities there. Well Peter, you're right.
The way I use fetchmail, I have a .fetchmailrc file that tells it how to
pull down all POP3 mailboxes my ISP provides me -- a separate line is
needed for each mailbox, and you can redirect their messages to any local
unix account name.
But, for ETRN, the logic is a lot simpler. The information CAN be
provided on the command line. But, since I already use .fetchmailrc, I've
made my changes there. My ISP has two SMTP mail servers (to spread the
load). So, I just added two lines to the end of my rc file:
poll smtp1.vnet.net with protocol ETRN
poll smtp2.vnet.net with protocol ETRN
I haven't tested these changes yet, but according to the man page, it
should work.
So now we know that there are (at least) two generic mechanisms for
picking up SMTP mail:
etrn.sh <mail.server>
and
fetchmail
Just like UNIX! Multiple methods, to accomplish the same end.
/ Ray
------------------------------------+------------------------------------
Ray Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Unconditional Forgiveness & Love --
Chapel Hill NC or Sutton Mills NH | The corner stones of coexistence.
Work: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
#!/bin/sh
nc $1 25 << EOF 2>&1 > /dev/null
EHLO `hostname``dnsdomainname`
ETRN `hostname``dnsdomainname`
QUIT
EOF
