Configuring Sendmail and Fetchmail for a Dialup Connection

Since YaST2 came along it's much easier to set up Sendmail and Postfix. The instructions given below relate to earlier versions of SuSE Linux. The reason why this page is still here is because a lot of people still ask about manual configuration of mail systems even though there are some useful setup tools out there.

Sendmail works in default mode straight out of the box on most systems. There are a few tweaks you might want to apply to change the default actions. SuSE users can tweak most of these settings by running YaST and Administration / Change configuration file, where the settings below can be accessed. YaST (old version) will not touch a hand modified sendmail.cf so you may have to "cp /etc/sendmail.cf.SuSEconfig /etc/sendmail.cf" if it warns that it has left the file untouched.

I believe linuxconf also gives access to some of these settings. Here I'll deal with editing sendmail.cf directly - this file normally lives in /etc/. First, backup the file "just in case" - "cp /etc/sendmail.cf /etc/sendmail.cf.sav" copies the file to sendmail.cf.sav. Open sendmail.cf with any text editor. You can then use whichever search method the editor supplies to locate the following lines - there are comment lines above each parameter, make sure you read & understand the comments before making changes.

DM allows you to control the "from:" line in all mails delivered by sendmail, setting this would allow you send all mail as, for example,
superstar@rugs_r_us.com, even if your real mail address is reg.dwight@spangly.co.uk. You can control this behaviour with CE, which allows
named users to bypass the masquerading. By default, this is usually set to root, so if you are in the habit of running as root all your mails will appear
as root@spangly.co.uk. Commenting out the line starting CE will mean all users are masqueraded.

Line HoldExpensive=True prevents many dialups on a dial-on-demand system DefaultDeliveryMode=defer queues mail until the queue is cleared. This is equivalent to setting "Sendmail expensive=yes" in rc.config (SuSE) or webmin. Webmin http://webmin.com/ gives a detailed graphical interface for configuring sendmail and a host of other systems under linux, Un*x and even MacOS x. This is recommended over "blind hacking" of sendmail.cf. There is a very good O'Reilly book which is about Sendmail and if you are the sort of person who likes to be well informed you can buy the book from your local book shop.

For more info about sendmail have a look at ..... http://www.sendmail.org

As was explained at the top of the page. If you are using a more recent version of SuSE software then the above may be confusing or misleading. It's aimed at someone who is not a first time user.

In your favourite text editor, type the following, replacing "mailserver" with your ISP's POP3 mail server (eg. mail.freenetname.co.uk), "username" with your ISP username, "password" with your ISP password and linux_user(s) by any users on your linux system who may receive this email. Poll mailserver with proto POP3 user "username" there with password "password" is linux_user(s) here options keep fetchall eg, you are barney, root will also access mail.Your isp is Freenetname.

Save this file in your /home/user directory as .fetchmailrc then chmod 710.fetchmailrc. Without the correct permissions on .fetchmailrc fetchmail will refuse to run.

To test, dial into your isp. Type "fetchmail -v" and you should see fetchmail connect to your isp, negotiate the username & password then start downloading
your mail. Don't worry at this stage - the options "keep" and "fetchall" will leave all the current mail on the server, so you won't use anything in testing.

If you get any failures it will almost certainly be down to dns problems - check your isp's dns servers are listed in /etc/resolv.conf or if you use kppp, gnome-ppp etc that the dns servers are listed in their config. If using wvdial, set "Auto DNS = 1" in /etc/wvdial.conf.

Fetchmail comes with a graphical config tool called fetchmailconf. In an X session, open a term and type "fetchmailconf". To avoid some large & slow
downloading screenshots, I will detail & explain each action instead of providing a shot of each step.

(3) A dialog box opens, probably at the bottom of the screen. This dialog is for entering your ISP's mail server details. Below the header Remote Mail Server Configuration, where it says New Server: type in the name of your ISP's POP3 mail server, eg mail.freenetname.co.uk, & hit the <ENTER>
key.

(5)Another dialog box opens, again it's position on the screen may seem a little odd :). This dialog is for entering the details of how the mail server should
be queried for Unless you know any different, select the POP3 button.

(6) This dialog also requires you to add your ISP user details. In the box below the protocol selector is a prompt "User entries for <your isp>". Type in
your username here - use the name you use to connect in kppp, wvdial or whatever you use to dial & connect to your ISP. Hit <ENTER>.

(8) Yet another dialog box springs forth, "User options for querying <isp mailserver>." Type in your ISP password into the Password box in the Authentication panel. In this dialog you can also add other local names, so if betty, dino & mr_slate are users on your box they can be added to the list here
and fetchmail will examine incoming mail & put it in the correct user's mailbox.

If you want more info about Fetchmail have a search with the Google search engine below....