Email problem

[Carl Friis-Hansen]

On Tue, June 9, 2009 21:45, Carl Friis-Hansen wrote:
>
> On Tue, June 9, 2009 18:09, Linda wrote:
>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>> Linda wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I have a strange email problem and have not had any luck tracking
>>>> down.
>>>> I currently have an imap server using dovecot with maildir. I use
>>>> fetchmail and procmail to sort and deliver mail. Periodically we will
>>>> have a totally blank email.  When I look in the procmail.log I have an
>>>> error message
>>>>
>>>> Couldn't create or rename temp file
>>>> "home/username/Mail/new/msg.whatever"
>>>>
>>>> If I go to var/mail/username the message is there and in the users
>>>> /home/username/Mail/new directory I have a 0 byte file
>>>>
>>>
>>> I would suggest that it's a really bad idea to be delivering mail to
>>> ~/Mail
>>> - the defacto standard for IMAP is ~/Maildir, and ~/Mail is usually
>>> used
>>> by
>>> your mail client.  I suspect some sort of collision.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I'm sorry I really don't understand how this works. I set the maildir
>> variable in dovecot to  /%h/Mail you are saying it should be set to
>> ~/Maildir  (makes sense since this is what the default config has)
>> however if mail that is not delivered to a subfolder in /%h/Mail by
>> procmail is delivered to ~/Maildir how does the new Mail in ~/Maildir
>> get accessed and moved from there to /%h/Mail/cur by firefox when it is
>> read?  I read enough to sort of understand how the IMAP server worked
>> and to get a working set up, but am very far from really understanding
>> the process.
>>                     Thanks
>>                      Linda
>
> Linda, I am a novice when it comes to procmail and dovecut, but on a
> general basis I can say this:
> The IMAP folders are normally accessed via port 143 by for example
> ThunderBird.  TB cannot manipulate the folder directly, but it can give
> orders to the IMAP server via port 143.  Procmail run on the local machine
> might be able to do direct manipulation, but this is not the intension
> with IMAP.
> An MTA like PostFix can deliver to the IMAP server, thus you can send an
> email via port 25 to PostFix and it vil subsequently deliver to an IMAP
> account if the receiver is located on the IMAP server in question.
>
> My explanation probably doesn't clear anything for you, but at least you
> get some response to your question.

Actually, in your constellation it is correct that procmail should dive
directly into the folder.  I suppose you have to set up a rule set in
procmail to fetch/deliver between your two mail trees.

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       | Carl Friis-Hansen               | Fiskeryd Nybygget |
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