Resent-Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 16:49:04 -0500 (EST)
Message-ID: <19971202022151.16825@ozymandias.kublai.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 02:21:51 -0500
From: Aidan Cully <aidan@kublai.com>
To: Gong Wei <GWEI@natsteel.com.sg>
Cc: "'fetchmail-friends@ccil.org'" <fetchmail-friends@ccil.org>
Subject: Re: [Q]POP3 retrieval for multiple accounts.
References: <6F0A81CD6136D111865F0060B01AD1BF8388@nslmail>
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In-Reply-To: <6F0A81CD6136D111865F0060B01AD1BF8388@nslmail>; from Gong Wei on Mon, Dec 01, 1997 at 01:34:32PM +0800
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On Mon, Dec 01, 1997 at 01:34:32PM +0800, Gong Wei wrote:
> Hi friends,
> 
> Please execuse me if this is a rather silly question.  But I am just
> wondering, how can I setup fetchmail to act as a forwarder for a whole
> sub domain, consisting of 200+ accounts?  From what I understand,
> fetchmail can be used to get mail from a POP3 server, then feed it into
> a local smtp server.  So I have to supply the POP3 user account and
> password to the POP3 server.  In this way, how can I easily manage the
> POP3 retrieval for so many people?
> 
> As usual, comments/hints/help are always appreciated, please follow up
> or reply to gongwei@post1.com.   Thanks!

I didn't explicitely subscribe to this list, but as long as I'm here I'll
throw out an idea I've been kicking around that would solve this issue,
and make life much easier for me and the rest of the users on my box here
if it ever got done..  Hack fetchmail to have a global .fetchmailrc
(/etc/fetchmailrc) specifying defaults that users can override.  The global
would specify things like configurations for servers..  Syntax would look
something like a win .ini file (or krb5.conf, for those running it (more
than me?)):
[hosts]
	defimap = {
		poll imap.my.domain
		proto imap4
	}
	defpop = {
		poll pop.my.domain
		proto pop3
	}
	kimap = {
		host defimap
		proto kimap
	}
	kpop = {
		host defpop
		proto kpop
	}
[defaults]
	user = %u
	preferred = kimap defimap defpop

If possible, connect based strictly on this file, eliminating the need for
users to have .fetchmailrcs at all..  There will be an initialization API
which takes the parameters given in the file (with appropriate substitution
for the user), and determine if or not it can attempt to download the
messages..  Thus, a kerberized connection is only attempted if it can gain
a session key (i.e. the user has a tgt).  An ordinary password connection
requires the user to have an entry in their .fetchmailrc
pass "NotARealPassword", and have this be readable only by them (another
requirement that could be elided, since we are no longer necessarily storing
passwd info in the .fetchmailrc..  Only barf if we have secure info in
there.).  Note that this will apply to all host entries in the system wide
fetchmailrc..  If we want to override a host, tie the entry to a host as
such:
imap { pass "NotARealPassword" }

This is quite a project, but I'd imagine that a dedicated soul with more
time than me (and more familiarity with the fetchmail source than me) could
tackle it in a month, and I _know_ it would make a lot of things a lot
easier for anyone needing to get mail for several people via fetchmail..

Thoughts?
--aidan
-- 
    I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
	--Tom Waits

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