from John Mettraux and Wim Hueskes
free software under Gnu Public License
version 2.0.3 - 15.02.1999
version 2.0.4 - 16.02.1999
version 2.0.5 - 24.03.1999
version 2.0.6 - 30.04.1999
version 2.0.7 - 14.02.2002
version 2.0.7c - 19.02.2002
Summary
MailFetcher's task
Fetch mail on multiple POP3 accounts when your dialup connection is established and redistribute it through your local SMTP server.
What is MailFetcher 2
It's a Java 1.1 program. It runs with the standard APIs shipped with Java 1.1.x. As it is GPL covered software, the source code is available to you.
On which platform does MailFetcher 2 run ?
MailFetcher has been developed using Symantec Visual Café Professional Editon 3.0a on a win95 system. It works perfectly on win95 and winNT java-enabled systems.
It doesn't seem to work on linux platforms (either with Kaffe or with blackdown's JDK), seems there is a connection timeout stuff. I didn't have time to find out exactly why. On such a platform you can use Fetchmail (included in RedHat distributions for example).
Similar products
Have a look at Fetchmail from Eric Steve Raymond. It is written in C, it is also free software and supports POP2 and IMAP accounts too.
Running
java mfetcher.MailFetcher
prints the program usage :
Usage : java mfetcher.MailFetcher [options] Options : -f / --fetchconfreads list of account to fetch from another file than default mfetcher.cnf -v / --verbose displays all control messages -d / --daemon run MailFetcher as a daemon -l / --logfile work with another logfile than the default mfetcher.log -e / --emergency saves undeliverable mail into the specified path -t / --timezone <+hh00> allows you to specify in which timezone you work with MailFetcher2
Running MailFetcher
If you run MailFetcher from its jar file on a win95 or NT system :
java -classpath %CLASSPATH%;mf2.jar mfetcher.MailFetcher
on a Unix system :
java -classpath $CLASSPATH:mf2.jar mfetcher.MailFetcher
easier (with java 1.1 runtime environment) :
jre -cp mf2.jar mfetcher.MailFetcher
or (with java 1.2) :
java -cp mf2.jar mfetcher.MailFetcher
if you have MS IExplorer 4 or 5 on your machine, don't look for a virtual machine, just type :
jview -cp mf2.jar mfetcher.Mailfetcher
MailFetcher configuration file sample
use your favourite editor to edit mfetcher.cnf
(you can also save your configuration under another file name and use the -f option to run
MailFetcher with it.
# # configuration file for MailFetcher2 # popserver pop.mailprovider.com user jdoe pass xxxx delete true smtphost localmailer target johnd@firm.com popserver pop.mailhouse.org user doej pass xxxx delete true smtphost localmailer target office@firm.com;johnd@firm.com reportto johnm@mxco.ch from mailfetcher@localmailer smtphost localmailer |
The 'reportto' line states to who a report on MailFetcher activity should be sent. It is not mandatory.
Pass here are written 'xxxx' but should be stored in clear. If your users don't want to have all their passes gathered in clear, make the program available for each of them and each is responsible for its own configuration file.
'Delete' is here set to true so that email is deleted after have been retrieved.
Email is redistributed through the host named smtphost.
You can resend the mail to multiple recipients (delimited by ';'). Redistribution addresses should be full addresses. (johnd@server.com instead of johnd).
Bug Reporting
you can send me (jmettraux@yahoo.com) a FULL description of your usage of MailFetcher2, how and where you run it and what goes wrong.
Suggestions and fixes are welcome.
Help me make a better and more useful MailFetcher.
mXco runs MailFetcher2 on a Pentium II with WinNT 4.0. It fetches
mail on 6 different accounts on NT/Unix servers.
Our MailFetcher2 fetches mail through MS Proxy Server 1.0 and redistribute mail through
its local MS Exchange Server.
At home, I run MailFetcher2 on a win95 system with MS jview (just because it doesn't require -cp .). It redistributes my mail messages on a linux box running sendmail 8.9.3 on redhat 5.2. It works really fine.
Don't hesitate to tell me if you use MailFetcher2 and on which platform.
1.5.1 - This is the old version. You can still have a look at it.
2.0.5 (24.03.1999)
2.0.6 (30.04.1999)
2.0.7c (19.02.2002)