Re: [fetchmail-users] Fetchmail vs. Getmail (from a Fetchmail perspective)

[Matthias A. <mat...@gm...>]

Stephen Allen <fet...@ro...> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I currently use Fetchmail, because, well... I do - no other reason. 
> However,
> Fetchmail 6.2.5.5 (running as a daemon) randomly stops picking up 
> messages (with no events in the logfile to indicate why) until I restart 
> the daemon when everything then works ok again. So, I am considering 
> Getmail instead.

Try fetchmail 6.3.5 or one of the 6.3.6 release candidates.

>  From a Fetchmail perspective, what the the Pros/Cons of using each?  I 
> don't want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire!
>
If you want getmail and SSL or TLS, only ever do this with a very recent
getmail version and if your system Python installation is 2.4 or 2.5.  
Python 2.3 and earlier will hit your CPU very hard with SSL.

Note that getmail hasn't got a daemon mode and knows fewer authenticators.

> And for ease of administration, I run Fetchmail as root, collecting 
> email from all users' POP3 accounts, so I only need one fetchmailrc 
> file.  Is this good/bad etc?

I wouldn't dare run fetchmail as root. It needs no privileges unless
you're using --mda and your MDA isn't fit for setuid.

-- 
Matthias Andree