[fetchmail-devel] Re: deleting oversized messages

[Sunil S. <sh...@bo...>]

Quoting from Matthias Andree's mail on Wed, Aug 31, 2005 at 01:04:04AM +0200:
> Current wording, in roff man(7) format:
> 
> .TP
> .B \-F | \-\-flush
> POP3/IMAP only.  This is a dangerous option and can cause mail loss when
> used improperly. It deletes old (seen) messages from the mailserver
> before retrieving new messages.  Warning: This can cause mail loss if
> you check your mail with other clients than fetchmail, and cause
> fetchmail to delete a message it had never fetched before. Similarly, if
> your local MTA hangs and fetchmail is aborted, the next time you run
> fetchmail, it will delete mail that was never delivered to you.  You
> should probably not use this option in your configuration file.
> What you probably want is the default setting: if you don't specify
> '-k', then fetchmail will automatically delete messages after successful
> delivery. This option does not work with ETRN and ODMR.

Rather well put. However, this is not the only thing I am after.

Please check the revision r4173 which attempts to fix Debian Bug
#212240. This fix actually encourages the use of the 'flush'
option.

It is contradictory to say that

$ fetchmail --flush

is dangerous, but 

$ fetchmail --daemon 0 --limit 100000 --flush

is ok. In both cases, mails read through another email client are
going to get deleted. Thus, both the above usages of 'flush' are
eqaually dangerous.

What I want us to do:

- reverse the commit in r4173: this will break the link between
  'flush' and 'limit'.

- add a FAQ item which tells that 'flush' option cannot be overloaded
  to delete oversized mails as 'flush' is dangerous (with or without
  the overloading) when one is using another email client to check
  one's mailbox and that 'flush' should be immediately removed from
  the rc file.

- treat Debian Bug #212240 as a new feature request, not a bug.

- decide whether this request should should be implemented before
  6.3.0.

In case, it is decided to implement now:

- add a new option which will delete only oversized mails. The patch I
  had mentioned earlier did exactly that.

- update the FAQ item mentioned above.

-- 
Sunil Shetye.