Fetchmail is a utility which is used to download messages from a POP or IMAP4 server. The fetchmail UI allows a systems administrator to modify the fetchmail configuration parameters from a web based interface and save the settings in a back end database.
To give a brief overview of the configuration parameters, fetchmail contacts a mail server which holds one or more mailboxes. Each mailbox is associated with a username and password. The fetchmail daemon contacts the POP server, authenticates itself, fetches the mail and delivers it to the local users. So the parameters that need to be configured are
To configure Fetchmail we need to configure a server , a Mailbox on it and a remote user to local user mapping for that account.
When we open an UI, initially list of servers are specified, with their status.
Initially there would be no server. By pressing a Add server Button, we can add a new server. By default, a newly added server is in edit mode. At this time if we press cancel, server will be deleted.
Existing sever can be edited by clicking on a edit label, we can edit various parameter of a server. A textbox is displayed for a FQDN of a server in which we can enter either IP or FQDN of a server. Dropdown option boxes are displayed for Poll time and Protocol. By pressing Save, we can save the setting. By pressing cancel, we can undo the change. We can also enabled or disabled perticular server by clicking on Enabled/Disabled label.
After every Poll Time time duration, server will be quried to check that it has a new mail or not. While a protocol specifies name of the protocol which will be used to fetch mails.
By clicking on a delete label, you can delete the server, along with all its Mailbox. A conformation dailogue box is displayed to double check that deletion is intentional and not accidental.
Now that we have one or more server, we need to specify details about remote Mailbox i.e. user name and password.
First of all, expand the server in which you want to add a Mailbox by pressing Expand label. the server. We will see the no of Mailbox configured for this server. By pressing Add label, a new Mailbox will be added. A newly added Mailbox will be in edit mode. We need to specify both username and password when we are adding the Mailbox. At this time, if we press cancel, a Mailbox would be deleted.
By clicking on a edit label, we can edit an existing Mailbox. Only user name is shown in a textbox. if we want to change password, click on the change password label. Another textbox will be displayed to change the password. A checkbox is displayed to specify that mail would be kept on account after fetching or not. By pressing save, our changes will be saved. By pressing cancel, our changes will be undone.
A Mailbox can be deleted by clicking on delete label. A conformation dailogue box is displayed to double check that deletion is intentional and not accidental. A user mapping asscoiated with a Mailbox will bw deleted automatically.
We have now a server, and a user-name and a password for a remote account. By configuring a user mapping, we can specify to whom a mail should be delivered locally. Now, a remote Mailbox can be a single drop or a multi drop.
In a single drop account, a MailBox contains a mail of a single user only. So a name of a single user should be specify to whom the mail will be delivered.
For a Multidrop account, at this point of time, either you can specify a local account (user) to whom all mail would be deliverd, or * which maps remote users to local users directly. For instance, mail for user ast would be deliverd to local ast, rstevens to local rstevens and so on.
In both cases, appropriate value should be specified in the Local User textbox. we can access the user mapping by expanding a mailbox further, and we can edit its value by cliking on a edit label. When we add a mailbox, a user mapping is added automatically.
Whatever changes we have done, are not applied until we press Apply . So press this button to apply changes. If we want to cancel all the changes, click on Cancel.