Message-Id: <199510260936.KAA15119@josephine.sis.pasteur.fr>
From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@pasteur.fr>
To: exmh-users@parc.xerox.com
Subject: POP with exmh (Was: New release of exmh )
In-Reply-To: Ron Frederick <frederic@parc.xerox.com>'s message of "Wed, 
 25 Oct 95 12:49:18 PDT."
             <95Oct25.124928pdt.16136@ecco.parc.xerox.com> 
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Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 02:36:13 PDT
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On Wednesday 25 October 95, at 12 h 49, the keyboard of Ron Frederick 
<frederic@parc.xerox.com> wrote:

>     Fixed FAQ table of contents.  FAQ #9 now has three parts:
> 	9a. How do I get POP to work with exmh?

The FAQ gives good explanations. However, it seems something is missing 
in it: you DO NOT have to run a "POP aware" MH to use exmh and a POP 
server. Neither you are forced to patch/configure/hack elm, pine, etc to 
read mail which is available from a POP server. These 
patches/configurations are always painful and very often not so well 
documented.

The solution I suggest, which works fine with exmh, is to use a 
completely separate program, which is a pure POP client ("pure" because 
it only retrieves: it doesn't display or compose). This program connects 
to the POP server, retrieves the mail, puts it in a standard place 
(typically /var/spool/mail/username) where ANY mail program, WITHOUT 
patch or special configuration can pick it. 

I know four such programs, "popclient" being the most famous:

"popclient" <ftp://ftp.mal.com/pub/pop> but Archie will find many places.
"popc" <ftp://ftp.imag.fr/pub/Linux/net>
"popmail" <ftp://ftp.cic.net/pub/Software/unix/mail>
"gwpop" <ftp://ftp.pasteur.fr/pub/Network/gwpop>

I wrote gwpop and therefore I'm a little biased towards it :-)

You can also use slocal or procmail to make these programs deliver 
directly in MH folders. This is what I do with gwpop+procmail. exmh has 
been setup to "Way to inc: none" and "Background processing: flist". That 
way, exmh displays automatically folders with new mail.

I have a very detailed documentation of my setup, available on request, 
but only in French.

Stephane Bortzmeyer           Institut Pasteur
bortzmeyer@pasteur.fr         Service d'Informatique Scientifique
                              Paris, France
+33 1 40 61 34 62

http://web.cnam.fr/personnes/bortzmeyer/home_page.dom