nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[William M. Perry]

You should be able to specify multiple spool files, ala VM.  I would
propose renaming nnmail-spool-file -> nnmail-spool-files, ala
vm-spool-files.  I get mail from several places, and currently I can't get
to all of it from within Gnus.

I'd like to be able to say:

(setq nnmail-spool-files '("po:wmperry@aventail.com"
                           "po:wmperry@oz.net"
                           "/var/spool/mail/wmperry"))

To get mail from my aventail account, my ISP account, and the local spool
file.  This would entail changes to the pop support to cache passwords
based on username/host.

It actually looks like nnmail is already smart enough to deal with multiple
spool files, just nnmail-get-spool-files needs to have new code to deal
with nnmail-spool-files being a list.

Anybody want to hack on this?  I might get to it this weekend otherwise.

-Bill P.
-- 
William Perry			wmperry@aventail.com
Unix Server Development Lead  & Emacs-W3 Author
Aventail, Corp.			http://www.aventail.com

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[William M. Perry]

wmperry@aventail.com (William M. Perry) writes:

> You should be able to specify multiple spool files, ala VM.  I would
> propose renaming nnmail-spool-file -> nnmail-spool-files, ala
> vm-spool-files.  I get mail from several places, and currently I can't get
> to all of it from within Gnus.
> 
> I'd like to be able to say:
> 
> (setq nnmail-spool-files '("po:wmperry@aventail.com"
>                            "po:wmperry@cs.indiana.edu"
>                            "/var/spool/mail/wmperry"))
> 
> To get mail from my aventail account, my ISP account, and the local spool
> file.  This would entail changes to the pop support to cache passwords
> based on username/host.
> 
> It actually looks like nnmail is already smart enough to deal with multiple
> spool files, just nnmail-get-spool-files needs to have new code to deal
> with nnmail-spool-files being a list.
> 
> Anybody want to hack on this?  I might get to it this weekend otherwise.

  Duh, it can be a list.  But I still need to hack the pop support to have
some way to specify the host for pop retrieval.  Or am I overlooking
something there as well.

-Bill P.

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[Sudish Joseph]

William M Perry writes:
>   Duh, it can be a list.  But I still need to hack the pop support to have
> some way to specify the host for pop retrieval.  Or am I overlooking
> something there as well.

I no longer use POP for retrieval, so take this with a cellar of
salt.  IMO, the best thing to do is to write a small shell wrapper for 
movemail that does all the fetching from various sources and then cats 
the lot into the file that GNUS specifies as the last arg.  You can
then use $MAILHOST[1] to select between servers. 

You should also consider having that script not connect to your POP
servers every time gnus says it should, as Gnus used to do it way too
often.[2]  Writing a timestamp from the script would suffice, I
guess. 

Finally, you could do what I did--give up on using pop through gnus
and run an external pop fetcher to put mail into a file that could be
added to nnmail-spool-file.  I used popclient from cron.  I believe
fetchmail is far and away the best pop client out there these days.[3]

-Sudish

Footnotes: 
[1]  movemail respects this.  IMO, it's a pity that movemail's pop
support wasn't done with proper args.  "po:" is gross.

[2]  I last used movemail's pop support a year back, gnus might have
changed for the better in this regard since then.

[3]  It has a daemon mode, will speak SMTP to deliver if you run an
MTA, and has lots of other nifty gadgets.  In particular, it handles
multiple servers with different accounts/passwords cleanly.  Even has
a well-designed configfile format.  Hmm, it's also written by Eric
Raymond, so the widgets will only get snazzier and more plentiful with
time. :-)

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[William M. Perry]

Sudish Joseph <sj@eng.mindspring.net> writes:

> William M Perry writes:
> >   Duh, it can be a list.  But I still need to hack the pop support to have
> > some way to specify the host for pop retrieval.  Or am I overlooking
> > something there as well.
> 
> I no longer use POP for retrieval, so take this with a cellar of salt.
> IMO, the best thing to do is to write a small shell wrapper for movemail
> that does all the fetching from various sources and then cats the lot
> into the file that GNUS specifies as the last arg.  You can then use
> $MAILHOST[1] to select between servers.

  Yes, but then I would have to socksify the damn thing, and I already went
to all the trouble of writing a socks5 client in emacs lisp.  :)

-Bill P.

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[Stainless Steel Rat]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

>>>>> "WMP" == William M Perry <wmperry@aventail.com> writes:

WMP> (setq nnmail-spool-files '("po:wmperry@aventail.com"
WMP>                            "po:wmperry@oz.net"
WMP>                            "/var/spool/mail/wmperry"))

Here is a problem that a few have run into: pop3 cannot deal with local
mail spool files; it is strictly a pop interface.  I expect the IMAP
equivalent to have a similar problem.  On the other hand, movemail is kinda
lame in a variety of ways but sometimes you need it.

To do things right, nnmail-spool-files should really be an alist, something
like this, to ensure that the correct method is used to retrieve mail:

(setq nnmail-spool-methods
      '(("po:wmperry@aventail.com" . 'nnmail-pop3-movemail) ; POP3
        ("po:wmperry@oz.net"       . 'nnmail-imap-movemail) ; IMAP
        ("/var/spool/mail/wmperry" . "movemail")            ; local spool file
        ))

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-- 
Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net>    \ Warning: pregnant women, the elderly, and
PGP Key: at a key server near you! \ children under 10 should avoid prolonged
                                    \ exposure to Happy Fun Ball.

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[John McClary Prevost]

>>>>> "Rat" == Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

    Rat> Here is a problem that a few have run into: pop3 cannot deal
    Rat> with local mail spool files; it is strictly a pop interface.
    Rat> I expect the IMAP equivalent to have a similar problem.  On
    Rat> the other hand, movemail is kinda lame in a variety of ways
    Rat> but sometimes you need it.

Theoretically, IMAP mail stays on the server--the nnimap backend
(gotta get it to the "can be included w/ the Gnus dist" point) doesn't
want to be filed out of.  Filed into is doable.

John Prevost.

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[William M. Perry]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> >>>>> "WMP" == William M Perry <wmperry@aventail.com> writes:
> 
> WMP> (setq nnmail-spool-files '("po:wmperry@aventail.com"
> WMP>                            "po:wmperry@oz.net"
> WMP>                            "/var/spool/mail/wmperry"))
> 
> Here is a problem that a few have run into: pop3 cannot deal with local
> mail spool files; it is strictly a pop interface.  I expect the IMAP
> equivalent to have a similar problem.  On the other hand, movemail is kinda
> lame in a variety of ways but sometimes you need it.
> 
> To do things right, nnmail-spool-files should really be an alist, something
> like this, to ensure that the correct method is used to retrieve mail:
> 
> (setq nnmail-spool-methods
>       '(("po:wmperry@aventail.com" . 'nnmail-pop3-movemail) ; POP3
>         ("po:wmperry@oz.net"       . 'nnmail-imap-movemail) ; IMAP
>         ("/var/spool/mail/wmperry" . "movemail")            ; local spool file
>         ))

  Well, in case anyone is interested, this is what I ended up with as just
a quick hack.

(setq nnmail-movemail-program 'my-movemail
      nnmail-spool-file 'pop)

(defun my-movemail (inbox crashbox)
  (require 'vm)
  (if (getenv "MAIL")
      (vm-spool-move-mail (getenv "MAIL") crashbox))
  (vm-pop-move-mail "oz.net:110:pass:wmperry:*" crashbox)
  (vm-pop-move-mail "aventail.com:110:pass:wmperry:*" crashbox))

It at least works. :)  The pop support in VM is quite nice and gives
_great_ feedback during mail downloads, and lets you limit both the # of
messages, the total size of the messages, and the max size of a message
that it will download in a single retrieval session.  Pretty nice - we
should rip code out of it, or at least mimic the functionality.  I'd like
to eventually see VM + GNUS use the same POP3 backend.

-Bill P.

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[Per Abrahamsen]

wmperry@aventail.com (William M. Perry) writes:

> It at least works. :)  The pop support in VM is quite nice and gives
> _great_ feedback during mail downloads, and lets you limit both the # of
> messages, the total size of the messages, and the max size of a message
> that it will download in a single retrieval session.  Pretty nice - we
> should rip code out of it, or at least mimic the functionality.  I'd like
> to eventually see VM + GNUS use the same POP3 backend.

Are you going to ask Kyle to sign papers for `vm-pop.el'?

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:

> Are you going to ask Kyle to sign papers for `vm-pop.el'?

Kyle has expressed strong resent against assigning software to the
FSF, but I see that there *are* Kyle's assignments in copyright.list,
e.g. for life.el.

Kyle, could you please make an exception for vm-pop.el?  We'd like to
have it in Gnus, and Larse Ingebrigtsen cannot include it until the
copyright is assigned to the FSF.

-- 
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia
--------------------------------+--------------------------------
Good pings come in small packets.

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[William M. Perry]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:
> 
> > Are you going to ask Kyle to sign papers for `vm-pop.el'?
> 
> Kyle has expressed strong resent against assigning software to the FSF,
> but I see that there *are* Kyle's assignments in copyright.list, e.g. for
> life.el.

  I don't think I could in good conscience ask kyle to do that.  I had to
think long and hard about signing papers for Emacs/W3, as he had to with
VM.  That decision was made long ago.  Signing papers for a hodge-podge
of items within VM probably wouldn't make much sense.

  I would say the best thing to do here is have a generic pop3 package that
both VM 6.nn and Quassia Gnus could use.  Whether kyle would like to donate
vm-pop as the starting is a separate issue, but I'm not sre if that will
change his decision making process or not.

-Bill P.

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[Hrvoje Niksic]

wmperry@aventail.com (William M. Perry) writes:

>   I don't think I could in good conscience ask kyle to do that.  I had to
> think long and hard about signing papers for Emacs/W3, as he had to with
> VM.

I have assigned copyright for Wget[1], so I'm not totally ignorant of
some of the things involved.  Note that Kyle's name can be found in
copyright.list for Emacs.

> I would say the best thing to do here is have a generic pop3 package
> that both VM 6.nn and Quassia Gnus could use.

I think vm-pop.el is good enough.

> Whether kyle would like to donate vm-pop as the starting is a
> separate issue,

That's exactly what I tried to ask.  Sorry if it somehow made a
different impression.


[1]
<URL:ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/pub/unix/util/wget/wget.tar.gz>

-- 
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia
--------------------------------+--------------------------------
WWW:  World-Wide-Waste.  Waste management corporation, which
      handles the billions of tons of garbage generated by just
      about everybody these days.

Re: nnmail-spool-file should be a list...

[Stainless Steel Rat]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

>>>>> "WMP" == William M Perry <wmperry@aventail.com> writes:

WMP> It at least works. :) The pop support in VM is quite nice and gives
WMP> _great_ feedback during mail downloads, and lets you limit both the #
WMP> of messages, the total size of the messages, and the max size of a
WMP> message that it will download in a single retrieval session.

pop3-movemail already gives a running count of messages retrieved.  Adding
to pop3 is outside of its scope; it is really intended to be nothing more
than a basic POP3 interface.  If you want more complex things, a pop3-aux
library that uses the pop3 library would be the way to do it.  The
pop3-movemail function is included in pop3 more as a guide to building a
function for retrieving mail from a POP server rather than being the be-all
and end-all way of doing so.

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-- 
Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net>    \ Warning: pregnant women, the elderly, and
PGP Key: at a key server near you! \ children under 10 should avoid prolonged
                                    \ exposure to Happy Fun Ball.