mail-sources on a different machine?

mail-sources on a different machine?

[Rene Matteau]

Hi,

I am running pgnus 0.95 on NT emacs 20.4.1. I have been using gnus for
a while following newsgroups but now I want to start reading some mail
with it (that I don't really want to be redirected from my AIX account
to my Lotus Notes mail). So I read the latest manual about mail and
set the following into ~/.gnus:

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '(
        (nnml "private")
        ))
(setq mail-sources '(
        (file :path "/matteau@matteau:/var/spool/mail/matteau")
        ))
(setq nnmail-split-methods '(
        ("other" "")
        ))

I then get a movemail error. The backtrace is:

Signaling: (error "Cannot get new mail.")
  signal(error ("Cannot get new mail."))
  error("Cannot get new mail.")
  (if (yes-or-no-p (format "Mail source error (%s).  Continue? " err)) nil (error "Cannot get new mail."))
  (unless (yes-or-no-p (format "Mail source error (%s).  Continue? " err)) (error "Cannot get new mail."))
  (condition-case err (funcall function source callback) (error (unless ... ...) 0))
  (+ found (condition-case err (funcall function source callback) (error ... 0)))
  (let ((function ...) (found 0)) (unless function (error "%S is an invalid mail source specification" source)) (when (file-exists-p mail-source-crash-box) (message "Processing mail from %s..." mail-source-crash-box) (setq found ...)) (+ found (condition-case err ... ...)))
  (save-excursion (let (... ...) (unless function ...) (when ... ... ...) (+ found ...)))
  mail-source-fetch((file :path "/matteau@matteau:/var/spool/mail/matteau") (lambda (file orig-file) (nnmail-split-incoming file (quote nnml-save-mail) (quote nil) (nnmail-get-split-group orig-file source) (quote nnml-active-number))))
  nnmail-get-new-mail(nnml nnml-save-nov "~/Mail/" nil)
  nnml-request-scan(nil "private")
  gnus-request-scan(nil (nnml "private"))
  gnus-read-active-file(nil nil)
  gnus-setup-news(nil nil nil)
  byte-code("\b\x04\x0e
  gnus-1(nil nil nil)
  gnus(nil)
  call-interactively(gnus)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command)


If I FTP manually the content of /var/spool/mail/matteau to my NT
machine and correct the mail-sources entry, it works as expected. Is
this working as designed or did I found a problem? Is there another
way I could approach this? Thanks

P.S. If that matters, I don't want to receive SMTP mail to my NT
machine as it is a portable computer that is most often not connected
to the network.

Rene

Re: mail-sources on a different machine?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

"Rene Matteau" <matteau@vnet.ibm.com> writes:

> (setq mail-sources '(
>         (file :path "/matteau@matteau:/var/spool/mail/matteau")
>         ))

I don't think this will work.  We use movemail to move mail, and it
doesn't understand ange-ftp file names.  One could use `rename-file',
but that wouldn't do file locking, which means that You Would Lose
Mail Sooner Or Later, which is not nice.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: mail-sources on a different machine?

[Ulf Betlehem]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> "Rene Matteau" <matteau@vnet.ibm.com> writes:
> 
> > (setq mail-sources '(
> >         (file :path "/matteau@matteau:/var/spool/mail/matteau")
> >         ))
> 
> I don't think this will work.  We use movemail to move mail, and it
> doesn't understand ange-ftp file names.  One could use `rename-file',
> but that wouldn't do file locking, which means that You Would Lose
> Mail Sooner Or Later, which is not nice.

        I'm using the following mail-sources for retrieving mail from
        my local spool as well as fetching mail from my primary mail-
        host.  Maybe not that elegant, but its fast and authentication
        is conveniently handled by ssh-agent.

        (setq mail-sources
              '((file)
                (file :prescript "ssh host bin/getmail >%t")))

------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
#
#  getmail - move mail from spool to stdout
#
#  flu@iki.fi
#
MOVEMAIL=/usr/lib/emacs/20.3/i386-redhat-linux/movemail
TMP=~/Mail/tmp
rm -f $TMP; $MOVEMAIL $MAIL $TMP >/dev/null && cat $TMP
------------------------------------------


-- 
 flu

Re: mail-sources on a different machine?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Ulf Betlehem <flu@iki.fi> writes:

>         I'm using the following mail-sources for retrieving mail from
>         my local spool as well as fetching mail from my primary mail-
>         host.

I've now added this to the manual.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

[PATCH] Re: mail-sources on a different machine?

[Carsten Leonhardt]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1239 bytes --]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> "Rene Matteau" <matteau@vnet.ibm.com> writes:
> 
> > (setq mail-sources '(
> >         (file :path "/matteau@matteau:/var/spool/mail/matteau")
> >         ))
> 
> I don't think this will work.  We use movemail to move mail, and it
> doesn't understand ange-ftp file names.  One could use `rename-file',
> but that wouldn't do file locking, which means that You Would Lose
> Mail Sooner Or Later, which is not nice.

Which reminds me, with the attached patch (which works around the fact
that "file-regular-p" is not [yet] implemented in efs/ange-ftp), it
will work for maildirs. Like

(setq mail-sources '((maildir :path "/leo@arioch.oche.de:~/Maildir/new")))

The only drawback I can see is that efs seems to cache directory
listings for some time, so gnus doesn't always fetch all the mail it
could.



For the lisp ChangeLog:

1999-11-24  Carsten Leonhardt  <leo@arioch.oche.de>

	* mail-source.el (mail-source-fetch-maildir): work around the
	ommitted "file-regular-p" in efs/ange-ftp

For the texi ChangeLog:

1999-11-24  Carsten Leonhardt  <leo@arioch.oche.de>

	* gnus.texi (Mail Source Specifiers): Mention maildir in the
	  overview and the possibility to use remote maildirs.


[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #2: patch to allow for remote maildirs --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 2316 bytes --]

Index: lisp/mail-source.el
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/gnus/lisp/mail-source.el,v
retrieving revision 5.20
diff -u -r5.20 mail-source.el
--- lisp/mail-source.el	1999/11/23 07:54:13	5.20
+++ lisp/mail-source.el	1999/11/24 01:53:23
@@ -439,7 +439,7 @@
     (let ((found 0)
 	  (mail-source-string (format "maildir:%s" path)))
       (dolist (file (directory-files path t))
-	(when (and (file-regular-p file)
+	(when (and (not (file-directory-p file))
 		   (not (if function
 			    (funcall function file mail-source-crash-box)
 			  (rename-file file mail-source-crash-box))))
Index: texi/gnus.texi
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/gnus/texi/gnus.texi,v
retrieving revision 5.122
diff -u -r5.122 gnus.texi
--- texi/gnus.texi	1999/11/23 22:29:10	5.122
+++ texi/gnus.texi	1999/11/24 01:55:43
@@ -10244,7 +10244,8 @@
 @subsection Mail Sources
 
 Mail can be gotten from many different sources---the mail spool, from a
-POP mail server, or from a procmail directory, for instance.
+POP mail server, from a procmail directory, or from a maildir, for
+instance.
 
 @menu
 * Mail Source Specifiers::       How to specify what a mail source is.
@@ -10458,9 +10459,9 @@
 @end lisp
 
 @item maildir
-Get mail from a maildir. This is a type of mailbox currently only
-supported by qmail, where each file in a special directory contains
-exactly one mail.
+Get mail from a maildir. This is a type of mailbox that is supported by
+at least qmail and postfix, where each file in a special directory
+contains exactly one mail.
 
 Keywords:
 
@@ -10471,14 +10472,22 @@
 
 If you sometimes look at your mail through a pop3 daemon before fetching
 them with Gnus, you may also have to fetch your mails from the
-@code{cur} directory inside the maildir, like in the following example.
+@code{cur} directory inside the maildir, like in the first example
+below.
 
+You can also get mails from remote hosts (because maildirs don't suffer
+from locking problems).
+
 @end table
 
-An example maildir mail source:
+Two example maildir mail sources:
 
 @lisp
 (maildir :path "/home/user-name/Maildir/cur")
+@end lisp
+
+@lisp
+(maildir :path "/user@@remotehost.org:~/Maildir/new")
 @end lisp
 
 @item imap

Re: mail-sources on a different machine?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

matteau@ca.ibm.com writes:

> Sorry to report the same question but I got no answer since I
> originally posted it (09/01) and Lars may have missed it in the huge
> volume of old postings...

Uhm, I think I answered this, but anyway...  :-)

> (setq mail-sources '(
>         (file :path "/matteau@matteau:/var/spool/mail/matteau")
>         ))

[...]

> I then get a movemail error. The backtrace is:

The problem is that Gnus uses the external movemail program to move
the mail.  It does not understand ange-ftp file names.  And even if it 
did, using it would be unsafe, because there's no way to do file
locking using ftp, which means that you would lose mail eventually.

Instead of doing it this way, I would suggest setting up a pop server
on the remote machine.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

mail-sources on a different machine?

[matteau]

Hi,

Sorry to report the same question but I got no answer since I originally posted
it (09/01) and Lars may have missed it in the huge volume of old postings...

I am running pgnus 0.95 on NT emacs 20.4.1. I have been using gnus for
a while following newsgroups but now I want to start reading some mail
with it (that I don't really want to be redirected from my AIX account
to my Lotus Notes mail). So I read the latest manual about mail and
set the following into ~/.gnus:

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '(
        (nnml "private")
        ))
(setq mail-sources '(
        (file :path "/matteau@matteau:/var/spool/mail/matteau")
        ))
(setq nnmail-split-methods '(
        ("other" "")
        ))

I then get a movemail error. The backtrace is:

Signaling: (error "Cannot get new mail.")
  signal(error ("Cannot get new mail."))
  error("Cannot get new mail.")
  (if (yes-or-no-p (format "Mail source error (%s).  Continue? " err)) nil
(error "Cannot get new mail."))
  (unless (yes-or-no-p (format "Mail source error (%s).  Continue? " err))
(error "Cannot get new mail."))
  (condition-case err (funcall function source callback) (error (unless ... ...)
0))
  (+ found (condition-case err (funcall function source callback) (error ...
0)))
  (let ((function ...) (found 0)) (unless function (error "%S is an invalid mail
source specification" source)) (when (file-exists-p mail-source-crash-box)
(message "Processing mail from %s..." mail-source-crash-box) (setq found ...))
(+ found (condition-case err ... ...)))
  (save-excursion (let (... ...) (unless function ...) (when ... ... ...) (+
found ...)))
  mail-source-fetch((file :path "/matteau@matteau:/var/spool/mail/matteau")
(lambda (file orig-file) (nnmail-split-incoming file (quote nnml-save-mail)
(quote nil) (nnmail-get-split-group orig-file source) (quote
nnml-active-number))))
  nnmail-get-new-mail(nnml nnml-save-nov "~/Mail/" nil)
  nnml-request-scan(nil "private")
  gnus-request-scan(nil (nnml "private"))
  gnus-read-active-file(nil nil)
  gnus-setup-news(nil nil nil)
  byte-code("\b\x04\x0e
  gnus-1(nil nil nil)
  gnus(nil)
  call-interactively(gnus)
  execute-extended-command(nil)
  call-interactively(execute-extended-command)


If I FTP manually the content of /var/spool/mail/matteau to my NT
machine and correct the mail-sources entry, it works as expected. Is
this working as designed or did I found a problem? Is there another
way I could approach this? Thanks

P.S. If that matters, I don't want to receive SMTP mail to my NT
machine as it is a portable computer that is most often not connected
to the network.

Rene