Gnus Access mail spool by ssh

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

[ also posted to freebsd-mobil list]

I have ssh-1.2.27 installed and use it extensively.  In fact I've set
my machines (personal at home machines) to only allow connections via
ssh.

Now I want to have a laptop running FreeBSD 4.0 networked to desktop
running Redhat linux, be able to  view/manipulate mail on the parent machine
but don't want to  setup pop, imap or  special sendmail stuff.  I
don't want more daemons running that can be exploited from the internet.
And haven't really looked into firewall technique.

I realize there are other ways via scp, rsync, mirror using ssh  but it seems
the most convient to have the laptop users inbox be a ssh connection
to the parent desktop at /var/spool/mail/$NAME

I'll  use procmail to send a copy of every mail to
/var/spool/mail/NAME, on the parent machine.  I know how to do that part.
Then both machines will have full access to the mail without screwing
up the others spool.

I would like to just have $MAIL on the laptop set to
`ssh PARENT:/var/spool/mail/$NAME' to access the procmail created 
spool on the parent machine.

I'm pretty lost how to script this so that when a mail client is
called, a ssh connection is initiated and /var/spool/mail/$NAME
becomes the inbox.

What would be nice is to just say `M-x gnus' and a ssh connection is
started and mail in PARENT:/var/spool/mail/$NAME is viewed, expired
saved etc.

I have `TRAMP' installed and can think of several ways that
application could be called in to do this job, but would rather find a
more general solution so that *any* mail client could use it.

I have ssh-agent setup and do understand how to avoid password
problems during connections. (Thanks Kai)