Re: Gnus Access mail spool by ssh

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Sorry, I'm still confused here.... Your description stops right at the
punch line.

Nuutti Kotivuori <nuutti.kotivuori@sonera.com> writes:

> Local machine runs fetchmail, which runs ssh to connect to the remote
> machine and run imapd, which the fetchmail will access. . . . 

What does fetchmail do with it.  Deliver to /var/mail/$USER or put it
on standard out of ssh command or what?

> Local .fetchmailrc:
> 
> poll mail.host.foo with proto IMAP and options no dns
>        preauth ssh plugin /usr/home/xxx/bin/fetchmail-imap-wrapper

OK .. I follow the .fetchmailrc recipe.
Is this wrapper necessary if ssh-agent is engaged?


> Local bin/fetchmail-imap-wrapper:
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> exec ssh -i $HOME/.ssh/identity-imap -l xxx $1 /opt/net/etc/imapd

You aim ssh at a specific id in ~/.ssh -- login as xxx.... what does
$1 do?  First argument to what... ssh?   --- imapd gets invoked and
passes new mail to fetchmail?  Which then does what?

I've tried this with the following scripts:

.fetchmailrc:
poll reader.local.lan with proto IMAP and options no dns
 preauth ssh plugin /home/reader/scripts/ssh-fetch.sh

ssh-fetch.sh
#!/bin/sh
exec ssh reader@reader /usr/sbin/imapd

I can't tell if its going to work because some other mess with my
FreeBSD install crops up to wreck it.

$ fetchmail 
/usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: Shared object "libssl.so.1" not found

Fetchmail installed from FreeBSD install with no complaints.

This is starting to look like too much pain in the ass for such a
simple chore.

Running just the shell script (ssh-fetch.sh) gives:

bsd > scripts/ssh-fetch.sh
* PREAUTH reader.ptw.com IMAP4rev1 v12.264 server ready

whoopee .... now what?

`man imapd' you say...  Well the one I have is just one tiny cut above
useless, lacking descriptive information.

I think I like the straight forward approach laid out by Kai and Lars.
What are the chances on a local network that the `cat' command in the
mail-sources prescript will die an ugly death?  I'm beginning to think
what ever risk, it is  much less problem than sorting out a bunch of
complicated soft ware for this one task.

Plus, it seems one could insert some kind of `trap' that would make it
safer. 

Especially since I have an overall backup of all incoming mail that
keeps the latest 1000 messages.