Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!garlic.com!news.scruz.net!kithrup.com!news.Stanford.EDU!agate!theos.com!riscan.riscan.com!van.istar!van-bc!unixg.ubc.ca!news.bc.net!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news1.erols.com!newsmaster@erols.com
From: Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Polling remote host for mail -- suggestions?
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 16:09:40 -0700
Organization: Erols Internet Services
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <31C73733.5358@www.play-hookey.com>
References: <4q6hpt$31o_016@mypc.neosoft.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: kenjb05.play-hookey.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win16; I)
Conrad Sabatier wrote:
>
> I'd like to use popclient to poll my ISP for my mail, say, every ten
> minutes. Looking at the cron docs, it appears that it expects a list of
> specific date/time parameters, or am I overlooking something? Can cron be
> given a set of parameters that say "every ten minutes"? If not, then how
> can I do this some other way?
>
> If someone could just point me in the right direction, it would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
This is exactly what I do, since I have accounts with two ISPs that I
started before I set up my own domain. I use one cron-driven shell script to
pull mail from both and to also pull down e-mail from my kids' accounts at
the University of Maryland while they are home for the summer. Basically,
you need to create one file and edit another.
I did it this way: First, I created /usr/sbin/chekmail in the following
format (add comments to taste):
#! /bin/sh
#
popclient -s -3 -u {userid} -p {password} -o {local mailfile} {mailhost}
|
|
# repeat for other host accounts as needed
Be sure to include the -s (silent) option, or your root mail account will
*really* get cluttered. Also be sure that *only* root has rw permission for
this file, since the passwords have to be in plain text -- they are the
passwords for the accounts on the remote ISP mailhosts. You *will* get mail
for root every time popclient fails to reach a host for any reason (such as
timeout).
Now, edit the file /etc/crontab, which is the controlling file for all cron
functions. First, look at the line for /usr/libexec/atrun; your new line
will be very similar. Mine runs my chekmail program every 15 minutes, and
looks like this:
#minute hour mday month wday who command
#
#Check other ISPs for mail every 15 minutes
*/15 * * * * root /usr/sbin/chekmail
You don't have to reboot or re-HUP the cron daemon -- it checks for an
updated /etc/crontab file each minute when it runs its tasks.
This arrangement has been running cleanly for me since I installed it a
couple of months ago, and I expect it will also work for you.
Ken