   Link: Charles Cazabon's Software (Contents Up Index)

                             getmail documentation

   This is the documentation for getmail version 4. Version 4 includes
   numerous changes from version 3.x; if you are using getmail version 3,
   please refer to the documentation included with that version of the
   software.

   getmail is Copyright (c) 1998-2009 Charles Cazabon.

   getmail is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 (only).
   If you wish to obtain a license to distribute getmail under other terms,
   please contact me directly.

                            Troubleshooting problems

   This section of the documentation is to be added to as getmail version 4
   progresses through beta testing to release state. If you have suggestions
   for additions or changes to this documentation, please send them to the
   mailing list or me.

Error messages

   getmail may output various diagnostic error messages. The common ones and
   their meanings are given below.

  ImportError: getmail version 4 requires Python version 2.3.3 or later

   You tried to run getmail 4 with a version of Python prior to Python 2.3.3.
   This is unsupported. If you cannot install a newer Python alongside your
   current version, please use getmail version 3, which supports Python 1.5.2
   and later.

  Configuration error: ...

   getmail detected an error in your configuration. Check your getmail rc
   file(s). getmail will do its best to point out the exact cause of the
   error. Some of the specific errors it may find include the following.

    Configuration error: missing required configuration parameter name

   A class object in your getmail rc file requires the parameter name, but it
   was not found in the appropriate section of the file.

    Configuration error: configuration value name (value) not of required type
    type (why)

   The configuration parameter name must be of type type, but the supplied
   value value does not appear to be of that type. Further information may be
   present in why.

   The getmail documentation contains descriptions of the syntax for each
   parameter type.

    Configuration error: maildir path missing trailing /

   Maildir paths must start with dot or slash and end with a slash.

    Configuration error: not a maildir (path)

   The specified maildir path path does not appear to be a valid maildir.
   Check to ensure that it is a valid maildir, and that getmail has
   permission to write to it.

    Configuration error: ... (path: maildir subdirectory "path" does not exist)

   The specified maildir path path does not appear to be a valid maildir, as
   it is missing one of the required subdirectories. Check to ensure that it
   is a valid maildir and that getmail has permission to write to it.

    Configuration error: not an mboxrd file (path)

   The specified mboxrd path path does not appear to be a valid mboxrd file.
   To avoid corrupting files in the event of a user typo, getmail will not
   deliver messages to files that do not appear to be valid mboxrd files.

    Configuration error: mboxrd does not exist

   The specified mboxrd does not exist. getmail will not create mbox files;
   ensure they exist before trying to deliver to them.

    Configuration error: the fieldname header field does not record the envelope
    recipient address

   In a multidrop retriever configuration, you specified that the envelope
   recipient was recorded in a header field that getmail knows does not
   actually record that information.

    Configuration error: refuse to invoke external commands as root or GID 0 by
    default

   By default, getmail will not invoke external commands (in destinations or
   filters) when it is running with root privileges, for security reasons.
   See the documenation for possible solutions.

    Configuration error: no such command path

   An external command was specified as being located at path path, but the
   command executable was not found at that location.

    Configuration error: path not executable

   A specified external command at path path was found to not be an
   executable file.

    Configuration error: destination specifies section name section which does
    not exist

   A destination in the getmail rc file refers to another rc file section
   named section, but that section was not found in the file.

  Retrieval error ...

   getmail detected an error while trying to retrieve a message. Some of the
   specific errors it may find include the following.

    Retrieval error: server ... is broken; ...

   The server claimed to have a particular message, but when getmail tried to
   retrieve it, the server returned an empty response in violation of the POP
   or IMAP protocol. getmail will skip on to the next message.

   This problem is almost always with an MSExchange server, and is due to
   bugs in MSExchange. Delete the offending message from the mailbox via the
   webmail interface if you don't want to see this error message, and report
   the bug to the server administrator or Microsoft.

  Delivery error ...

   getmail detected an error after retrieving a message but before delivery
   was successfully completed. Some of the specific errors it may find
   include the following.

    Delivery error: maildir delivery process failed (refuse to deliver mail as
    root)

   getmail will not deliver to a maildir as the root user. You may specify an
   alternate user to deliver as with the user directive in the destination
   section of your getmailrc file, or let getmail default to the user who is
   the owner of the maildir.

    Delivery error: mbox delivery process failed (refuse to deliver mail as
    root)

   getmail will not deliver to an mbox file as the root user. You may specify
   an alternate user to deliver as with the user directive in the destination
   section of your getmailrc file, or let getmail default to the user who is
   the owner of the mbox file.

    Delivery error: mbox delivery process failed (not an mboxrd file)

   The specified mbox file does not appear to be a valid mbox file.

  Error: ...

   getmail detected an operational error. getmail will do its best to point
   out the exact cause of the error. Common causes are failures to connect to
   a remote mail server, timeouts during network operations, and other
   transient failures.

    Error: server-info does not uniquely identify messages ...

   The POP3 server for this particular account was not able to uniquely
   identify the messages in the mailstore. You can use the
   BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever class with this server instead, but functionality
   is limited because of the inability to identify messages properly.

    Error: server-info failed to identify message X in UIDL output ...

   The POP3 server for this particular account completely failed to identify
   one of the messages in the mailstore when the UIDL command was issued. The
   POP server is in violation of the POP3 protocol, and getmail has no way to
   identify the message in question.

   The most common cause of this is servers that use the contents of the
   Message-ID: header field as the UIDL value for the message - some messages
   (usually spam) lack a Message-ID: header field entirely, causing these
   servers to emit blank UIDL values for these messages, which is not
   permitted by the POP3 protocol. You may be able to work around the problem
   by deleting the problematic message(s) from the mailstore by other means
   (such as a webmail interface provided by your POP3 mailhost).

   Otherwise, you'll need to either ask the postmaster of the POP3 mail host
   to fix the POP3 software they're using. In the meantime, you can use the
   BrokenUIDLPOP3Retriever class with this server instead, but functionality
   is limited because of the inability to identify messages properly.

    Python(...) malloc: *** mmap(...) failed (...)

   ... followed by an Unhandled exception block and then MemoryError.

   getmail ran out of memory, usually due to a bug in Python's IMAP library
   which was fixed in early 2008.

   If you are using IMAP and run into this problem retrieving messages that
   aren't hundreds of megabytes in size, you can almost certainly fix it by
   upgrading your Python installation to the latest 2.5.x or 2.6.x release.
   Note that if you switch from Python 2.5.x to Python 2.6.x, you'll need to
   re-install getmail with python setup.py install from the getmail source
   directory.

Warning messages

   getmail may output various diagnostic warning messages. The common ones
   and their meanings are given below.

  Warning: ...

   getmail detected a condition which might be problematic. Some of the
   specific warnings it may find include the following.

    Warning: ignoring unknown parameter "parameter_name"

   A getmail rc file contained an unknown parameter. This usually indicates
   that you've put the parameter in the wrong section of the file (such as
   putting the read_all parameter in the [retriever] section instead of in
   the [options] section).

    Warning: filter filter returned fewer headers (X) than supplied (Y)

   A message filter appeared to incorrectly remove header fields from the
   header of a message which it handled. getmail warns you about this so that
   you can check your filter for proper operation. Filters should add
   information to the message header or leave it alone; check the
   configuration for the filter program you are using.

Unexpected Behaviour

   If getmail is behaving in a manner other that you expected, see the
   following sections.

  getmail uses the wrong hostname for my machine

   If getmail records a hostname other than the "right" one for your host (in
   its Received: trace header fields), check your /etc/hosts file and make
   sure the "right" name is the first hostname listed for any of the
   addresses of the machine.

  getmail puts "unknown" in the Delivered-To: or Return-Path:header field

   getmail records the envelope recipient address in the Delivered-To: header
   field, and the envelope sender in the Return-Path: header field. If this
   information is not available (because you're not using a multidrop
   retriever class, or the MTA on the POP/IMAP server is broken, for
   example), getmail uses the string "unknown". You can disable the creation
   of the Delivered-To: header field if you wish.

  getmail isn't replacing my command argument "%(recipient)" with the message
  recipient address

   The %(recipient), %(local), and %(domain) replacement strings are only
   replaced if the message is retrieved with a multidrop retriever class;
   otherwise, getmail does not "know" the recipient address of the message,
   and therefore cannot perform this replacement.

  getmail seems to take longer than expected to initialize

   If getmail takes more than a few seconds to initialize, run the following
   command to test:

 python -c "import socket; print socket.getfqdn()"

   If this seems to take a similarly long period of time to complete, the
   delay is in finding the fully-qualified hostname of your system. The fix
   is to ensure you have a valid mapping of address-to-hostname for all the
   addresses in your system. You can do this in your /etc/hosts file, in your
   authoritative content DNS server, or in another system-specific manner --
   please contact your OS vendor (or its public support mailing list) for
   assistance.
