getmail headers

[Martin Gregorie <ma...@gregorie.org>]

On Thu, 2016-12-15 at 22:19 +0000, RW wrote:

> If you are using getmail/fetchmail it commonly just works. SA has
> explicit support for fetchmail, and getmail headers are unparseable.
> Either way there is typically a chain of private and localhost IP
> addresses up to the MX server.
> 
Yes, that's been my experience with both fetchmail and getmail. I used
to use fetchmail until its habit of 'accidentally' leaving mail its
read but forgotten to delete in the source mailbox. Forever. Eventually
this annoyed me enough make the switch to getmail, which hasn't caused
me any problems at all.

I haven't noticed any problems arising from getmail's 'unparseable
headers': in fact I hadn't noticed that they weren't being processed.
Which brings me to the question I wanted to raised in this (renamed)
thread:�

What would we gain if getmail generated headers were parsed?�

IOW, should I raise a bug or would I just be wasting my and other
peoples, time? If it would not be a waste of time, should the bug be
raised against getmail or SA?


Martin

Re: getmail headers

[Martin Gregorie <ma...@gregorie.org>]

OK, Understood. Thanks for the explanation.

Martin


On Thu, 2016-12-15 at 23:30 +0000, RW wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 22:35:10 +0000
> Martin Gregorie wrote:
> 
> > 
> > On Thu, 2016-12-15 at 22:19 +0000, RW wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > If you are using getmail/fetchmail it commonly just works. SA has
> > > explicit support for fetchmail, and getmail headers are
> > > unparseable.
> > > Either way there is typically a chain of private and localhost IP
> > > addresses up to the MX server.
> > > ��
> > Yes, that's been my experience with both fetchmail and getmail. I
> > used
> > to use fetchmail until its habit of 'accidentally' leaving mail its
> > read but forgotten to delete in the source mailbox. Forever.
> > Eventually this annoyed me enough make the switch to getmail, which
> > hasn't caused me any problems at all.
> > 
> > I haven't noticed any problems arising from getmail's 'unparseable
> > headers': in fact I hadn't noticed that they weren't being
> > processed.
> > Which brings me to the question I wanted to raised in this
> > (renamed)
> > thread:�
> > 
> > What would we gain if getmail generated headers were parsed?�
> 
> The unparseable header breaks ALL_TRUSTED, but that doesn't really
> matter for a retriever. I don't recall any other practical
> difference.
> 
> Making SA parse the header normally is a really bad idea because the
> public IP address of the POP/IMAP server will break the chain of
> trust, requiring trusted_network to be set explicitly.
> 
> The fetchmail support causes the received header parsing to restart
> on the next header down.��
> 
> > 
> > IOW, should I raise a bug or would I just be wasting my and other
> > peoples, time? If it would not be a waste of time, should the bug
> > be
> > raised against getmail or SA?
> 
> There is a bug report with a patch to make the fetchmail support
> generic to all POP/IMAP, but it's not been committed.
> 
> It doesn't make much difference for getmail. There might possibly be
> other retriever software that could benefit, although they're likely
> to be unparseble like getmail.

Re: getmail headers

[RW <rw...@googlemail.com>]

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 22:35:10 +0000
Martin Gregorie wrote:

> On Thu, 2016-12-15 at 22:19 +0000, RW wrote:
> 
> > If you are using getmail/fetchmail it commonly just works. SA has
> > explicit support for fetchmail, and getmail headers are unparseable.
> > Either way there is typically a chain of private and localhost IP
> > addresses up to the MX server.
> >   
> Yes, that's been my experience with both fetchmail and getmail. I used
> to use fetchmail until its habit of 'accidentally' leaving mail its
> read but forgotten to delete in the source mailbox. Forever.
> Eventually this annoyed me enough make the switch to getmail, which
> hasn't caused me any problems at all.
> 
> I haven't noticed any problems arising from getmail's 'unparseable
> headers': in fact I hadn't noticed that they weren't being processed.
> Which brings me to the question I wanted to raised in this (renamed)
> thread: 
> 
> What would we gain if getmail generated headers were parsed? 

The unparseable header breaks ALL_TRUSTED, but that doesn't really
matter for a retriever. I don't recall any other practical difference.

Making SA parse the header normally is a really bad idea because the
public IP address of the POP/IMAP server will break the chain of
trust, requiring trusted_network to be set explicitly.

The fetchmail support causes the received header parsing to restart
on the next header down.  

> IOW, should I raise a bug or would I just be wasting my and other
> peoples, time? If it would not be a waste of time, should the bug be
> raised against getmail or SA?

There is a bug report with a patch to make the fetchmail support
generic to all POP/IMAP, but it's not been committed.

It doesn't make much difference for getmail. There might possibly be
other retriever software that could benefit, although they're likely
to be unparseble like getmail.