[CentOS] Story of an email

[Scott Robbins]

On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 11:35:25PM -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 29, 2013 at 10:53 PM, Cliff Pratt <enkiduonthenet at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>


> 
> Traditional unix programs expect to be able to pipe through an
> executable named sendmail when they want to send mail.   Postfix
> provides such an executable.    I don't know offhand if fetchmail
> pipes through sendmail for local delivery or uses smtp protocol, but
> if it runs an executable named sendmail that is not actually sendmail,
> it seems reasonable to call that emulation.    

Fetchmail (and getmail) don't make use of smtp.  As their name suggests,
they get mail, pulling it from a pop or imap server, whether on your ISP or
local server.  From there, they might send it elsewhere, depending upon the
setup.  

I'm not sure about fetchmail, but getmail, for example, will hand my emails
off to maildrop, which then sends them through spamc before going further.  
In contrast postfix, which I use for a barely used account, will also get
my mail, and in my case, again hand it off to maildrop.  

So while one could have fetchmail or getmail hand off to postfix it seems
to me that the more common scenario would be having them hand off to
procmail, maildrop, or something similar.

  

-- 
Scott Robbins
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