mail setup in lenny

[Tyler Spivey]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Personally, I just keep my mail in a maildir in my home directory. Either way you go (mbox or maildir),
you can convert from one to the other. Just to get started, set the path of your mbox to something like /home/keith/mail/inbox,
create ~/mail if it doesn't already exist (mkdir ~/mail) and touch ~/mail/inbox.
Add this line to your ~/.muttrc:
set spoolfile=~/mail/inbox
touch just creates a 0 byte file so getmail has something to deliver to; the no such file or directory
was telling you that it couldn't find /var/mail/keith. Personally I like having my mail in my home directory for
ease of backups and organization.
If you really want it in /var/mail/keith, you can su to root and
touch /var/mail/keith
chown keith: /var/mail/keith
which will create the file and set its owner to keith.
But you'll probably end up with a customized .muttrc anyways, so the home directory is probably a good option.

- - Tyler
On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 06:26:17PM -0000, lists at barrettpianos.co.uk wrote:
> I am hoping someone could point me in the right direction.
> 
> Using debian lenny, I am trying to collect mail using mutt and 
> getmail.
> 
> I found a howto which is for etch which I have used as I cannot find 
> any lenny specific howtos on the subject.
> 
> This is what I have done.
> 
> Installed getmail4 with apt-get
> 
> nano ~/.getmail/getmailrc
> [retriever]
> type = SimplePOP3Retriever
> server = mail.plus.net
> username = my username
>  password = my password
> [destination]
> type = Mboxrd
> path = /var/mail/keith
> 
> I login to the debian system with username keith
> 
> Now these are the error messages.
> 
> Running getmail
> error: configuration file /home/keith/.getmail/getmailrc incorrect 
> path: specified mbox file /var/keith/Mail does not exist.
> 
> If I run mutt I get
> 
> /var/Mail/keith no such file or directory
> 
> I have not created a .muttrc locally so the lenny defaults should 
> apply?
> 
> I think my problem is to do with the path or lack of a mailbox 
> although mutt seems to be looking for one.
> 
> Sorry about all this but been at it all day and I think I am digging a 
> deeper hole for myself.
> 
> I am new at this so please assume I have little knowledge of linux.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Keith
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAkkoXO0ACgkQTsjaYASMWKQ3KACfZusT0j9aGSl2cPCDYEM42WID
1yQAn3GXlm5GEwYks+0QwVqNGU/ci9uC
=nngH
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----