OK, I'm setting up a Diplomacy judge. Everything is going well except
mail. My ".forward" file is, according to some judge-maint members,
correct. I have to pull mail off an external POP server, which I am
successfully doing with fetchmail. Mail enters the spool and appears to
go somewhere, but no game parameters are altered.

I know that this situation has to be pretty standard - A program hands
mail to Postfix, which pipes it to another command via the expression in
the ".forward" file. I just need to know how to configure Postfix to be
looking for mail coming from an internal program rather than via the
standard ports. The manual and all the websites happen to be a bit
overwhelming and the books I've read don't seem to be much clearer. I'm
not dense. What do I need to do or what information does someone need in
order to tell me what to do so that I can make this work? I've been on
it for 2 weeks and it's starting to get a little frustrating.

Chris

In article <CTg3g.6921$QP4.952@fed1read12>, Chris B
<chris@swift2plunderatcox.net> declared...
> OK, I'm setting up a Diplomacy judge. Everything is going well except
> mail. My ".forward" file is, according to some judge-maint members,
> correct. I have to pull mail off an external POP server, which I am
> successfully doing with fetchmail. Mail enters the spool and appears to
> go somewhere, but no game parameters are altered.
>
> I know that this situation has to be pretty standard - A program hands
> mail to Postfix, which pipes it to another command via the expression in
> the ".forward" file. I just need to know how to configure Postfix to be
> looking for mail coming from an internal program rather than via the
> standard ports. The manual and all the websites happen to be a bit
> overwhelming and the books I've read don't seem to be much clearer. I'm
> not dense. What do I need to do or what information does someone need in
> order to tell me what to do so that I can make this work? I've been on
> it for 2 weeks and it's starting to get a little frustrating.


USTX uses fetchmail to pull mail off of the spencersoft.com
server, which is hosted by a third party.

Here's the .fetchmailrc file for USTX:

-----------------------
# Configuration created Thu Mar 30 05:15:39 2006 by fetchmailconf
set logfile "/var/log/fetchmail"
set postmaster "postmaster"
set bouncemail
set no spambounce
set properties ""
set daemon 10
poll mail.spencersoft.com with proto POP3 and options no dns
user 'dice@spencersoft.com' there with password '******'
is 'dice' here options fetchall
user 'ustx00@spencersoft.com' there with password '******' is
'ustx' here options fetchall
-----------------------

You'll need to make the appropriate changes for your judge. You
can use Fetchmailconf to edit your .fetchmailrc file or you can
edit it in a text editor. The line that says "set daemon 10"
tells fetchmail how often, in seconds, it should poll your
server. The .fetchmailrc should be stored in the /etc directory.

When you start your computer, you'll need to start fetchmail. You
can modify your startup scripts to do that for you automatically,
or you can just start it yourself. If you think that fetchmail is
not finding your .fetchmailrc file, you can start it with the -f
parameter, like this:

fetchmail -f /etc/.fetchmailrc

Fetchmail will pass any mail from the server to Postfix. If you
do not have a .forward file, Postfix will put the mail in
/var/spool/mail/<username>. Look to see if you have any mail
there. If you do, then your .forward file is probably the
problem.

The .forward file should be in the home directory for your judge,
presumably usak. Here's the .forward file for USTX:

,"| /home/ustx/dip/rdip -b -d /home/ustx/dip "

Note that the quotes are part of the line.

If everything looks right so far, send mail to your judge and see
if it ends up in your dip.log file. If it does, then your judge
is receiving mail. If you don't get a response, then the problem
is with sending mail.

I hope something above s you out. I'm not clear where the
problem is, so I'm trying to address everything I could think of
off the top of my head. Feel free to contact me directly if you
have any questions.


--
Greg
----
http://www.spencerbooksellers.com
greg00 -at- spencersoft -dot- com

Chris B wrote:
I just need to know how to configure Postfix to be
> looking for mail coming from an internal program rather than via the
> standard ports.

The local input into Postfix is the "sendmail" command. You can specify the
command in the top of the .fetchmailrc file, for example:


set mda "/usr/sbin/sendmail -i -oem -f %F %T"


See the "fetchmail" man page for the default "mda" setting.
--
Greg

>> I just need to know how to configure Postfix to be
>> looking for mail coming from an internal program rather than via the
>> standard ports.
>
>
> The local input into Postfix is the "sendmail" command. You can specify the
> command in the top of the .fetchmailrc file, for example:
>
>
> set mda "/usr/sbin/sendmail -i -oem -f %F %T"
>
>
> See the "fetchmail" man page for the default "mda" setting

That explains two things... Why I couldn't find my answer in the copious
postfix documentation as well as what I need to do. Between the long and
the short answers, I should be able to find my way.

Thank you both,
Chris