[NCLUG] email setup with mutt

[Chad Perrin]

On Mon, Sep 11, 2006 at 11:36:54PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
> > I'm interested in getting some input into how to set up email on a
> > Debian system.  The conditions are:
> > 
> >   Postfix MTA
> 
> Easy to set up an outgoing relayhost to be your ISP.  Then any mail
> generated will be sent to your ISP and away it will go.  This should
> work fine for most outgoing email.

This part hasn't, in and of itself, been a problem for me.


> 
> >   ISP-provided webserver
> 
> Not so useful.

C'est la vie.  I don't host my own domains.


> 
> >   POP3 account
> 
> Configure mutt to use the pop://[user@]popserver[:port]/ URL to access
> your mail by POP3.  Or use 'fetchmail' to fetch your mail.

Is there some place that documents (reasonably well) how one would do
this, given the multiple accounts and one shell account requirements,
and the single mutt instance, below?  (see below for more detail)


> 
> > The requirements are:
> > 
> >   multiple email accounts received
> 
> You can specify the username with the pop address.  This assumes that
> you have multiple accounts with your ISP.

By the way, the ISP type to which I refer is a shared (web)hosting
provider, in case it matters.  As such, I have roughly as many email
accounts as I like.

"You can specify the username" sounds suspiciously like it has nothing
to do with what I'm asking.  If, for instance, my email account is
perrin at apotheon.com (as it is for this email), and my account name is
perhaps perrin+apotheon.com, the fact that I can specify this when
having fetchmail or mutt retrieve email doesn't tell me anything about
the facility for handling multiple accounts fairly seamlessly without
having to start separate mutt instances or, God forbid, change shell
accounts.


> 
> >   multiple email accounts sending
> 
> You can have mutt set the From: address to any of your valid account
> addresses.  Or even invalid ones but those are not so useful.  In mutt
> you can set up hook scripts to automatically set the From: address
> based upon certain rules such as mailbox or to/from address or other
> things.

Do you mean I can set all outgoing mail to a single From: address?  I
know the syntax for that.  It's pretty easy.  On the other hand, I don't
know how to A) specify one from among several accounts when composing
outgoing email or B) have the sending address on a reply or forward
automaticaly set to the same address that received it locally.
Something tells me how this is accomplished will depend on how one sets
up the system to receive and handle mail from multiple accounts, anyway.


> 
> >   access all accounts via one standard shell user account
> 
> If using POP3 then you don't even need a shell account.

I do if I'm signing into mutt via the shell.


> 
> > The preferences are:
> > 
> >   access all accounts via one instance of mutt
> 
> That should work fine.

Details?


> 
> > This seems to be a badly underdocumented collection of requirements for
> > implementation with console-based mail user agents, which I find mildly
> > annoying.
> 
> Uhm, what did you mean to say there?  That failed the parity check.

There's no documentation (howtos, help files, manpages, et cetera) that
provide any kind of human-readable information that would help with
achieving MUA (and attendant utilities) configuration that satisfies the
previously specified requirements and preferences.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2);