fdm

fdm (fetch and deliver mail), is a simple program for delivering and filtering mail. Comparing it to other same-purposed applications shows that it has similarities with Mutt's very focused design principles.

Installing

Install the fdm package or the fdm-git^AUR package.

Configuration

fdm can be configured trough a configuration file. Default is ~/.fdm.conf, or /etc/fdm.conf if that does not exist.

For full details refer to the manual pages fdm(1), fdm.conf(5) and the /usr/share/doc/fdm-git/MANUAL.

mbox

Alpine uses the mbox format, so we need to set up some files that we will be editing:

$ cd
$ mkdir mail
$ touch mail/INBOX .fdm.conf 
$ chmod 600 .fdm.conf mail/INBOX

maildir

Mutt prefers a capitalized mail directory, and is able to use the maildir format. If you plan on using Mutt do the following setup:

$ cd
$ touch .fdm.conf; chmod 600 .fdm.conf
$ mkdir -p Mail/INBOX/{new,cur,tmp}

An example configuration

Edit .fdm.conf, and add your email accounts and basic filter rules. Use mbox or maildir, but not both.

.fdm.conf

## Accounts and rules for:
#> foo@example.com
#> bar@gmail.com
## Last edit 21-Dec-09
 
# Catch-all action (mbox):
action "inbox" mbox "%h/mail/INBOX"
# Catch-all action (maildir):
# action "inbox" maildir "%h/Mail/INBOX"
 
account "foo" imaps server "imap.example.com"
	user "foo@example.com" pass "supersecret"
 
account "bar" imaps server "imap.gmail.com"
	user "bar@gmail.com" pass "evenmoresecret"
 
# Match all mail and deliver using the 'inbox' action.
match all action "inbox"

This will collect the mail from the listed accounts and deliver it to the INBOX folder that we made. Refer to the fdm(1) man page for specifics on how to connect to other types of mail servers (POP3 for example).

Tip: You can also specify your login name and/or password in the .netrc file.

Password Management

Passwords for email accounts can be stored as plain text in the config file or can be requested from a password manager or key-ring via a shell command, in the format of $(cmd ...)

Using a password manager

Here is an example using pass:

account "foo" imaps server "imap.example.com"
    user "foo@example.com" pass $(pass foo-email-entry | head -1)

OAuth2 authentication, gmail

fdm can use OAuth2 access tokens that are required for GMail, but it lacks the ability to renew and/or authorize OAuth2 credentials. A comprehensive solution is using the oama utility which provides IMAP/SMTP clients with the capabilities of renewal and authorization of OAuth2 credentials. After the initial setup, access token renewal happens automatically in the background transparent to the user.

Install the oama-bin^AUR package and configure fdm:

account "foo" imaps server "imap.gmail.com"
    user "foo@gmail.com"
    pass $(oama access foo@gmail.com)
    oauthbearer

Running from cron

While the above examples work fine for interactive use, using them from a cron job is a bit more involved since some of the programs invoked might expect certain environments. One can work around that by using wrapper scripts and exporting the needed environment variables.

Here are a few tricks for such scripts:

...
# for pass
export PASSWORD_STORE_DIR=~/.local/var/password-store
...
# when using gnome's keyring
# secret-tool can't live without these two envvars
# so we fake them for the case this script runs in a cron job
export DISPLAY=${DISPLAY:-:0}
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=${DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS:-unix:path=/run/user/$UID/bus}
...

Testing

Once you have this setup to your satisfaction, attempt to collect your mail by manually running fdm.

$ fdm -kv fetch

This will keep your mail untouched on the server in case there are errors. Look over the output to make sure everything worked as planned. Open your favorite mail reader (MUA) and make sure that you can read the mail that was just delivered.

Extended usage

Additional filtering

If you want to have mail from a certain account go to a specific mailbox, you could add the following lines to your fdm.conf file. From the configuration file above, if you wanted to filter the mail from bar@gmail.com into its own folder bar-mail, you would add this below the existing "action" line:

action bar-deliver mbox "%h/mail/bar-mail"

Change the mbox to maildir if needed, also make sure the path is correct.

To activate the new action, add this before the existing "match" line:

match account bar action bar-deliver

Then all mail to bar@gmail.com will be put into the bar-mail mail folder.

Automation

Since fdm does not run as a daemon, timed mail fetching is left to job schedulers like cron or systemd timers. This section will show implementations for both.

Cron

Fetch and sort mail from all accounts every 15 minutes, appending a log all matches to a local file:

$ crontab -e

...
*/15 * * * * fdm fetch >> $HOME/[Mm]ail/fdm.log

systemd timer

Setup the fdm service for the local user to fetch and sort mail from all accounts:

${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/systemd/user/fdm.service

[Unit]

Description=Fetch mail using fdm
After=network.target network-online.target dbus.socket
Documentation=man:fdm(1)

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/fdm fetch

Then setup the timer to run the service every 15 minutes:

${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/systemd/user/fdm.timer

[Unit]
Description=Fetch mail using fdm

[Timer]
# Uncomment to run the service two minutes after booting
# OnBootSec=2m
OnUnitActiveSec=15m
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Finally start/enable the user unit fdm.timer.