Bug 483779

Summary: RFE: getmail lacks dæmon mode
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: David Woodhouse <dwmw2>
Component: getmailAssignee: Dean Mander <knolderpoor>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 9CC: knolderpoor
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2009-02-04 16:00:16 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description David Woodhouse 2009-02-03 15:53:05 UTC 
The getmail faq suggests running getmail from cron, as if this is a suitable substitute for fetchmail's dæmon mode. It's not -- you can't run it from cron without storing the password somewhere on disk, while fetchmail in dæmon mode can be given the password once at startup and store it only in memory.

If I could authenticate to an Exchange IMAP server using Kerberos, that would be an even better alternative.
Comment 1 Dean Mander 2009-02-04 16:00:16 UTC 
Upstream feedback:
This is user misconception about security; it was discussed thoroughly on the
getmail mailing list a long time ago.

Essentially, the user who filed this one thinks that it's somehow more secure
to have your mail password in memory instead of on disk between retrievals of
mail.  That however is wrong; it's exactly as secure one way or the other.
All you need to do to be as secure as you can be is ensure your getmail rc
file isn't group or world readable; then no one can steal your mail password
out of your rc file.  If an attacker has root privileges or steals your
identity, they can retrieve your mail password from disk or from memory
equally easily.

You can get more information on the mailing list archive over here:
http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/documentation.html#mailing-list-users-archive.