Re: Reading remote emails in gnus

[<tomas@tuxteam.de>]

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On Fri, Mar 04, 2016 at 10:34:59AM +0000, Sharon Kimble wrote:
> 
> 
> My main machine is called "london" and gets its system emails from
> '(setq mail-sources '((file :path "/var/mail/boudiccas")'.
> 
> I have a second machine functioning as a fileserver called "norwich". It
> is generating system emails, but how do I access them using gnus please?
> I've looked at the gnus manual and this seemed to fit -
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (setq mail-sources '((pop :server "norwich" :user "boztu")))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> except its not a pop server.
> 
> So I've tried this -
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (setq mail-sources '((file :server "norwich" :path "/var/mail/boztu")))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I'd guess that gnus doesn't "understand" file servers directly (how
should it), but if norwich is a file server chances are that it is
exporting (parts of) its file system somehow and london is possibly
mounting some of those exports anyway.

If norwich's /var/mail/boztu is one of those lucky locations which
end up mounted in london, say under /net/norwich/var/mail/boztu (this
is just an example!), then it should be visible as

 ╭────
 │(setq mail-sources '((file :path "/net/norwich/var/mail/boztu")
 ╰────

i.e. as seen from gnus it's just a regular file; the fact that it's
mounted from norwich should be irrelevant.

If that's not the case yet, you can arrange norwich's exports to
include the relevant mailboxes and london's mounts to mount them
somewhere.

Alternatively, you can set up a server (IMAP or POP) on norwich
in a way that it's accessible from london.

Even more alternatively, you can configure norwich's SMTP server
(which most probably is there) to forward its mails to london,
and london's SMTP server to drop those mails into a convenient
mailbox.

I think it's a matter of taste which flavour you choose. I'd tend
to the third one, on the principle that all admin related mails
from your network end up in one place (mailbox or set of mailboxes),
independently of your mail user agent.

regards
- -- t
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