Text based Email: what do I need?

Hi, all!
I've recently started using grml for rescue purposes. First of all, I would like to thank the team for developing such a magnificent distro. Bravo!
Now for the question. I used to be a Windows user, and a MS-DOS user before that. About an year ago I switched to Linux. I decided to give my Email routine a bit of a twist by using grml for Email and backing up the msgs to my USB stick.
However, I am completely lost in the vast array of software involved and need a quick tour of what old-school text-based mail is about and what I need to know in order to make a quick (and dirty) setup.
What I want to do is: 1. set up POP access (using SSL) to my Gmail.com account, 2. filter mailing list messages and etc. into different folders, 3. send mail using Gmail.com's SMTP server, 4. locating and backing up messages to USB stick.
I've googled about quite extensively, but it's just too much info for an absolute CLI mail beginner.
Thanks,
B

Incoming from Branko Vukelic:
Now for the question. I used to be a Windows user, and a MS-DOS user before that. About [a] year ago I switched to Linux. I decided to give my [email] routine a bit of a twist by using grml for Email and backing up the msgs to my USB stick.
However, I am completely lost in the vast array of software involved and need a quick tour of what old-school text-based mail is about and what I need to know in order to make a quick (and dirty) setup.
IMO, there's no such thing. Sorry. :-(
What I want to do is:
- set up POP access (using SSL) to my Gmail.com account,
fetchmail pops. How to fit in SSL, I don't know (never needed it). Google.
- filter mailing list messages and etc. into different folders,
Either mailfilter (easy) or procmail (deep!).
- send mail using Gmail.com's SMTP server,
Set your SMTP (exim, postfix, sendmail, ssmtp, ...) to use gmail.com's SMTP as a smarthost. Incoming mail's popped, outgoing mail goes through your SMTP to smarthost:
fetchmail <-- your ISP --> mailfilter|procmail --> MUA
MUA --> SMTP --> smarthost
- locating and backing up messages to USB stick.
Trivial. Which archive creation proggie do you want to use? Whatever output file it creates, cp that file to plugged in, mounted USB filesystem. Eg.:
tar cvzf $HOME/$TODAY_mail.tgz $HOME/Mail
[I prefer afio over tar. YMMV.]
I've googled about quite extensively, but it's just too much info for an absolute CLI mail beginner.
It's not trivial. Something like Thunderbird can do SMTP, so you avoid SMTP altogether, but TB's filtering can't begin to approach the control I have using fetchmail+exim+procmail+mutt. SSL's a complication I know (and care) little about. I've just never needed it.

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On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:33:42 -0600 "s. keeling" keeling@spots.ab.ca wrote:
Incoming from Branko Vukelic:
mutt, mutt-ng, etpan, elmo, are nice emailreaders included in grml. I'd recomend mutt-ng. It's quite easy to setup with the grml-muttng script. You might want to tweak the config but it really is ok. (use pops://pop.gmail.com as mailserver, mind the pop_s_). And G is the key for getting the mail ;).
What I want to do is:
- set up POP access (using SSL) to my Gmail.com account,
For the receiving, it's been taken care of by mutt itself.
- filter mailing list messages and etc. into different folders,
Procmail should take care of this. Or mailfilter (but I never used that).
- send mail using Gmail.com's SMTP server,
For the sending, use the grml-postfix setup script (don't execute it more then once, it messes up the config file it seems).
- locating and backing up messages to USB stick.
Why move the mail, i think if you configure procmail good, you can have it delivered directly in the right place. Greetz, JP

* Jan-Pieter Jacobs janpieter.jacobs@gmail.com [20060930 11:07]:
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:33:42 -0600 "s. keeling" keeling@spots.ab.ca wrote:
Incoming from Branko Vukelic:
mutt, mutt-ng, etpan, elmo, are nice emailreaders included in grml.
I'd recomend mutt-ng. It's quite easy to setup with the grml-muttng script. You might want to tweak the config but it really is ok. (use pops://pop.gmail.com as mailserver, mind the pop_s_). And G is the key for getting the mail ;).
Please notice that development of mutt-ng does not take place since a few months. I don't recommend to chose mutt-ng if you don't have it running already (I'm even considering switching back to mutt). So please chose mutt with grml-mutt instead.
What I want to do is:
- set up POP access (using SSL) to my Gmail.com account,
For the receiving, it's been taken care of by mutt itself.
JFYI: fetchmail and getmail are both capable of handling ssl.
[...]
- send mail using Gmail.com's SMTP server,
For the sending, use the grml-postfix setup script (don't execute it more then once, it messes up the config file it seems).
Please notice that grml-postfix nowadays does nothing else than running:
dpkg-reconfigure postfix
regards, -mika-
Teilnehmer (4)
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Branko Vukelic
-
Jan-Pieter Jacobs
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Michael Prokop
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s. keeling