The following steps are specifically for Arch Linux, though they can be generalized to other Linux distributions too.

First, install getmail. Getmail is a mail retriever, meaning it can log into your e-mail accounts for you and download your e-mail. The nice thing is that, by default, it doesn’t do anything to the messages on the server, so you can still access your e-mail the way you normally do.

As root, do

pacman -Sy getmail

If you try running getmail now, e.g.

getmail ––version

you might notice an odd error:

ImportError: No module named getmailcore

The problem is that the getmail pacman package (as of this writing) assumes the version of Python you are using. In my case, I had installed getmail-4.20.0-2, and the package had assumed python-2.7. As a result, the getmailcore module was placed in /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages In actuality, I had python-2.6 installed, so getmail ended up looking in /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages and complaining that it couldn’t find getmailcore. [1]

In order to fix this, first find out the python version that getmail assumed:

pacman -Ql getmail|grep python (that is a Q followed by a lower case L)

A list of files will be shown, in /usr/lib/python#.#/site-packages Take note of the python version.

Next, find out what version of python you have installed

pacman -Q python

Finally, copy the getmail python module to the correct location (substituting in the appropriate python version numbers):

cd /usr/lib/python[installed python version]/site-packages
cp -a /usr/lib/python[getmail assumed python version]/site-packages/getmail* .

As an example, I had python-2.6 installed, while getmail was assuming python-2.7:

cd /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages
cp -a /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/getmail* .

Now, getmail should work:

getmail ––version

Next, you will need to create the configuration files for getmail. By default, getmail will search for configuration settings in ~/.getmail/getmailrc However, if you intend to back up multiple e-mail accounts, you will need a different configuration file for each account. As a result, I ended up with the following scheme (where [GMAIL ADDRESS] should be replaced with your actual GMail e-mail address in the format “user@gmail.com” without the quotes):

Configuration file: ~/getmail/getmail.d/[GMAIL ADDRESS]
Maildir location: ~/getmail/mail/[GMAIL ADDRESS]/
Getmail log file: ~/getmail/log/[GMAIL ADDRESS]
Oldmail directory: ~/getmail/oldmail

Note that the Oldmail directory contains the records of what getmail has already seen. This way, getmail can download new e-mails only, instead of downloading everything each time. By default, these records go in ~/.getmail However, it is helpful to keep them with the rest of our data in order to make backups easier.

For this setup, the configuration file [2] is as follows (substituting in your e-mail and password):

[retriever]
type = SimpleIMAPSSLRetriever
server = imap.gmail.com
mailboxes = ("[Gmail]/All Mail",)
username = [GMAIL ADDRESS]
password = [GMAIL PASSWORD]

[destination]
type = Maildir
path = /home/sam/Data/EMail/getmail/mail/[GMAIL ADDRESS]/

[options]
verbose = 2
message_log = /home/sam/Data/EMail/getmail/log/[GMAIL ADDRESS]

# retrieve only new messages
read_all = false

# do not alter messages
delivered_to = false
received = false

Most of it is pretty self-explanatory. The read_all option tells getmail to download only messages it hasn’t already downloaded, and the delivered_to and received options tell getmail not to add any additional routing information to the downloaded messages.

The mailboxes option requires a bit more explanation for GMail. By specifying “[Gmail]/All Mail”, getmail will download all of your GMail messages, regardless of label, including sent messages. To download messages with specific labels, just enter the label instead of “[Gmail]/All Mail”. Note that the downloaded messages do not retain the label information.

Next, create the rest of the directory structure:

mkdir ~/getmail/log
mkdir -p ~/getmail/mail/[GMAIL ADDRESS]/{cur,new,tmp}
mkdir ~/getmail/oldmail

Finally, run getmail:

getmail -q ––getmaildir ~/getmail/oldmail ––rcfile ~/getmail/getmail.d/[GMAIL ADDRESS]

That’s all there is to it! You can run getmail as often as you like. It will download only the new messages, since it remembers what it has already downloaded.

References:

(1) http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-29365.html
(2) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backup_Gmail_with_getmail

Guide to Setting up Your Own Internet in VirtualBox

The final chapter on setting up e-mail, and also a chapter on setting up an NTP server, have been added.

Guide to Setting up Your Own Internet in VirtualBox

Guide to Setting up Your Own Internet in VirtualBox

Looking ahead, there needed to be several minor additions/changes to earlier chapters. If you are just starting on the Guide at this time, or if you haven’t yet created the VMs listed below, you don’t need to worry. However, if you have done all of the steps so far, or have created any of the VMs listed below, you will need to make the following changes:

gateway.isp3.sam
- The following changes will add an additional interface, eventually connecting to the NTP server
- In the VirtualBox Networking setup, enable Adapter 3, connected to the internal network “isp3-time”
- create /etc/hostname.em2 with the following:
inet 172.16.127.1 255.255.255.0 NONE
- edit /etc/bgpd.conf – at the end of the list of announced networks, add
network 172.16.127.0/24

firewall.projreality.sam
- The following change will set the default nameserver for the firewall and allow it to access the nameserver
- edit /etc/resolv.conf and add the following:
nameserver 172.16.211.30
- edit /etc/pf.conf and add the following before the last block log quick all line:
pass out quick on $DMZ inet proto udp from $DMZ to $dns1 port domain

Also, additional steps have the added to the chapter on finishing up DNS to create the DNS resolver for projreality.sam – dns1.projreality.sam

Finally, the diagrams have been modified to add several additional servers that will be created in later chapters.

Guide to Setting up Your Own Internet in VirtualBox

Guide to Setting up Your Own Internet in VirtualBox

Guide to Setting up Your Own Internet in VirtualBox

Guide to Setting up Your Own Internet in VirtualBox

Guide to Setting up Your Own Internet in VirtualBox

One thing was added to the Linux-Graphical VM setup – installing Firefox. The catch is that it needs to be on the customer VM as well. For that change, either temporarily set up the VirtualBox networking so the customer VM can go online, and then install Firefox, or just re-clone the Linux-Graphical VM and go through Chapter 8. Setting up the Customer’s Computer (it’s a really short chapter anyway). If you are just starting the Guide, you can disregard this section.