[pmg-devel] [PATCH package-rebuilds v2 1/1] fetchmail: improve shipped service file

[Max R. Carrara]

On Wed Sep 24, 2025 at 8:05 PM CEST, Stoiko Ivanov wrote:
> fetchmail exits with exit-code 3 if:
> 'The user authentication step failed...' (see fetchmail(1)).
> This also includes the case if there are no accounts configured for
> fetching, e.g. if all accounts are configured with 'skip' instead of
> 'poll'. In PMG you get this when temporary disaling all configured
> accounts in the GUI.
>
> So we simply should not consider an exit of 3 as failure.
> Additionally adapt the Restart value to 'on-failure' (else systemd
> tries restarting 5 times and gives up)
> see systemd.service(5).

Would mention here that the user still has to run
`systemctl restart fetchmail.service` if all fetchmail accounts were
disabled and they re-enabled at least one of them again, as we don't do
this automatically and only restart `fetchmail.service` when the first
account is added. (Also correcting my earlier response [0] here.)

>
> Signed-off-by: Stoiko Ivanov <s.ivanov at proxmox.com>
> ---
>  pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/fetchmail.service | 3 ++-
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/fetchmail.service b/pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/fetchmail.service
> index a6e3168..b7260ac 100644
> --- a/pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/fetchmail.service
> +++ b/pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/fetchmail.service
> @@ -21,7 +21,8 @@ User=fetchmail
>  Type=exec
>  # sort $OPTIONS after "-daemon 300" to allow overwriting the interval using $OPTIONS
>  ExecStart=/usr/bin/fetchmail --daemon 300 $OPTIONS --nodetach -f /etc/fetchmailrc --pidfile /run/fetchmail/fetchmail.pid
> -Restart=always
> +SuccessExitStatus=3
> +Restart=on-failure
>  
>  [Install]
>  WantedBy=multi-user.target

---

On a side note: Perhaps we could improve the handling for
`fetchmail.service` in the future a little? For example ...

- User adds first account, keeping it *disabled*
  - Current behavior:
    We set `START_DAEMON=yes` in `/etc/default/fetchmail` and restart 
    `fetchmail.service` [1], because disabled accounts are also
    counted [2]. This has the consequence that `fetchmail.service`
    immediately exits, which the user might not notice.

  - Suggestion:
    Only do the above if the user adds an *enabled* account.

- User deactivates all accounts, then re-enables at least one of them a
  little later
  - Current behavior:
    `fetchmail.service` will exit, because all accounts are disabled.
    When the user re-enables an account, `fetchmail.service` remains
    stopped; thus the user has to manually restart the service.

  - Suggestion:
    Note in the docs that this is something the user has to do; explain
    that they can do it via Administration > Services > fetchmail >
    Click on "Start" button or via the CLI.

    Any other automatic means of starting `fetchmail.service` would
    change the current bevhaior which might not be what (experienced)
    PMG admins desire.

I don't think that these things are super-duper necessary or something;
but thought I'd share my thoughts. Let me know what you think!

[0]: https://lore.proxmox.com/pmg-devel/DD2MMUB49BFN.ZOWZTQYB9TP0@proxmox.com/
[1]: https://git.proxmox.com/?p=pmg-api.git;a=blob;f=src/PMG/Fetchmail.pm;h=3a64742059f625fe3e0306ea3c59034cedef9536;hb=refs/heads/master#l238
[2]: https://git.proxmox.com/?p=pmg-api.git;a=blob;f=src/PMG/Fetchmail.pm;h=3a64742059f625fe3e0306ea3c59034cedef9536;hb=refs/heads/master#l205