Score:1

Ubuntu

Read cron output with Thunderbird 91?

Nathaniel M. Beaver

2/10/23, 8:25 PM

On Ubuntu 21.10, Thunderbird 91 does not support movemail (Unix Mailspool) accounts:

Removed support for movemail

Support for movemail has been removed. Please set up an IMAP or POP3 account to access your email instead.

≡ > New > Existing Mail Account

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/new-thunderbird-91#w_removed-support-for-movemail

Previously, I was using exim4 and Thunderbird to view the output of my cron jobs. I would like to continue to use Thunderbird, but all the previous answers I have been able to find relied on its movemail support:

Requirements:

Receive the cron output for both root@hostname and $USER@hostname, although if these are separate accounts that would be acceptable.
Must be local to my machine without the need for an external network at all. I do not want to forward my cron output to a remote server.
Must have individual messages for each cron job (as with movemail).
Must use Thunderbird 91. I am aware that other clients support movemail.

Summary:

What are my options for viewing cron output in Thunderbird 91?

If running a full-blown IMAP or POP3 server is the only way, what is a robust, secure, and low-maintenance setup for serving cron output locally?

Edit: as Ubuntu 21.10 was released on October 14, this question is now on-topic.

518

0 + 0

thunderbird

cron

21.10

guiverc

2/10/23, 8:55 PM

Refer https://askubuntu.com/help/on-topic where you'll notice only supported releases of Ubuntu and flavors are on-topic for this site. For *impish* indri [21.10] questions you'll need to use a development support site such as IRC (#ubuntu+next) or Ubuntu Forums, or wait until after release for this site [expected release date for Ubuntu 21.10 is 14 October 2021](https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/impish-indri-release-schedule/18540)) when your question will be on-topic here.

Nathaniel M. Beaver

2/10/23, 9:28 PM

@guiverc I don't mind waiting 4 days, but are you saying I have to delete the question now and post it again in 4 days? The final freeze was on October 7th.

cocomac

2/11/23, 12:42 AM

@NathanielM.Beaver We are saying your question is off-topic until it releases publically. Off-topic/on-topic is not applied retroactively, otherwise, tons of old questions would be closed. On/off-topic is looked at _relative to the date the question was posted_

James S.

2/18/23, 5:18 PM

I'd argue pretty strongly that this is not an Ubuntu question at all, it's a Thunderbird question, and thus still very much off-topic. Application support is properly the purview of the application developer. Indeed, a cursory search shows users of Thunderbird 91 on all major Unix/Linux systems having the same problem. That quite aside, the question has been answered many times - set up postfix, and simply configure it for local-only, as describred in the answers you've cited already.

Nathaniel M. Beaver

2/19/23, 12:28 PM

@JamesS. If you examine the linked answers, you will note that they all rely on movemail support in Thunderbird to actually read the mail, so it is not a matter of simply setting up a locally configured postfix. Similarly, Ubuntu 21.10 ships with Thunderbird 91, so this question is on topic. If Ubuntu had removed Thunderbird from the package repository, I would agree that this question is off-topic, but that's not the case.

James S.

2/19/23, 2:18 PM

If you ask in the appropriate site, Unix & Linux, I expect you are likely to find that the question you are asking, "How does local mailspool work in Unix, and how can I install and administer an MTA" will already have been answered. You are not asking a question about Ubuntu.

Nathaniel M. Beaver

2/21/23, 11:27 PM

@JamesS. I'm not experiencing any difficulty with my MTA. Exim4 takes cron output and happily puts it in /var/mail/$USER, but Thunderbird 91 can't read that directly anymore. One option is a local-only POP3 or IMAP server like Dovecot/mailutils-pop3d/popa3d, which will require distro-specific configuration like choice of authentication. A different method altogether might be better like e.g. converting an mbox file to an RSS feed I can point Thunderbird at.

James S.

2/23/23, 10:27 PM

You are also, by your own description of the scope, not experiencing any trouble with Ubuntu. At all. Nevertheless, your analysis of the problem space is incorrect: you have explicitly stated that your MUA does not support there one profile that your MTA makes available to you currently. You have started as a hard requirement that your MUA must not be changed. That leaves you with two options: learn to configure or entirely replace your MTA. You are explicitly asking an MTA question by exhaustion of any other possibility.

raj

2/23/23, 11:21 PM

I don't know in what format current version of Thunderbird stores mail internally, but in old versions it's just the regular mailbox format. If this is still the case, you can try to install a standalone movemail utility and run it for example from cron, to regularly move mail from system mailbox straight into Thunderbird folders.

Nathaniel M. Beaver

2/28/23, 2:15 AM

@raj I appreciate your helpful suggestion! This is a viable workaround, with a few deficiencies; for example, as best I can tell there is no way to see new messages without restarting Thunderbird, and Thunderbird seems to have difficulty tracking read and unread messages.

Nathaniel M. Beaver

7/9/23, 12:58 AM

The Thunderbird product manager has [announced that movemail support will be re-added](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1625741#c87), possibly for version 102. It seems likely that this question will soon be obsolete.

Score:1

Ubuntu

heynnema

3/26/23, 6:28 PM

source: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1625741

excerpt from comment 35...

Anyway, for whoever wants to know a slightly kludgy but likely "good enough" workaround, do this:

    - context-click on the "Local Folders" and find the "Local Directory" address
    - close thunderbird (maybe be paranoid and pgrep to ensure you don't have any persistent subprocess still running)
    - then create a symlink ln -s /var/mail/[SPOOL_FILE_NAME] /path/to/the/Local-Directory/address/you/found/above/Inbox (obviously ensure there isn't already an Inbox subfolder there, or otherwise create a differently named subfolder-symlink)

When I opened thunderbird it indexed it OK and after exiting and reopening thunderbird several times the symlink has stayed in place without problem.