Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version 2012-05-20

Chapter 19. Mail/News Clients

Mutt-1.5.21

Introduction to Mutt

The Mutt package contains a Mail User Agent. This is useful for reading, writing, replying to, saving, and deleting your email.

This package is known to build using an LFS 7.1 platform but has not been tested.

Package Information

Mutt Dependencies

Optional

GnuPG-1.4.12 or GnuPG-2.0.18, OpenSSL-1.0.1a or GnuTLS-3.0.19, an MTA (that provides a sendmail command), Aspell-0.60.6.1, MIT Kerberos V5-1.10.1, Cyrus SASL-2.1.25, S-Lang-2.2.4, libidn-1.24, Berkeley DB-5.3.15 or QDBM or Tokyo Cabinet, and GDB

Optional (To Regenerate HTML Documentation)

libxslt-1.1.26 and either Lynx-2.8.8dev.10, w3m-0.5.3 or ELinks

Optional (To Generate PDF Manual)

JadeTeX-3.13 and docbook-dsssl-1.79

User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/mutt

Installation of Mutt

[Note]

Note

This version of Mutt is a development release. The BLFS staff has determined that it provides a stable program and fixes two issues in the current stable version of Mutt: a segmentation fault that occurs under certain conditions and a compilation problem when building with recent versions of GCC. To find the current stable release, please refer to the Mutt home page.

Mutt requires a group named mail. You can add this group, if it does not exist, with this command: 

groupadd -g 34 mail

If you did not install an MTA, such as Postfix-2.9.1 or sendmail-8.14.5, you need to modify the ownership of /var/mail with this command: 

chgrp -v mail /var/mail

Install Mutt by running the following commands: 

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc \
            --with-docdir=/usr/share/doc/mutt-1.5.21 \
            --enable-pop --enable-imap \
            --enable-hcache --without-qdbm \
            --without-tokyocabinet \
            --with-gdbm --without-bdb &&
make

To generate the PDF manual with JadeTeX-3.13, run the following command: 

make -C doc manual.pdf

This package does not come with a test suite.

Now, as the root user: 

make install

If you generated the PDF manual, install it and the source TeX file by issuing the following command as the root user: 

install -v -m644 doc/manual.{pdf,tex} \
    /usr/share/doc/mutt-1.5.21

Command Explanations

--enable-pop: This switch enables POP3 support.

--enable-imap: This switch enables IMAP support.

--enable-hcache: This switch enables header caching.

--without-qdbm: This switch disables QDBM as the header cache backend.

--without-tokyocabinet: This switch disables Tokyo Cabinet as the header cache backend.

--with-gdbm: This switch enables GDBM as the header cache backend.

--without-bdb: This switch disables Berkeley DB as the header cache backend.

--enable-smtp: This switch enables SMTP relay support.

--with-ssl: This parameter adds SSL/TLS support from OpenSSL-1.0.1a in POP3/IMAP/SMTP if they are enabled.

--with-sasl: This parameter adds authentication support from Cyrus SASL-2.1.25 in POP3/IMAP/SMTP if they are enabled. Depending on the server configuration, this may not be needed for POP3 or IMAP. However, it is needed for SMTP authentication.

--with-slang: Use S-Lang instead of Ncurses.

Configuring Mutt

Config Files

/etc/Muttrc, ~/.muttrc, /etc/mime.types, ~/.mime.types

Configuration Information

No changes in these files are necessary to begin using Mutt. When you are ready to make changes, the man page for muttrc is a good starting place.

In order to utilize GnuPG, use the following command: 

cat /usr/share/doc/mutt-1.5.21/samples/gpg.rc >> ~/.muttrc

Mutt uses gpg in the imported sample. If you have GnuPG-2.0.18 installed and you do not have GnuPG-1.4.12 installed you can create a symlink to satisfy this condition: 

ln -v -s gpg2 /usr/bin/gpg

If, however, you have GnuPG-1.4.12 installed and you wish to use GnuPG-2.0.18, then you should edit ~/.muttrc by hand and change all occurances of gpg to gpg2.

Contents

Installed Programs: flea, mutt, mutt_dotlock, muttbug, pgpewrap, pgpring, and smime_keys
Installed Libraries: None
Installed Directories: /usr/share/doc/mutt-1.5.21

Short Descriptions

flea

is a bug submitter for Mutt.

mutt

is a Mail User Agent (MUA) which enables you to read, write and delete your email.

mutt_dotlock

implements the mail spool file lock.

muttbug

is a script that executes flea.

pgpewrap

prepares a command line for the GnuPG-1.4.12 utilities.

pgpring

is a key ring dumper for PGP. It is not needed for GnuPG-1.4.12.

smime_keys

manages a keystore for S/MIME certificates.

Last updated on 2012-05-10 19:26:11 +0000