Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version 7.4

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 and work properly using an LFS-7.4 platform.

Package Information

Mutt Dependencies

Optional

GnuPG-1.4.14 or GnuPG-2.0.21, OpenSSL-1.0.1e or GnuTLS-3.2.4, an MTA (that provides a sendmail command), Aspell-0.60.6.1, MIT Kerberos V5-1.11.3, Cyrus SASL-2.1.26, S-Lang-2.2.4, libidn-1.28, texlive-20130530 Berkeley DB-6.0.20 or QDBM or Tokyo Cabinet, and GDB

Optional (To Regenerate HTML Documentation)

libxslt-1.1.28 and either Lynx-2.8.8dev.16, w3m-0.5.3 or ELinks

Optional (To Generate PDF Manual)

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-2.10.2 or sendmail-8.14.7, 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 texlive-20130530, 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-1.0.1e in POP3/IMAP/SMTP if they are enabled.

--with-sasl: This parameter adds authentication support from Cyrus SASL-2.1.26 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-2.0.21 installed and you do not have GnuPG-1.4.14 installed you can create a symlink to satisfy this condition: 

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

If, however, you have GnuPG-1.4.14 installed and you wish to use GnuPG-2.0.21, then you should edit ~/.muttrc by hand and change all occurrences 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-1.4.14 utilities.

pgpring

is a key ring dumper for PGP. It is not needed for GnuPG-1.4.14.

smime_keys

manages a keystore for S/MIME certificates.

Last updated on 2013-09-05 09:58:01 -0700