I want to trigger fetchmail when a user makes a pop-3 request. The reason for this is so that the messages retrieved by fetchmail can be filtered via an anti spam service before depositing them into the inbox.

The way I figure it, since I need to know who the user is and that they authenticated in order to make the correct fetchmail call, I need to spawn the fetchmail process somewhere between the authentication and the pop 3 process.

since I'm currently unfamiliar with code at that level, could I get a suggestion as to where to start looking?.

apologies if I haven't explained is clearly enough. I'm still just kind of exploring the idea myself to see if it's the right way to approach this problem (pop 3 anti spam Gateway). If it works out right, it may even end up as part of a firewall (IPCop) as a way of making anti spam trivially easy for the technically challenged. (I.e. put it in a box, said it up right, don't let them touch it)

I know it is also somewhat off topic for the group but since I want to modify dovecot (the IMAP server that rescued me from UW), I figured I would give it a shot.

thanks in advance, ---eric