From a201d7a48b78170b05ef3481a17a9c74f7c319cc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 20:20:41 +0000 Subject: Added cautionary note about qpopper. svn path=/trunk/; revision=2479 --- fetchmail-FAQ.html | 84 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------- 1 file changed, 58 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-) diff --git a/fetchmail-FAQ.html b/fetchmail-FAQ.html index 041fcae5..49100450 100644 --- a/fetchmail-FAQ.html +++ b/fetchmail-FAQ.html @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
Back to Fetchmail Home Page To Site Map -$Date: 1999/05/16 16:59:45 $ +$Date: 1999/05/16 20:20:41 $

Frequently Asked Questions About Fetchmail

@@ -67,17 +67,18 @@ IP address?
T5. How can I use fetchmail with SCO's MMDF?
T6. How can I use fetchmail with Lotus Notes?
-

How to make fetchmail work with nonstandard servers:

+

How to make fetchmail work with various servers:

-S1. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft Exchange?
-S2. How can I use fetchmail with Compuserve RPA?
-S3. How can I use fetchmail with Demon Internet's SDPS?
-S4. How can I use fetchmail with usa.net's servers?
-S5. How can I use fetchmail with HP OpenMail?
-S6. How can I use fetchmail with geocities POP3 servers?
-S7. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail?
-S8. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?
-S9. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?
+S1. How can I use fetchmail with qpopper?
+S2. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft Exchange?
+S3. How can I use fetchmail with Compuserve RPA?
+S4. How can I use fetchmail with Demon Internet's SDPS?
+S5. How can I use fetchmail with usa.net's servers?
+S6. How can I use fetchmail with HP OpenMail?
+S7. How can I use fetchmail with geocities POP3 servers?
+S8. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail?
+S9. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?
+S10. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?

How to set up well-known security and authentication methods:

@@ -319,7 +320,7 @@ Here's a longer answer:

Fetchmail will work with any POP, IMAP, or ESMTP/ETRN server that conforms to the relevant RFCs (and even some outright broken ones like -Microsoft Exchange). This doesn't mean it works +Microsoft Exchange). This doesn't mean it works equally well with all, however. POP2 servers, and POP3 servers without LAST, limit fetchmail's capabilities in various ways described on the manual page.

@@ -337,7 +338,7 @@ It also recovers from interrupted connections more gracefully than POP3, and enables some significant performance optimizations.

Don't be fooled by NT/Exchange propaganda. M$ Exchange is just plain -broken (see item S1) and NT cannot handle the +broken (see item S2) and NT cannot handle the sustained load of a high-volume remote mail server. Even Microsoft itself knows better than to try this; their own Hotmail service runs over Solaris! For extended discussion, see John Kirch's excellent If you are fetching mail from a CompuServe POP3 account, you can use their RPA authentication (which works much like APOP). See S2 for details.

+href="#S3">S3 for details.

Your POP3 server may have the RFC1938 OTP capability to use one-time passwords (if it doesn't, you can get OTP patches for the 2.2 version @@ -1116,7 +1117,38 @@ to \r\n, but its rules are not the intuitive and correct-for-RFC822 ones. Use `forcecr'.

-

S1. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft Exchange?

+

S1. How can I use fetchmail with qpopper?

+ +Qualcomm's qpopper is probably the best-of-breed among POP3 servers, and +is very widely deployed. Nevertheless, it has some problems which +fetchmail exposes. We recommend using IMAP instead if at +all possible. If you must talk to qpopper, here are some problems to +be aware of:

+ +

Problems with retrieving large messages from qpopper 2.53

+ +Tony Tang <tyw@atnhk.com> +reports that there is a bad intercation between fetchmail and qpopper +2.5.3 under Red Hat Linux versions 5.0 to 5.2, kernels 2.0.34 to +2.0.35. When fetching very large messages (over 700K) from 2.5.3, +fetchmail will hang with a socket error.

+ +This is probably not a fetchmail bug, but rather a symptom of some +problem in the networking stack that qpopper's transmission pattern is +tickling, as fetchpop (another Linux POP client) also displays the hang +but Netscape running under Win95 does not. The problem can also be +banished by upgrading to qpopper +3.0b1.

+ +

Bad interaction with fetchmail 4.4.2 to 4,4.7

+ +Versions of fetchmail from 4.4.2 through 4.4.7 had a bad interaction +with Eudora qpopper versions 2.3 and later. See X5 +for details. The solution is to upgrade your fetchmail.

+ +

+

S2. How can I use fetchmail with Microsoft Exchange?

M$ Exchange violates the POP3 RFCs. Its LIST command does not reveal the real sizes of mail in the pop mailbox, but the sizes of the @@ -1186,7 +1218,7 @@ brain-dead Microsoft crap and install a real operating system on your mailserver.

-

S2. How can I use fetchmail with CompuServe RPA?

+

S3. How can I use fetchmail with CompuServe RPA?

First, make sure your fetchmail has the RPA support compiled in. Stock fetchmail binaries (such as you might get from an RPM) don't. @@ -1224,7 +1256,7 @@ poll non-rpa.csi.com via "pop.site1.csi.com" with proto POP3 and options no dns
-

S3. How can I use fetchmail with Demon Internet's SDPS?

+

S4. How can I use fetchmail with Demon Internet's SDPS?

Demon Internet's SDPS service is an implementation of POP3. All messages have a Received: header added when they enter the maildrop, like this: @@ -1281,7 +1313,7 @@ greeting line; if you're accessing Demon Internet through a proxy it may fail. To force SDPS mode, pick "sdps" as your protocol.

-

S4. How can I use fetchmail with usa.net's servers?

+

S5. How can I use fetchmail with usa.net's servers?

Enable `fetchall'. A user reports that the 2.2 version of USA.NET's POP server reports that you must use the @@ -1301,10 +1333,10 @@ They seem to be chronically flaky. We recommend finding another provider.)

-

S5. How can I use fetchmail with HP OpenMail?

+

S6. How can I use fetchmail with HP OpenMail?

No special configuration is required, but OpenMail has an annoying bug -similar to the big one in Microsoft Exchange. +similar to the big one in Microsoft Exchange. The message sizes it gives in the LIST are rounded to the nearest 1024 bytes. It also has a nasty habit of discarding headers it doesn't recognize, such as X- and Resent- headers.

@@ -1313,7 +1345,7 @@ As with M$ Exchange, the only real fix for these problems is to get a POP (or preferably IMAP) server that isn't brain-dead.

-

S7. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail?

+

S8. How can I use fetchmail with Hotmail?

You can't, yet. But Hugo Rabson has written a script called `hotmole' that can retrieve Hotmail mail via the web using Lynx. The script @@ -1322,7 +1354,7 @@ href="http://www.jin-sei-kai.demon.co.uk/hugo/linux.html"> Hugo Rabson's Linux page.

-

S8. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?

+

S9. How can I use fetchmail with MSN?

You can't. MSN uses something that looks like POP3, except the authentication part is nonstandard. And of course they don't @@ -1332,7 +1364,7 @@ This is a customer lock-in tactic; we recommend boycotting MSN as the only appropriate response.

-

S9. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?

+

S10. How can I use fetchmail with SpryNet?

The SpryNet POP3 servers mark a message queried with TOP as seen. This means that if your connection drops in mid-message, it may end @@ -1370,7 +1402,7 @@ and set the makefile up to link it. You can also specify a directory containing the Rconnect library.

-

S6. How can I use fetchmail with geocities POP3 servers?

+

S7. How can I use fetchmail with geocities POP3 servers?

Nathan Cutler reports that the the mail.geocities.com POP3 servers fail to include the first Received line of the message in the send to @@ -1400,7 +1432,7 @@ the NRL IPv6+IPsec software distribution or a Linux system with the latest experimental kernel and net-tools. It should not be hard to build fetchmail on other IPv6 implementations if you can port the inet6-apps kit.

-To use fetchmail with network security (read: IPsec), you need a system that +To use fetchmail with networking security (read: IPsec), you need a system that supports IPsec, the API described in the "Network Security API for Sockets" (draft-metz-net-security-api-01.txt), and the inet6-apps kit. This currently means that you need to have a BSD/OS or NetBSD system with the NRL IPv6+IPsec @@ -2341,7 +2373,7 @@ inactivity timeout.

Back to Fetchmail Home Page To Site Map -$Date: 1999/05/16 16:59:45 $ +$Date: 1999/05/16 20:20:41 $

Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
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