Subject: POP

From: Robert Dege <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 12:29:03 -0500 (EST)

I just installed pine 4.33, & I'm trying to get it to connect to a POP
mail server.

If I do this:
inbox-path={mail.host.com}INBOX

I get an error, unable to open port 143.  Since this is a POP server, and
not imap, the port is rejected.

So I modify the config line to this:
inbox-path={mail.host.com:110}INBOX

Pine now says that it received untagged ending response & hangs there
waiting for the server to send a proper end response.

Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong?  Can you suggest a solution?
The remote mail server is using QPopper as the POP server.

Thanks

-Rob

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From: Eduardo Chappa <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:54:02 -0800 (PST)

*** Robert Dege ([email-masked]) wrote in the pine-info list today:

:) I just installed pine 4.33, & I'm trying to get it to connect to a POP
:) mail server.

Define your inbox-path to be:

inbox-path={your.pop3.server/pop3/user=userid}INBOX

In any case, I would recomend you not to use this, add your pop3 folder as
an incoming folder, since the status of the folder will be updated every
time you open the folder. Defining your inbox to be a pop3 server, will
have the effect of never being able to update the status of the folder,
unless you quit Pine and restart Pine, of course.

-- 
Eduardo
http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine/

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From: Robert Dege <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 13:16:34 -0500 (EST)

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Why is it that pine assumes the port to be 143 by default?  Is there
anyway of changing the default port queried?  Or would this require src
code alterations?

Let me see if I understand your response... I just want to make sure I
understand it correctly.  If I set the inbox-path to the command specified
below, pine will only query the pop3 server once, during the whole time
that pine is open.  In order to get more mail, I would have to quit out of
pine & restart it to have it query the pop3 mail server again.  Is this
a correct interpretation?

Setting the folder as an incoming folder will not solve this problem, but
it will allow me to open & close the pop3 server folder without have to
exit & restart pine.

Is there an older version of pine that will query the default server as
pop3 first to help bypass this problem?  I know that version 3.96 works
correctly, but I wanted to take advantage of certain ldap features that
are available.

Thanks.

-Rob

---

From: Eduardo Chappa <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 10:28:55 -0800 (PST)

*** Robert Dege ([email-masked]) wrote today:

:) Why is it that pine assumes the port to be 143 by default?  Is there
:) anyway of changing the default port queried?  Or would this require src
:) code alterations?

I think it's the c-client library that defaults to this. Pine is an
excellent IMAP client, but its POP3 support does not compare at all,
because of features like this. If I were to have to use POP3 with Pine I
would get some script that would download mail to the spool and read from
there.

:) Let me see if I understand your response...
<SNIP>
Yes you did understand correctly everything I said.

:) Is there an older version of pine that will query the default server as
:) pop3 first to help bypass this problem?

adding the pop3 flag to the inbox definition (the part that says "/pop3")
is what makes the trick. The sever will be queried as a POP3 server.

-- 
Eduardo
http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/personal.html

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From: Silviu Cojocaru <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:11:34 +0300 (EEST)

> would get some script that would download mail to the spool and read from

Why a script when most distros out there (if not all) come with fetchmail.
So, to learn how to set up fetchmail, run man fetchmail. It's an excellent
POP3 and IMAP retriever.

Not that I advertise the thing, it doesn't need it and... that's what I
use.

-- 

    If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...
                     ..., Oh wait, he already does.

---

From: "Daniel Sands" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 10:36:16 -0700

> anyway of changing the default port queried?  Or would this require src

Pine uses IMAP by default.  This is port 143.  IMAP is a different (superior
IMO) way of accessing mail.

> a correct interpretation?

Yep.  POP2 (probably 3 also) only allow the mail client to query the number of
total messages, not the number of new messages.  The intent for POP is that
you download all of the messages to the local machine and delete them from the
server.  Pine doesn't do this automatically.  IMAP, on the other hand, is
intended for those who want to keep all their messages on the server.  So its
functionality is geared for that.

---

From: Rick Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 14:27:41 -0700 (MST)

I wonder about the accuracy of what you say.  I had previously set
Outlook Express to keep messages on the server, and when examining my
account, a
tech at my ISP noted that setting in regard to my mail and questioned it.
Anyway, when PC-Pine is invoked, it works just fine, except if I leave the
mail folder, after a couple of minutes, a Pine error message says "Inbox
closed due to access error."  I can then just go back into the Inbox,
which I would think re-accesses the server at that point, and new messages
will be shown in the index.  I only mention this because Pine doesn't need
to be restarted.
I'm accessing a POP3 server, with my inbox path as:
{mail.shellworld.net/pop3/user=ricklew}INBOX
--Rick

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From: "Daniel Sands" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:04:25 -0700

What I originally said about POP is correct, but Pine may have
eccentricities dealing with it.  In fact, I think POP is a relatively
new addition to its abilities.

Anyway, according to STD53 (RFC1939), the available commands for
retrieving mail are:
  STAT: Get the number of messages and the total size of the mailbox
  LIST: Get size information about a message, or all messages at once
  RETR: Get a message's text
  DELE: Remove a message
  RSET: Reset the status of all messages to previous state
Optional commands:
  TOP: Get message header and some of its text
  UIDL: Get a unique-ID of the message.  This could be used in polling
        for new messages, but it's not required that POP3 servers 
        support this command.

So, as I said, the intent is that mail be downloaded and deleted from
the server.  Also, POP servers are allowed to "expire" messages which
are stored on the server, i.e. delete them automatically.  In order to
warn the client about this, RFC2449 adds an optional extension
capability, "EXPIRE", which tells the client how long a message will
remain on the server.

Anyway, POP3 also allows a timeout of at least 10 minutes of inactivity
for a server, in which case it will close the connection.  Either Pine
doesn't keep checking for new messages (because of the difficulties
mentioned above), or it doesn't check often enough.

Either way, once the connection is closed, Pine must reconnect.  I would
hazard a guess that when it does this, it throws out all previous
knowledge of messages on the server and just goes through the process of
re-retrieving the entire list.