Qpopper 2.1.4 Release Notes

Note:

Some of the links in this file point to online documents which require additional installation.

Table of Contents

What is Qpopper?

qpopper is A POP (Post Office Protocol) server. This is a program that runs on a host that is connected to the Internet (and receives your email) and allows you to read your email offline.

You should run a POP client (such as eudora, Zmail, or fetchmail), connect to your POP server, and your email messages will be downladed into your home or remote machine running the client for later perusal by a mail reader application.

To make popper work you'll need to configure your server host to run qpopper whenever you connect to a certain Internet port on the remote pop server host, from the client machine:

  1. Add lines to /etc/services (most likely they are there already...)
     Note the recommended additional alias 'pop3' to the 'pop-3' service.

     pop-2           109/tcp    pop2    # Post office protocol v2
     pop-3           110/tcp    pop3    # Post office protocol v3

  2. Add line to /etc/inetd.conf (/usr/etc/inetd.conf for 4.X systems)

     pop-3  stream  tcp  nowait  root /usr/freeware/lib/popper popper

  3. Type at shell prompt: (twice for good measure)

     /etc/killall -HUP inetd

  4. To test,

     *****WARNING*****
     Doing this test will wipe out the /usr/mail/userid file
     and put the messages in $HOME/mbox. So, it's best to
     do this with a test userid.

     telnet machinename 110
     Trying xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx...
     Connected to machinename.
     Escape character is '^]'.
     +OK UCB Pop server (version 2.1.1) at machinename starting.
     user username
     +OK Password required for guest.
     pass password
     +OK mailuser has 0 message(s) (0 octets).
     quit
     +OK Pop server at machinename signing off.
     Connection closed by foreign host.

Note: Eudora does not seem to like NIS accounts.
(The ones with + in front of the login in /etc/passwd)

See the man pages for further details.

If you're running Zmail as your pop client, you should configure it as follows: Under the Options menu, select variables, look at the following variables and set them appropriately.

	pop_options, <-- to leave messages on server or local copy
	use_pop, <-- enable/disable use of a POP server
	pop_timeout, <-- minutes to wait before looking for messages
	pop_user, <-- your user name on the remote POP server machine
	mailhost, <-- the name of the remote POP server machine

If you want to run a pop client from the command line (and later read your local email via another mail reader) you may use the enclosed fetchmail perl script, which is an implementation of a pop client. Make sure to modify the configurable parameters in this script before using it.

Author's Notice(s):

Qpopper was originally written at UCB (University of California at Berkeley) and later enhanced by scores of people mainly of Qualcomm. The Q in Qpopper stands for Qualcomm.

Builder Notice(s):

Built and packaged for SGI by Ariel Faigon.

This is free software. emails for support will have to be silently ignored. Patches and constructive suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Installation Information

qpopper subsystems

fw_BSDqpopper.sw.*

Execution only environment. The qpopper executable.

fw_BSDqpopper.man.*

Man page, release notes, other documentation.

fw_BSDqpopper.src.*

Full source distribution.

Installation Method

All of the subsystems for this product can be installed using IRIX. You do not need to use the miniroot. Refer to the Software Installation Administrator's Guide for complete installation instructions.

Compatibility

This software is compatible with IRIX 5.3 and IRIX 6.x.

Freeware 6.2 release changes:

Added fetchmail as a reference client.

Fixed inetd.conf instructions, now has correct path for popper.