RE: [TCLUG:974] sendmail question -- helpful instructions

["Eric Hillman" <ehillman@cccu.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Seymour [mailto:rseymour@anarchysoftware.com]
> Sent: Sunday, August 23, 1998 9:20 AM
> To: Twin Cities Linux User Group List
> Subject: [TCLUG:974] sendmail question
>
>
> I have a RedHat 5.1 linux box set up on the Internet that is running
> sendmail. I can log into that box and, using pine, retrieve my email. I
> would like to be able to check my mail from other machines without
> telneting in. When I attempt to do this from a Windows 95 machine (using 2
> different clients), I get a message saying the connection was terminated
> by the server, and I cannot retrieve my email.
>
> Anyone know what steps I have to take on my server to set up sendmail
> correctly for this?
>

	As a number of people have already said, it's POP3 (or, if you're feeling
adventurous IMAP), not sendmail, that you need to worry about.
	You should try telnetting to the machine on port 110 and see if you can
connect.  If you can't connect at all, inetd probably isn't running POP3.
You'll need these things to get it working:

	***A POP daemon, usually /usr/sbin/ipop3d.  As somebody already mentioned,
DON'T run qpopper if this machine is connected to the internet.  Big bad
security problems.  Plain vanilla pop daemons are available at the RedHat
ftp site, sunsite, and elsewhere.

	***Lines in /etc/services listing the port to run pop3 on -- like this:
pop2            109/udp
pop3            110/tcp         pop-3 # POP version 3
pop3            110/udp

	***A line in inetd.conf to let it know to monitor that port.  (You may just
have it commented out.  Some distributions come like that.):
# Pop and imap mail services et al
#
pop2    stream  tcp     nowait  root    /usr/sbin/tcpd  ipop2d
pop3    stream  tcp     nowait  root    /usr/sbin/tcpd  ipop3d
imap    stream  tcp     nowait  root    /usr/sbin/tcpd  imapd

	If any of this needed fixing, do that and then kill and restart inetd.


	A second possibility is that you've got /etc/hosts.allow and
/etc/hosts.deny configured to block access to port 110.  Check these files
and make sure that you're allowing the appropriate IP addresses access to
that port.

	If it isn't one of those, then try reading the manpage for ipop3d --
Something must be preventing it from exec'ing logins.  Possibly your entry
in /etc/passwd is goofed up, or it isn't able to read that file.

	Hope that helps.