1 @(#)@(#)README 2.6 2.6 4/2/91
4 The Post Office Protocol Server: Installation Guide
10 The Post Office Protocol server runs on a variety of Unix[1] computers
11 to manage electronic mail for Macintosh and MS-DOS computers. The
12 server was developed at the University of California at Berkeley and
13 conforms fully to the specifications in RFC 1081[2] and RFC 1082[3].
14 The Berkeley server also has extensions to send electronic mail on
17 This guide explains how to install the POP server on your Unix
18 computer. It assumes that you are not only familiar with Unix but also
19 capable of performing Unix system administration.
22 How to Obtain the Server
24 The POP server is available via anonymous ftp from ftp.CC.Berkeley.EDU
25 (128.32.136.9, 128.32.206.12). It is in two files in the pub directory:
26 a compressed tar file popper-version.tar.Z and a Macintosh StuffIt archive
27 in BinHex format called MacPOP.sit.hqx.
30 Contents of the Distribution
32 The distribution contains the following:
34 + All of the C source necessary to create the server program.
36 + A visual representation of how the POP system works.
38 + Reprints of RFC 1081 and RFC 1082.
40 + A HyperCard stack POP client implementation using MacTCP.
42 + A man page for the popper daemon.
49 The Berkeley POP server has been successfully tested on the following
50 Unix operating systems:
52 + Berkeley Systems Distribution 4.3
54 + Sun Microsystems Operating System versions 3.5 and 4.0
58 The following POP clients operate correctly with the Berkeley POP server:
60 + The Berkeley HyperMail HyperCard stack for the Apple Macintosh
61 (distributed with the server).
63 + The Stanford University Macintosh Internet Protocol MacMH program.
65 + The Stanford University Personal Computer Internet Protocol MH
68 + The mh version 6.0 programs for Unix.
73 The Berkeley POP server is not officially supported and is without any
74 warranty, explicit or implied. However, we are interested in your
75 experiences using the server. Bugs, comments and suggestions should be
76 sent electronically to netinfo@garnet.Berkeley.EDU.
79 Operational Characteristics
81 The POP Transaction Cycle
83 The Berkeley POP server is a single program (called popper) that is
84 launched by inetd when it gets a service request on the POP TCP port.
85 (The official port number specified in RFC 1081 for POP version 3 is
86 port 110. However, some POP3 clients attempt to contact the server at
87 port 109, the POP version 2 port. Unless you are running both POP2 and
88 POP3 servers, you can simply define both ports for use by the POP3
89 server. This is explained in the installation instructions later on.)
90 The popper program initializes and verifies that the peer IP address is
91 registered in the local domain, logging a warning message when a
92 connection is made to a client whose IP address does not have a
93 canonical name. For systems using BSD 4.3 bind, it also checks to see
94 if a cannonical name lookup for the client returns the same peer IP
95 address, logging a warning message if it does not. The the server
96 enters the authorization state, during which the client must correctly
97 identify itself by providing a valid Unix userid and password on the
98 server's host machine. No other exchanges are allowed during this
99 state (other than a request to quit.) If authentication fails, a
100 warning message is logged and the session ends. Once the user is
101 identified, popper changes its user and group ids to match that of the
102 user and enters the transaction state. The server makes a temporary
103 copy of the user's maildrop (ordinarily in /usr/spool/mail) which is
104 used for all subsequent transactions. These include the bulk of POP
105 commands to retrieve mail, delete mail, undelete mail, and so forth. A
106 Berkeley extension also allows the user to submit a mail parcel to the
107 server who mails it using the sendmail program (this extension is
108 supported in the HyperMail client distributed with the server). When
109 the client quits, the server enters the final update state during which
110 the network connection is terminated and the user's maildrop is updated
111 with the (possibly) modified temporary maildrop.
116 The POP server uses syslog to keep a record of its activities. On
117 systems with BSD 4.3 syslogging, the server logs (by default) to the
118 "local0" facility at priority "notice" for all messages except
119 debugging which is logged at priority "debug". The default log file is
120 /usr/spool/mqueue/POPlog. These can be changed, if desired. On
121 systems with 4.2 syslogging all messages are logged to the local log
122 file, usually /usr/spool/mqueue/syslog.
126 If the filesystem which holds the /usr/spool/mail fills up users will
127 experience difficulties. The filesystem must have enough space to hold
128 (approximately) two copies of the largest mail box. Popper (v1.81 and
129 above) is designed to be robust in the face of this problem, but you may
130 end up with a situation where some of the user's mail is in
132 /usr/spool/mail/.userid.pop
134 and some of the mail is in
136 /usr/spool/mail/userid
138 If this happens the System Administrator should clear enough disk space
139 so that the filesystem has at least as much free disk as both mailboxes
140 hold and probably a little more. Then the user should initiate a POP
141 session, and do nothing but quit. If the POP session ends without an
142 error the user can then use POP or another mail program to clean up his/her
145 Alternatively, the System Administrator can combine the two files (but
146 popper will do this for you if there is enough disk space).
151 The popper program will log debugging information when the -d parameter
152 is specified after its invocation in the inetd.conf file. Care should
153 be exercised in using this option since it generates considerable
154 output in the syslog file. Alternatively, the "-t <file-name>" option
155 will place debugging information into file "<file-name>" using fprintf
156 instead of syslog. (To enable debugging, you must edit the Makefile
157 to add -DDEBUG to the compiler options.)
159 For SunOS version 3.5, the popper program is launched by inetd from
160 /etc/servers. This file does not allow you to specify command line
161 arguments. Therefore, if you want to enable debugging, you can specify
162 a shell script in /etc/servers to be launched instead of popper and in
163 this script call popper with the desired arguments.
168 1. Examine this file for the latest information, warnings, etc.
170 2. Check the Makefile for conformity with your system.
172 3. Issue the make command in the directory containing the popper
175 4. Issue the make install command in the directory containing the
176 popper source to copy the program to /usr/etc.
178 5. Enable syslogging:
180 + For systems with 4.3 syslogging:
182 Add the following line to the /etc/syslog.conf file:
184 local0.notice;local0.debug /usr/spool/mqueue/POPlog
186 Create the empty file /usr/spool/mqueue/POPlog.
188 Kill and restart the syslogd daemon.
190 + For systems with 4.2 syslogging:
192 Be sure that you are logging messages of priority 7 and higher.
195 7/usr/spool/mqueue/syslog
198 6. Update /etc/services:
200 Add the following line to the /etc/services file:
204 Note: This is the official port number for version 3 of the
205 Post Office Protocol as defined in RFC 1081. However, some
206 POP3 clients use port 109, the port number for the previous
207 version (2) of POP. Therefore you may also want to add the
208 following line to the /etc/services file:
212 For Sun systems running yp, also do the following:
214 + Change to the /var/yp directory.
216 + Issue the make services command.
218 7. Update the inetd daemon configuration. Include the second line ONLY if you
219 are running the server at both ports.
221 + On BSD 4.3 and SunOS 4.0 systems, add the following line to the
222 /etc/inetd.conf file:
224 pop stream tcp nowait root /usr/etc/popper popper
225 pop2 stream tcp nowait root /usr/etc/popper popper
227 + On Ultrix systems, add the following line to the
228 /etc/inetd.conf file:
230 pop stream tcp nowait /usr/etc/popper popper
231 pop2 stream tcp nowait /usr/etc/popper popper
233 + On SunOS 3.5 systems, add the following line to the
236 pop tcp /usr/etc/popper
237 pop2 tcp /usr/etc/popper
239 Kill and restart the inetd daemon.
241 You can confirm that the POP server is running on Unix by telneting to
242 port 110 (or 109 if you set it up that way). For example:
246 Connected to myhost.berkeley.edu.
247 Escape character is '^]'.
248 +OK UCB Pop server (version 1.6) at myhost starting.
250 Connection closed by foreign host.
255 1.83 Make sure that everything we do as root is non-destructive.
257 1.82 Make the /usr/spool/mail/.userid.pop file owned by the user rather
260 1.81 There were two versions of 1.7 floating around, 1.7b4 and 1.7b5.
261 The difference is that 1.7b5 attempted to save disk space on
262 /usr/spool/mail by deleting the users permanent maildrop after
263 making the temporary copy. Unfortunately, if compiled with
264 -DDEBUG, this version could easily wipe out a users' mail file.
267 This version also fixes a security hole for systems that have
268 /usr/spool/mail writeable by all users.
270 With this version we go to all new SCCS IDs for all files. This
271 is unfortunate, and we hope it is not too much of a problem.
273 Thanks to Steve Dorner of UIUC for pointing out the major problem.
275 1.7 Extensive re-write of the maildrop processing code contributed by
276 Viktor Dukhovni <viktor@math.princeton.edu> that greatly reduces the
277 possibility that the maildrop can be corrupted as the result of
278 simultaneous access by two or more processes.
280 Added "pop_dropcopy" module to create a temporary maildrop from
281 the existing, standard maildrop as root before the setuid and
282 setgid for the user is done. This allows the temporary maildrop
283 to be created in a mail spool area that is not world read-writable.
285 This version does *not* send the sendmail "From " delimiter line
286 in response to a TOP or RETR command.
288 Encased all debugging code in #ifdef DEBUG constructs. This code can
289 be included by specifying the DEGUG compiler flag. Note: You still
290 need to use the -d or -t option to obtain debugging output.
292 1.6 Corrects a bug that causes the server to crash on SunOS
295 Uses varargs and vsprintf (if available) in pop_log and
296 pop_msg. This is enabled by the "HAVE_VSPRINTF"
299 For systems with BSD 4.3 bind, performs a cannonical
300 name lookup and searches the returned address(es) for
301 the client's address, logging a warning message if it
302 is not located. This is enabled by the "BIND43"
305 Removed all the includes from popper.h and distributed
306 them throughout the porgrams files, as needed.
308 Reformatted the source to convert tabs to spaces and
309 shorten lines for display on 80-column terminals.
311 1.5 Creates the temporary maildrop with mode "600" and
312 immediately unlinks it.
314 Uses client's IP address in lieu of a canonical name if
315 the latter cannot be obtained.
317 Added "-t <file-name>" option. The presence of this
318 option causes debugging output to be placed in the file
319 "file-name" using fprintf instead of the system log
322 Corrected maildrop parsing problem.
324 1.4 Copies user's mail into a temporary maildrop on which
325 all subsequent activity is performed.
327 Added "pop_log" function and replaced "syslog" calls
328 throughout the code with it.
330 1.3 Corrected updating of Status: header line.
332 Added strncasecmp for systems that do not have one.
333 Used strncasecmp in all appropriate places. This is
334 enabled by the STRNCASECMP compiler flag.
336 1.2 Support for version 4.2 syslogging added. This is
337 enabled by the SYSLOG42 compiler flag.
339 1.1 Several bugs fixed.
341 1.0 Original version.
346 + The POP server copies the user's entire maildrop to /tmp and
347 then operates on that copy. If the maildrop is particularly
348 large, or inadequate space is available in /tmp, then the
349 server will refuse to continue and terminate the connection.
351 + Simultaneous modification of a single maildrop can result in
352 confusing results. For example, manipulating messages in a
353 maildrop using the Unix /usr/ucb/mail command while a copy of
354 it is being processed by the POP server can cause the changes
355 made by one program to be lost when the other terminates. This
356 problem is being worked on and will be fixed in a later
362 The POP server was written by Edward Moy and Austin Shelton with
363 contributions from Robert Campbell (U.C. Berkeley) and Viktor Dukhovni
364 (Princeton University). Edward Moy wrote the HyperMail stack and drew
365 the POP operation diagram. This installation guide was written by
371 [1] Copyright (c) 1990 Regents of the University of California.
372 All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
373 specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution. Unix is
374 a registered trademark of AT&T corporation. HyperCard and
375 Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Corporation.
377 [2] M. Rose, Post Office Protocol - Version 3. RFC 1081, NIC,
380 [3] M. Rose, Post Office Protocol - Version 3 Extended Service
381 Offerings. RFC 1082, NIC, November 1988.