Authenticating users using Pop3

[jayfray]

Can someone please give me some tips on authenticating users using Pop3 on Sendmail. Right now we cant access our mail from outside of the office. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[RhythmAce]

The problem might not be with sendmail. If the mail is coming into the server and stored there, then sendmail's job is done as far as that e-mail is concerned. Look in /var/spool/mail/ (path maybe different on your server) and see if there are files with the users names. If they are there, then the problem is with your pop3 server. In most cases it is compiled without special autentication and defaults to the system user name and password. You should get an error telling you if the user name or password failed or if the connection was refused. If the connection was refused, it could be for the reasons stated but more than likely the pop server is not running. There really isn't any configuration to speak of for pop servers. They just listen to their port all day and when a request comes in from a client, they check to see if there is a file and upload it to the clients mail box.

 

[jayfray]

Thanks for your help. I will take a look at this again and make sure that the Pop3 server is running. I believe it is but I will check it out again.

 

[feeble]

blah, blah, blah. first off which pop daemon are you using? second is the daemon even running? these are good places to start. next try to telnet to the local ports on your machine (i.e, pop3 = 110 & smtp = 25). and if you can do that, you may want to check that the ports aren't blocked on a router/proxy/firewall. this would be the way to trouble shoot it. else read the manual <-- seems 99% of people never do this. and if that fails --> find a new pop3 daemon --> i would suggest qpopper.