Chip Salzenberg <chip(_at_)valinux(_dot_)com>:
According to Eric S. Raymond:
* Full support for POP3 AUTH (RFC1734) with KERBEROS_IV, GSSAPI, OTP.
I think this needs a tweak or two. As is, it tries a plain "AUTH"
command if the server's greeting included a "<" character. But that
connection I can't find anywhere in the relevant RFCs. As it happens,
the POP3 servers I use don't support the AUTH command, and the error
responses are echoed to the user.
I should think that it would be good _always_ to _try_ "AUTH", but any
resulting errors should be accepted silently.
OK. The connection is sort of implicit. APOP was introduced in RFC
1450, and POP3 AUTH not until RFC1734. So this check is an easy way to
prevent AUTH from being sent to the more primitive POP3 servers
dating from RFC 1081 and RFC 1225, which seem more likely to choke on it.
(I've added this historical note as a comment in the source.)
As a separate note, accepting errors "silently" isn't really possible
here. If the server doesn't support AUTH, it's gonna bitch when you
toss AUTH at it. If it bitches, and you're running -v, you're gonna
see the bitch. If you're not running -v, you won't see it. Same
situation as with LAST.
--
<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
Alcohol still kills more people every year than all `illegal' drugs put
together, and Prohibition only made it worse. Oppose the War On Some Drugs!