Re: [LI] vsnl mail problem

[Babu Kalakrishnan <kalakrishnan@xxxxxxxx>]

At 09:23 AM 1/24/00 -0800, you wrote:

>From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <r.suresh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [LI] vsnl mail problem
>
>On Sun, 23 Jan 2000, thus spake Anand Biligiri S:
>
>> > telnet 202.54.6.35 110
>> >     USER lvgandhi
>> >     PASS *******
>
>> the shell is trying to execute the commands USER and PASS.I am not sure
>> how to send these to the telnet program.You have to telnet to the server
>
>Gandhi is correct.  He has telneted to a pop3 server and issued standard
>pop3 commands.  There might be timeouts, as you have to train the script
>to wait for responses before issuing the next command.  Do it manually and
>see please :)

Suresh, what Anand was trying to point out was the fact that the lines
"USER lvgandhi" and "PASS ****"  _will not_ get through to the telnet
connection that was opened to port 110 (through line 1 of the script)


>My dear Sir, he ~is~ logged in to vsnl, and is telneting to their pop
>server.  What's wrong?

The problem here is that bash (which processes the script) does not know
that lines 2 & 3 of the script are meant to be sent to the connection which
was opened. That's why it waited till the command on line 1 terminated
(when LVG closed the telnet connection), and tried to execute programs
called "USER" and "PASS" !! This is the correct behaviour of the script.

In case he needs to feed pre-programmed commands to a POP3 server, he'd
need a program that can understand the various states of the server. (i.e.
connect to the server, wait for the +OK response, then (and then only) send
the USER and PASS strings, then wait for the +OK response and then send the
commands that follow). If it was as simple as a "bash" script, fetchmail
would have been redundant ;-)

>
>A better method, telnet to their server, go to VSNL's pine and delete the
>message there itself.  Or use mail from their shell prompt.
>

Possible only if the server that he's using hasn't disabled shell access.
The servers that I use (giasbg01 & bgl) do not allow this.

So the options are :

Do it manually by telnetting to port 110 and typing in all commands
(including the USER and PASS) directly, and do what is appropriate.

Or use vsnl's webmail page (webmail.vsnl.com) to login to the server and
fetch / delete mail in an interactive manner. (This is possible only if
you're using a xxxx@xxxxxxxx short e-mail id.)

>And yes, if this is because the mail is a spam say (the domain in the
>from: or to: fields is fake and does not resolve - something like
>fake@xxxxxxxxxx) then set the "no dns" flag - 
>
>> poll server with proto pop3 no dns
>
>or if the mail is too big, set the timeout flag if you want to download
>it instead of deleting it.

Couldn't understand the relevance of this suggestion in the context of 
LVGandhi's question. 

Regards,

Kala
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