Re: [Fetchmail-users] Earthlink changed its incoming server names

[Michael B. <mbu...@mi...>]

It appears that EarthLink is having some serious technical problems. I’m getting all sorts of errors from all my devices that, up to now, have had no issues. Everything works fine for a couple days, then it all goes south.

I’m thinking that my original problem was related to their issues. I went back and put -U back and it worked fine.  Sorry to bother you with someone else’s problem.

However, please tell me how to run fetch mail at startup under an id other than root. There’s not a lot I can do about pop’s lack of security. They support a pop, but that’s it, they want you to use IMAP where they support SSL. Can fetchmail be used with IMAP, and still delete the emails on the server when it retrieves them?

Best,

Mike B

On Jun 7, 2021, at 1:35 PM, Matthias Andree <mat...@gm...> wrote:

Am 06.06.21 um 21:53 schrieb Michael Burgoon:
> Hi Matthias,
> 
> Sorry for the late reply, I did not have access to my server last
> week.  I have it running finally.  Simple fix, I had to remove the -U
> parameter from the ARGS list in S52fetchmail:
> 
> *ARGS*="-d 60 -f /opt/etc/fetchmailrc -v —syslog"
> 
> which now accesses the account mburgoon.with.mainspring.com
> <http://mburgoon.with.mainspring.com> on server pop.earthlink.net
> <http://pop.earthlink.net> properly.
> 
> Mike B
> 
> 
Hi Mike,

no worries about the reply timing, but you've got me confused now with
/what/ you are writing.

Your logs clearly showed login issues, i. e. user and password worng,
and now you are reporting that removing the "-U" or "--uidl" option
fixes things.

It seems you did more than what was reported, or I missed it.

Did you also change your username or password? Because without that you
would not ever get to a point where adding or omitting -U (or --uidl or
uidl in the rcfile for that matter) could have made a difference.

Also, Earthlink's CAPA replies *does* include UIDL and UIDL is the
reliable "have I downloaded message 12345" tracker... so what was
*really* going on?

Regards,
Matthias


> On Jun 1, 2021, at 1:03 PM, Matthias Andree <mat...@gm...
> <mailto:mat...@gm...>> wrote:
> 
> Am 29.05.21 um 09:01 schrieb Matthias Andree:
>> Am 26.05.21 um 20:29 schrieb Matthias Andree:
>>> Michael,
>>> 
>>> please do provide logs from a "fetchmail -Nvvd0" run, the authorization
>>> error mailed to you by the daemon is pretty generic, the verbose log may
>>> indeed provide more details.
>>> Also if possible don't post HTML and/or with a mailer that converts the
>>> server names to would-be links...
>>> 
>> I've received Michael's logs off-list, and some remarks:
>> 
>> - it is really the username/password combination that gets refused
>> 
>> - it would however seem that with a mindspring.com
>> <http://mindspring.com> address the earthlink
>> server should be used, but a mindspring server, and the network
>> configuration and also server identifications are different, see
>> https://help.earthlink.net/portal/en/kb/articles/email-server-settings
>> <https://help.earthlink.net/portal/en/kb/articles/email-server-settings>
>> -
>> so try that first.
>> 
>> And more observations:
>> 
>> - pop.earthlink.net <http://pop.earthlink.net> seems to be pretty
>> antediluvian with respect to
>> protecting passwords over the wire. No SSL service, no STLS, only APOP
>> as a very mild means to mitigate password theft.
>> 
>> - fetchmail 6.3.26 is eight years old. Was this shipped by Synology or
>> is that third-party?
>> We have 6.4.19... and it shows fetchmail running as root, which is not
>> how it should be.
>> 
>> Hope that helps.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Matthias
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> Judging from further off-list logs that I've received and that show a
> telnet console log chatting POP3, I suggest to change the configuration
> from ... user mburgoon... to user "mburgoon.with.mindspring.com
> <http://mburgoon.with.mindspring.com>" 
> (replace the .with. by @, I just don't want to feed archive address
> harvesters).
> 
> This will likely then cause some strange-looking logging around
> you...@mi...
> <mailto:you...@mi...>@earthlink.net, but might actually
> work.   If you
> can establish that, you might want to experiment with APOP and see if
> Earthlink support that and in that case switch to it, as that's the
> minimal projection against sending passwords as cleartext through
> unencrypted links.
> 
> My concerns around not providing any sort of TLS stand. Everyone working
> off some sort of internet service provider who does not support TLS for
> mail retrieval might want to consider contacting their support about TLS
> and if that's fruitless, consider switching provider.
> 
> HTH
> Matthias
> 
> 
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