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

[Gene H. <ghe...@sh...>]

On Monday 07 June 2021 20:33:15 Michael Burgoon wrote:

> 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

In one word, Mike, yes. I am doing it.

>
> 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-setti
> >>ngs
> >> <https://help.earthlink.net/portal/en/kb/articles/email-server-sett
> >>ings> -
> >> 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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Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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