🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <928529355.14476.0.nnrp-12.d4e48b20@news.demon.co.uk>,
Alisdair Wren <alisdair@nospam.demon.co.uk> writes
>Chris Weston <CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> uttered thus:
>>I understand ip and can write the app no problem, it's just talking to
>>the mail server that I've never done.
>
>Have you read the RFCs that were suggested to you earlier today?

Not in depth.  To be quite honest, they go into more detail than
I need.  I am more interested in a broad outlook of how the 
communication works, and what I need to connect to.  The detail
that the RFCs contain will be extremely useful once I can
put them in context.

cheers
-- 
Chris Weston

In article <oeCKwAADYFW3EwAv@snorter.demon.co.uk>, Chris Weston wrote:
>In article <928529355.14476.0.nnrp-12.d4e48b20@news.demon.co.uk>,
>Alisdair Wren <alisdair@nospam.demon.co.uk> writes
>>Chris Weston <CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> uttered thus:
>>>I understand ip and can write the app no problem, it's just talking to
>>>the mail server that I've never done.
>>
>>Have you read the RFCs that were suggested to you earlier today?
>
>Not in depth.  To be quite honest, they go into more detail than
>I need.  I am more interested in a broad outlook of how the 
>communication works, and what I need to connect to.  The detail
>that the RFCs contain will be extremely useful once I can
>put them in context.

SMTP is a rather simple ASCII protocol and there is lot of code
around, although you can play with using sendmail or smail or any
other MTA on your own machine. Try telnet localhost 25, then type
HELP (uppercase).

Cheers,
Juergen

-- 
\ Real name     : J�rgen Heinzl                 \       no flames      /
 \ EMail Private : juergen@monocerus.demon.co.uk \ send money instead /

In article <oeCKwAADYFW3EwAv@snorter.demon.co.uk>, Chris Weston
<CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>>Have you read the RFCs that were suggested to you earlier today?

>Not in depth.  To be quite honest, they go into more detail than
>I need.  I am more interested in a broad outlook of how the 
>communication works, and what I need to connect to.  The detail
>that the RFCs contain will be extremely useful once I can
>put them in context.

The RFCs are really quite readable and you do need to read them in
detail for the syntax.  Perhaps the following very short guide may
help:

To send an email:

Connect to port 25 on post.demon.co.uk and send the following
commands:

HELO snorter.demon.co.uk
MAIL FROM: <CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk>
RCPT TO: <mike@kempston.demon.co.uk>
DATA
From: CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk
To: mike@kempston.demon.co.uk
Subject: Test email

Hi Mike,
    This is a quick test.
Chris
.

To retrieve an incoming email:

Connect to port 110 on pop3.demon.co.uk and send the following
commands:

USER snorter
PASS [your password]
STAT
TOP 1 0
RETR 1
DELE 1
QUIT

You do, of course, need to check the responses from the servers for
any error conditions, but this is the basic dialogue.

To gain experience, you could install an SMTP and POP3 server on your
machine and talk to them using telnet.

Regards, Mike.

-- 
Solaris on Intel: http://www.kempston.net/solaris/
PGP public key available by mail from pgp@kempston.demon.co.uk

In article <oeCKwAADYFW3EwAv@snorter.demon.co.uk>, Chris Weston
<CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> writes

>In article <928529355.14476.0.nnrp-12.d4e48b20@news.demon.co.uk>,
>Alisdair Wren <alisdair@nospam.demon.co.uk> writes
>>Chris Weston <CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> uttered thus:
>>>I understand ip and can write the app no problem, it's just talking to
>>>the mail server that I've never done.
>>
>>Have you read the RFCs that were suggested to you earlier today?
>
>Not in depth.  To be quite honest, they go into more detail than
>I need.

they don't

if anything they fail to describe everything you need to know :( You
will find RFC1123 essential reading and would be well advised to read
the DRUMS working groups Internet Drafts as well...

>  I am more interested in a broad outlook of how the 
>communication works, and what I need to connect to.

you may do better in that case to use Perl and one of the standard
packages that will do the SMTP (or indeed the MIME message construction)
for you.

>  The detail
>that the RFCs contain will be extremely useful once I can
>put them in context.

turning up the tracing level on an existing mailer will show you some
real conversations and give you a much better idea of how conversations
are meant to go (though 821 does have some examples towards the back
that should serve to illustrate the basics)

-- 
richard                       writing to inform and not as company policy
    fewer than 50 MPs still need adopting:  http://www.stand.org.uk/
"Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind" quoted in ZAMM

On Fri, 4 Jun 1999 23:41:07 +0100, Chris Weston 
<CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <928529355.14476.0.nnrp-12.d4e48b20@news.demon.co.uk>,
>Alisdair Wren <alisdair@nospam.demon.co.uk> writes
>>Chris Weston <CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> uttered thus:
>>>I understand ip and can write the app no problem, it's just talking to
>>>the mail server that I've never done.
>>
>>Have you read the RFCs that were suggested to you earlier today?
>
>Not in depth.

They should make sense with a quick browse. Certainly the POP3 and SMTP 
ones do.

>To be quite honest, they go into more detail than
>I need.  I am more interested in a broad outlook of how the 
>communication works, and what I need to connect to.  The detail
>that the RFCs contain will be extremely useful once I can
>put them in context.

[blatant-plug mode]

Tell you what, if you've got a PostScript reader try:
	http://www.whirlnet.demon.co.uk/mail-services.ps
or, if not, but you do have a PDF (e.g. Adobe Acrobat) reader, try:
	http://www.whirlnet.demon.co.uk/mail-services.pdf

Those might be of help if you just want a simple overview.

These are the mail services (SMTP and POP3, anyway) parts of a document 
I began to write ages ago (never got past those two and NNTP, though).
One day I might write more to it. Any comments on it so far would be
appreciated :-)

-- 
    Alan Ford * alan@whirlnet.demon.co.uk * DFax: +44 (0)870 1600868 
 ICQ: 3033272 * WWW: http://www.whirlnet.demon.co.uk/ * PGP: 0x8F807D7D
  Demon Newsgroups Info + FAQs: http://www.whirlnet.demon.co.uk/demon/

On Sat, 05 Jun 1999 10:09:38 GMT, mike@kempston.demon.co.uk (Mike
Mann) wrote:
<Hi-jacking thread for my own use here>

>Chris Weston
><CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>>Have you read the RFCs that were suggested to you earlier today?
>
>>Not in depth.  To be quite honest, they go into more detail than
>>I need.  I am more interested in a broad outlook of how the 
>>communication works, and what I need to connect to.  The detail
>>that the RFCs contain will be extremely useful once I can
>>put them in context.
>
>The RFCs are really quite readable and you do need to read them in
>detail for the syntax.  Perhaps the following very short guide may
>help:

<snipped some SMTP communication>

>To gain experience, you could install an SMTP and POP3 server on your
>machine and talk to them using telnet.
>
>Regards, Mike.

I know you get these 2 servers + nntp, free on linux CD's, but are
there any available for us windows users to mess with ?

Jim M - Hoping you won't suggest Exchange Server

On Sat, 05 Jun 1999 10:34:00 GMT, alisdair@nospam.demon.co.uk
(Alisdair Wren) wrote:

>Chris Weston <CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> uttered thus:
<snipped RFC info>

>There's nothing very complicated there.  It is quite simply a series of 
>lines that you pass to the server to get it to send certain lines back.
>
>Generally, you send a command, followed by a <CR><LF> pair, and it'll 
>send back a response.  

All this is through a TCP "Socket" connection, as opposed to simple
ASCII text down a serial connection ?  Messed with serial comms, but
not ventured into sockets as of yet (but am having to do this soon).

In article <37654f1b.2561828@news.demon.co.uk>,
}news{@brit-cit.demon.co.uk (Jim M) wrote:

>>To gain experience, you could install an SMTP and POP3 server on your
>>machine and talk to them using telnet.

>I know you get these 2 servers + nntp, free on linux CD's, but are
>there any available for us windows users to mess with ?

>Jim M - Hoping you won't suggest Exchange Server

I'd *never* suggest Exchange server :-)

For POP3, you could try TPOP3:
  ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/win3/winsock/apps/tpop/tpop3v04.zip

It's freeware and works reasonably well.

For SMTP and POP3, WinDis:

ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/win95/winsock/apps/windis/windis32.v3.1.zip

Again freeware.  It's is a little tricky to set up because it needs a
fairly complex directory structure.

The best commercial offering, in my view, is Mailtraq which contains
many servers and proxies (SMTP, POP3, NNTP, HTTP, etc, etc):
  http://www.fastraq.co.uk/mailtraq   This has really excellent
development and support mailing lists and I use it here, along with
sendmail, exim, fetchmail, etc on unix boxes.

Regards, Mike.

-- 
Solaris on Intel: http://www.kempston.net/solaris/
PGP public key available by mail from pgp@kempston.demon.co.uk

On Mon, 14 Jun 1999 21:25:33 GMT, mike@kempston.demon.co.uk (Mike
Mann) wrote:

>In article <37654f1b.2561828@news.demon.co.uk>,
>}news{@brit-cit.demon.co.uk (Jim M) wrote:
>>Jim M - Hoping you won't suggest Exchange Server
>
>I'd *never* suggest Exchange server :-)
>
>For POP3, you could try TPOP3:
>  ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/win3/winsock/apps/tpop/tpop3v04.zip
>For SMTP and POP3, WinDis:
>ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/win95/winsock/apps/windis/windis32.v3.1.zip

Ta Mike.

Just getting to grips with TCP/IP at the mo.

I'll get back if things get tricky :->

Ta ra,

Jim M
-- 
@ Derbyshire

On Mon, 14 Jun 1999 19:33:21 GMT, alisdair@nospam.demon.co.uk
(Alisdair Wren) wrote:
>{Jim$M}@brit-cit.demon.co.uk uttered thus:
>>
>>All this is through a TCP "Socket" connection, as opposed to simple
>>ASCII text down a serial connection ?  Messed with serial comms, but
>>not ventured into sockets as of yet (but am having to do this soon).
>
>Well, you can do it over a serial connection, but you would generally 
>use TCP encapsulated in some kind of internet and link protocol.
>
>For it to be any use at all, it must be compatible with a useful mail 
>server, in which case you _do_ need to use TCP/IP for the connection.
>
>Alisdair

Cheers Chap,

Thought as much.  Going to dig around  the VC6 samples for a telnet
example.  It seems that establishing a connection to everything on the
internet can be done by establishing a telnet session, pointed to a
particular port.  

I suppose I've got be careful with experimenting, due to a recent
thread about portscanners in d.service.  Make sure my variables don't
get corrupted and all that...

Jim M - pondering over writing a newsreader as well.
-- 
@ Derbyshire

In article <3768a6f3.3737861@news.demon.co.uk>, Jim M wrote:
> Thought as much.  Going to dig around  the VC6 samples for a telnet
> example.  It seems that establishing a connection to everything on the
> internet can be done by establishing a telnet session, pointed to a
> particular port.  

The telnet program provided with Windows can be used as a useful way to 
exercise a mail or news server "by hand" (i.e. you type in the 
instructions, and see the responses).

The actual telnet protocol is quite complex, but you don't need to use 
telnet protocol in your program. You just open a socket on a port, and 
then treat it like an input/output stream - write data or text to it, and 
read data or text from it. Actually, neither mail nor news involves 
anything except plain text.

The situation is complicated in a Windows environment because you have to 
process the I/O through the socket asynchronously while also running your 
Windows message loop. The Winsock interface provides asynchronous I/O 
using Windows messages to indicate request completion/error. A simpler 
alternative might be to run the socket I/O in a separate thread for each 
server connection.

> I suppose I've got be careful with experimenting, due to a recent
> thread about portscanners in d.service.  Make sure my variables don't
> get corrupted and all that...

Provided you have all the security patches for your operating system, and 
that you take similar precautions as you would reading a data file from 
an unknown source, you should be OK. You should have the security patches 
anyway, if you are ever connecting to the Internet.

-- 
Nikki Locke, Trumphurst Ltd.      PC & Unix consultancy & programming
nikki@trmphrst.demon.co.uk            http://www.trumphurst.com/

On Wed, 16 Jun 1999 13:02:30 +0100, Nikki Locke
<nikki@trmphrst.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>In article <3768a6f3.3737861@news.demon.co.uk>, Jim M wrote:
>> Thought as much.  Going to dig around  the VC6 samples for a telnet
>> example.  It seems that establishing a connection to everything on the
>> internet can be done by establishing a telnet session, pointed to a
>> particular port.  
>
>The situation is complicated in a Windows environment because you have to 
>process the I/O through the socket asynchronously while also running your 
>Windows message loop. The Winsock interface provides asynchronous I/O 
>using Windows messages to indicate request completion/error. A simpler 
>alternative might be to run the socket I/O in a separate thread for each 
>server connection.

Indeed..  T'would be for the best.  Took a look at OE the other day
(setting it up for someone).  It's a bit poo how it locks you out when
retrieving the newsgroups list...

>> I suppose I've got be careful with experimenting, due to a recent
>> thread about portscanners in d.service.  Make sure my variables don't
>> get corrupted and all that...
>
>Provided you have all the security patches for your operating system, and 
>that you take similar precautions as you would reading a data file from 
>an unknown source, you should be OK. You should have the security patches 
>anyway, if you are ever connecting to the Internet.

Did a search for security patches for Win 95, and all I could pind was
links for IE4 and 5 security patches.  Were those the ones you are on
about, or are there more that patch holes in the actual OS ?

Oh, cheers for the help BTW Nikki.

Jim M
-- 
@ Derbyshire

On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 11:23:14 +0100 (BST), john$@wash.demon.co.uk (John
Washington) wrote:

>On Wednesday, in article
>     <VA.00006784.00b13260@trmphrst.demon.co.uk>
>     nikki@trmphrst.demon.co.uk "Nikki Locke" wrote:
>
>NL> The situation is complicated in a Windows environment because you have to
>NL> process the I/O through the socket asynchronously while also running your 
>NL> Windows message loop. The Winsock interface provides asynchronous I/O 
>NL> using Windows messages to indicate request completion/error. A simpler 
>NL> alternative might be to run the socket I/O in a separate thread for each 
>NL> server connection.
>
>Windows Sockets Network Programming by Quinn & Shute, publ Addison Wesley.
>
>Excellent book, IMHO.
>-- John Washington --

I'll have to take a look at that.  Cheers.  

When I got my current job, there was a book that one of the chaps had.
For the life of me, I can't remember the name.  I think it was called
"Internet Programming" or something similar, but searching for it
doesn't seem to reveal a match.  It started with serial port
programming, and introduced the layer concept (OSD ??), and later in
the book went on to writing server type applications.  I got through
the first couple of chapters, but the guy left, took the book with
him, and I forgot to get the ISBN no.

Has anybody heard of the book in question (or seen it, purple/black
front cover).

Cheers,

Jim M
-- 
@ Derbyshire

In article <376ca6e2.4514377@news.demon.co.uk>, Jim M wrote:
> Did a search for security patches for Win 95, and all I could pind was
> links for IE4 and 5 security patches.  Were those the ones you are on
> about, or are there more that patch holes in the actual OS ?

I am more familiar with NT than Windows 95, but I know there have been TCP/IP 
security issues in both. I would imaging that you need the latest service 
pack, as these usually contain security fixes. A search of the microsoft.com 
Web site usually reveals one or two later hot-fix security patches - there 
have certainly been quite a few for NT. 

-- 
Nikki Locke, Trumphurst Ltd.      PC & Unix consultancy & programming
nikki@trmphrst.demon.co.uk            http://www.trumphurst.com/