qpopper POP3 server install howto

Nowadays, there are lots of POP/POP3 server packages to choose from, some of them comes as an enterprise versions that includes the whole mail collaboration packages with webmail, mail server packages, and POP/POP3 feature and more.

This blog entry focuses on installing QPopper from Eudora. I met Qpopper from earlier RedHat versions years ago and had served many POP3 connections from those old cloned pentium server boxes that I have managed pretty well.

Qpopper site says:
Qpopper is most widely-used server for the POP3 protocol (this allows users to access their mail using any POP3 client). Qpopper supports the latest standards, and includes a large number of optional features. Qpopper is normally used with standard UNIX mail transfer and delivery agents such as sendmail or smail.

Qpopper's goals are: security, stability, safety, features, and performance. Check more from their site. and here .

You can browse the latest Qpopper beta from here.

Now, I have decided to try a QPoppper test install once again of this Qpopper package into my Fedora 7 box and put an entry here as I go along live installing it and see if I can do it still.

Here's how to install QPopper.

1. Download the latest tar balls from ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/eudora/servers/unix/popper/beta/ . I have decided to download qpopper4.1a5.tar.gz for this purpose. You can do this by issuing

# wget -c ftp://ftp.qualcomm.com/eudora/servers/unix/popper/beta/qpopper4.1a5.tar.gz

2. Untar the tar ballz like so

# tar zxvf qpopper4.1a5.tar.gz

3. Go to extracted files and folder

# cd qpopper4.1a5/

4. Now do configure stuff with specified options

# ./configure --enable-log-facility --enable-log-login --enable-server-mode --enable-specialauth --enable-standalone --enable-timing

You can specify other configure options like so
--with-pam=pop3 for PAM authentication
--with-openssl

# make ; make install

popper binary would be installed in /usr/local/bin by default. So the next setup lines would have a reference to popper binary on that folder location. Default log file would be /var/log/qpopper.log

5. Create /etc/xinet.d/pop3 file

service pop3
{
disable = no
socket_type = stream
wait = no
user = root
bind = MY-IP-ADDRESS-HERE
server = /usr/local/bin/popper
server_args = -s -R -t /var/log/qpopper.log
log_on_success += HOST DURATION
log_on_failure += HOST
}

6. Do restart xinetd service as follows

# /sbin/service xinetd restart

If you wish to implement Qpopper on production servers, make sure Qpopper starts permanently between reboots by doing so:

# chkconfig --levels 35 xinetd on

If not, you can skip the step above this line.

7. Do some test if QPopper was installed properly via xinetd by doing a telnet connection into that port 110 of binded IP address, as follows

# telnet MY-IP-ADDRESS-HERE 110

If you have successfull Qpopper installation, it should give you similar lines like I had

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK Qpopper (version 4.1a5) at ver starting.
^]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note, you can not telnet to port 110 of localhost if you bind it only to the public IP address

Success.

Wow, these are just 7 quick and smooth QPoppper installation steps with Fedora 7 distro !
Qpopper can work with Fedora 7 still, just like old RedHat days! :)

Doing it via yum

# yum search qpopper

does not return any search results.

HTH