Re: bad (i.e. serious) mail problems

[Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

  > * Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE  on Tue, 30 Mar 1999
  > | Why should a POP server delimit messages in mbox style?
  > 
  > It does not.  The POP server uses the whatever delimiters have
  > been created by the MTA to determine where messages begin.  What
  > as this is usually an RFC 821 envelope, RFC 821 envelopes are used
  > as delimiters.

A message comes in via SMTP.  How it gets from there to the POP server
is not defined.  Maybe there are no delimiters (other than
end-of-file, or the closing of a socket) at all?

  > | The POP protocol says (I think) that a message is terminated by a "."
  > | line,
  > 
  > The '.' is just that, a terminator for the RETR command.  It tells the POP
  > client that the server has finished transmitting a message.  The dot
  > terminator is stripped by the client.

Right.  So, the client (including pop3.el) knows that the end of the
message must be right before the dot.  pop3.el, however, does not make
sure that these are the endings of messages in its output file.

  > | and internally, the POP server could well use any mechanism for storing
  > | messages, such as a file per message, or an RDBMS.
  > 
  > POP servers do not store anything anywhere.  IMAP does, but IMAP is so
  > different from POP that comparing them is like comparing Gnus to a ball of
  > yarn.

Hm?  Neither protocol says anything about storage.

But certainly, the messages must be stored somewhere, for the POP and
IMAP servers to be able to output them.  Nobody says that this has got
to be a file in /var/spool/mail for POP servers and something else for
IMAP servers.

Let me rephrase my sentence: ... and the message store accessed by the
POP server could use any method at all, such as a file per message, or
an RDBMS.

kai
-- 
I'd like to welcome you and an orange juice, please.