Johannes Berg wrote:
I don't know how postfix checks the pbsmtp thing, but IIRC dovecot has the ability to write into a database when people log in, so I think pop-before-smtp could be done without log parsing. You might want to review the mailing list archives (at gmane.org) and possibly you can get rid of pbsmtp.
johannes
I use a different method for POP-before-SMTP which involves a hacked copy of Perdition sitting ahead of Dovecot and a program called authd (http://www.authd.org) which is far more reliable than log-parsing, and probably as reliable as writing a database.
Personally, POP-before-SMTP is too kludgy for my personal tastes, but I use it anyway for my users who can't do POP-before-SMTP. Not to mention, some broken mailers like Outlook prior to 2002 or so do not allow you to do POP before SMTP or even POP only at all. *stifles snide remarks about Microsoft software's overall brokenness*
IMO, it's SMTP-AUTH and RFC 2476 all the way.
--Ian.