[Dovecot] pop before smtp

[Ian R. Justman]

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.