[Tfug] Telnet/mail

[Brian Murphy]

On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 05:45:10PM -0700, klsmith wrote:
> I thought I could simply look at my mail using telnet (I know it is not
> secure)  Just wanted to try.
> 
> Any suggestions on a simple command line app that will allow for reading my
> mail while it is still on the ISP server?

You'll want to talk to the POP or IMAP ports to read your mail.  SMTP is
mostly for sending.

Both mutt and pine (yuck) can read IMAP folders.  Probably pop too, but I
haven't used POP in a long time.

If you're really curious about POP...

telnet server 110
user username
pass password
list
retr 1
quit


Optionally, the top command will only bring back the number of lines in a message
that you specify...

top message# num_of_lines

This is good for seeing the header.  POP is meant to be a simple protocol.  You can't
seek to the middle of a message.  And, not all servers implement top.

See http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1939.html for all of the commands.

Brian