FreeBSDwiki:POP3, testing via Telnet

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When troubleshooting a POP3 service, it's frequently helpful to use the telnet client to "speak" to the server directly, rather than using a mail client which won't give you the exact responses the server does. In this example, we will use telnet to connect to a POP3 server, log in as a user, and list the number of messages available to the user.

ph34r# telnet localhost 110
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.localdomain.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK dovecot ready.
USER postmaster@mail.getsdeliveredhere.net
+OK
PASS thisismypassword
+OK Logged in.
LIST
+OK 1 messages:
1 354
.
QUIT
+OK Logging out.
Connection closed by foreign host.

Confirmed - the POP3 server answers connections, authenticates users, and can access its mail store - in this case, we can see that there is a message queued up and waiting for delivery. (Note that frequently you may NOT see any messages in the queue on a POP3 server, as most organizations using POP3 expect users to download their mail and delete it as soon as they have.)

See Also

Daemons, testing via Telnet

IMAP, testing via Telnet

SMTP, testing via Telnet

HTTP, testing via Telnet

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