Hello,

BACKGROUND INFO

I'm an experienced Windows developer/administrator, but I'm very, very fresh to Linux. A real newbie!

The prospect of an ADSL line has made me want to experiment with a simple webserver. I'm up and runnign with Apache etc., but POP3 is throwing me. Long term, I want my POP3 server on RedHat9 (ipop3d) to use fetchmail to get mail from my ISP, so that I can filter it through spamasassin.


THE PROBLEM

However, by basic problem is this: My Windows client (Outlook) will not login in to the POP3 server.

I can PING the server (192.168.1.10) and I can telnet in on port 110 - but only after a very long delay (10-20 seconds).

On the server (as root) I can also telnet in on 110 via "telnet 192.168.1.10 110", and I get the same delay.


But if I login as root and "telnet 127.0.0.1 110" it's instant.


The machine is on a local LAN with no internet connection (yet). I haven't configured any DNS stuff, it's RH9 out of the box.

ipop3d, sendmail, and imap are all installed.


Sorry for a long drivelling post, but having trawled the web for four hours on a 56K dialup, I'm pulling my hair out!

Thanks in advance,




Jim

okay, lets start with the basics first? Do you have a firewall running on the linux box? Try turning it off with 'service iptables stop' as root. See if maybe that helps. When you try to access other services on that box do you get the same delay?

Maybe try using qpopper instead of ipop3d as another solution.

Hi Khabi, many thanks for taking the time to reply.

No, no firewall at all. I'll be running behind a reasonable hardware firwall, and I wasn't confident with the IPTABLES stuff (but I am confident configuring hardware fiewalls).

At present I'm on a local LAN with no itnernet access.

The output from ifconfig, if this helps, is:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:01:03:30:14:08
inet addr:192.168.1.10 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:81720 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:1 frame:0
TX packets:47328 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:47024876 (44.8 Mb) TX bytes:12207811 (11.6 Mb)
Interrupt:9 Base address:0xb800

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:41 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:41 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3533 (3.4 Kb) TX bytes:3533 (3.4 Kb)

I have no default gaeway setup on the eth0 card as I currently do not have any route out of the LAN.


Is qpopper fairly easy to setup? I'm very experienced with windows but very, very inexprienced at Linux so I don't want to break anything! I've seen people rave about qpopper though.


Look forward to hearing from you.


Regards,



Jim

To be frank.. I'm stumped then.

qpopper is really easy to install and run. Just download the source, compile via the instructions, and run it. It won't affect the system and if you decided you want to get rid of it you just delete the qpopper executable.

Good Luck

Hi Khabi,

I've installed qpopper - and I get exactly the same problem!

So, I think this is unrelated to the mail services, but is more likely related to my ethernet config.

I have a fixed IP of 192.168.1.10, subnet 255.255.255.0. I have a defualt gateway of an INVALID address...but I can't find out how to blank it out. Running redhat-config-network allows me to make the change, but the change is never kept - if I rerun r-c-n it's back to the address (192.168.1.254).


Heeellllpppppp!!!!


Cheers,



Jim

Cracked it!

I had a default gateway set up, which was invalid.

I've removed it via :

route -v del 192.168.1.10 gateway 192.168.1.254

and it now connects instantly!

Phew!

I'm now going to revert back to ipop3d to see if that also now works!




Jim