*BSD News Article 50790


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From: ceharris@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Carl Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
Subject: ANNOUNCE: popclient 3.0 beta 4
Date: 7 Sep 1995 19:40:43 -0400
Organization: Virginia Tech Computer Science
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Message-ID: <42nvtr$v74@csugrad.cs.vt.edu>
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[ Article crossposted from csugrad.general,vt.general,bburg.general,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.mail.misc,vt.sys.bsd,vt.sys.linux,comp.mail.sendmail,comp.unix.ultrix,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.osf.osf1 ]
[ Author was Carl Harris ]
[ Posted on 7 Sep 1995 19:38:23 -0400 ]

Popclient version 3.0 beta 4 is now available at

	ftp://ftp.mal.com/pub/pop/popclient-3.0b4.tar.gz

(for those not blessed with gunzip, popclient-3.0b4.tar.Z is a normal
'compress' archive)

Popclient is a simple POP mail retrieval client for U*ix.  It supports
the POP2 and POP3 protocols, and compiles/runs under a fairly wide 
variety of systems (see bottom of this announcement for systems tested).

This is a BETA release of popclient version 3.  Little if any user 
support is provided for this version of popclient.  USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.  
Planned release date for the official 3.0 release is September 15, 1995 
(assuming no major problems are detected with this beta release).

This release fixes a few minor problems with the beta 3 release, and
is the final beta release before the official 3.0 release.  

YOUR FEEDBACK IS IMPORTANT TO ME.  It is quite difficult to make 
even a small package like popclient compile and run correctly on a
number of different platforms, especially when lots of new features
are added.  Without your feedback, I won't know what doesn't work for 
you.  Please mail your comments, bug reports, general gripes, and or 
heaps of praise ;) to me at <ceharris@mal.com>.

Included in beta 4:
o	Fixes for the alloca problem reported by some Linux and 
	some SGI users.
	
o	Fixes for some goofy informational messages displayed 
	during normal retrieval.


What beta 4 DOES NOT include (but may be coming along real soon)

o	Daemon mode.  I've had to abandon this for the 3.0 release
	because of conflicts with a number of new (more important)
	features.  This _is_ coming in the 3.1 release.  I promise.
	Really.  I'm not kidding.  I swear.

o	A complete and up-to-date man page and info page.  The 
	man page included in this release reflects many (but not
	all) of the new features.  The man page and GNU-style info
  	manual will be ready for the official 3.0 release.  

o	Support for multiple recipient pop retrieval.  Now investigating
	the use of a properly configured 'sendmail' to serve as the
	local delivery agent to deal with this situation.


Included in beta 3:

o	Support for retrieving only new messages from maildrop 
	when using POP 3.  This is now the default.  The --all 
	option may be used to override this behavior.  The --flush 
	options deletes old mail when new mail is retrieved.

o	Support for retrieving only the first n lines of a message
	(plus the message headers, of course), using the '--limit n'
        option.  --keep is implied by --limit, but can be overridden
	with --kill.

o	Support for APOP authentication (uses POP3 with MD5)
	Use 'configure -with-APOP' to include APOP support.

o	Provisional (and almost completely broken) support for
	the RPOP authentication protocol.  No further work will
	be done on this until some of the many security problems 
	it introduces are addressed.

o	Much improved input buffering in message receipt functions;
	makes a BIG difference in performance on slow SLIP/PPP 
	connections.

o	New command line options:  
	--limit n	limits received text of a message to no
			more than n lines (plus headers) when using
			POP3 (or the APOP/RPOP variants of POP3),
			leaving entire message untouched on server
			for complete download at a later time.
	--protocol s    allows selection of any of the supported
			protocols (POP2, POP3, APOP, IMAP (soon),
			RPOP (soon)).
	--all		used to force retrieval of all messages
			(both old and new) from the maildrop.
	--flush		used to delete old mail from maildrop
			before new mail is retrieved.

Included in beta 2:

o	Support for .poprc file -- see sample.poprc for details

o	GNU-style long options -- run popclient with no options
	for a rundown of all possible options.

o	fix for passwords appearing in 'ps' output.

o	support for multiple servers specified on one command line.


Included in beta 1:

o	GNU autoconfiguration

o	Long passwords (not limited by getpass() function in libc.a)

o	Underpinnings of support for IMAP protocol.



This release was tested (to varying degrees) to configure/compile/install 
correctly on the following platforms:

o	DEC OSF/1 3.2 (cc).  gcc would probably work too, if the gcc
	install didn't insist on munging all of the system headers into a 
	completely unusable state.

o	DEC Ultrix 4.4 (gcc-2.6.3, cc) 

o	Linux 1.2.9 Slackware (cc)

o	FreeBSD 2.0.5-950622-SNAP (cc).  

o	Solaris 2.4 (a.k.a. SunOS 5.4) (gcc).

o	AIX 3.2.5 (gcc-2.6.3, cc).  Ignore gcc warnings about problems 
	(that IT created) in the wait.h include file.  Way to go gcc.

o 	HP-UX 9.1 (cc).  Ignore lex warning about not finding "message
	catalog," if it occurs.

--
Carl Harris
7 September 95
ceharris@mal.com

--
Carl Harris
EXECUTIVE Scapegoat (and Systems Engineer)
Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech
ceharris@cs.vt.edu