-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 2008-08-19, at 0305, Vytenis Sabaliauskas wrote:

Our company has decided to make a fake POP3 (and possibly IMAP) server, which accepts any user name and password combination and shows there are no new messages. This is for the purpose that when our mail cluster passes out, we can redirect our clients to this server while we fix our mail system. This way we can prevent our users from getting errors. We are using the latest dovecot server with Ubuntu (currently), but perhaps will migrate to CentOS (if this is important)

I am trying to use the following configuration for testing, but ...

it was easier to just throw together a quick script, rather than configuring dovecot to simulate what you're looking for.

http://qmail.jms1.net/scripts/#fake-pop3

you can run this under daemontools, using "tcpserver" (both of which are normal djb tools- if you're using qmail you should already have them on your system.) a "run" script might look like this:

#!/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/bin
exec tcpserver -vR 1.2.3.4 110 fake-pop3 2>&1

if you're not using qmail, you may need the links...

daemontools: http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html
tcpserver: http://cr.yp.to/ucspi-tcp.html

you *could* also run it under something like inetd, although i haven't personally done this- i don't use inetd or xinetd on any of my servers.

===

the other item i should probably mention... i don't recommend you even think about trying to make an IMAP version of this.

remember that many IMAP clients keep a copy of the server's contents on their local systems. if one of these clients were to connect and see what looks like an empty mailbox with no folders, they would proceed to make their local system "look like" what's on the server... empty. basically you would end up forcing a bunch of clients to delete their own local copies of what they have stored on the server.

of course, when the real server comes back, their messages and folders will "appear" again... but that means the clients will re-download all of it (which might be a bandwidth or CPU issue, especially for a busy server where many users keep many messages stored on the server, and all of them are downloading their entire mailboxes at the same time) and will probably force the users to re-configure which folders they do and don't want to be subscribed to.

it's probably easier to just deal with the support calls. IMAP clients know that if they can't connect to the server, they shouldn't delete their local copy of the messages and folders...

- --------------------------------------------------------
| John M. Simpson  --  KG4ZOW  --  Programmer At Large |
| http://www.jms1.net/                 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |
- --------------------------------------------------------
|   Hope for America  --  http://www.ronpaul2008.com/  |
- --------------------------------------------------------





-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin)

iEYEARECAAYFAki51qQACgkQj42MmpAUrRprJwCgzzmIFLukVbPgwGp1iASrRpBV
9dEAn1zbLd4Sm6tOaniDT18xiZiYm9dX
=3M26
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Reply via email to