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The MercuryP POP3 Server Module
This option can be useful
on mailboxes such as
helpdesk mailboxes,
where deletion of mail is
undesirable.
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General configuration
Global POP3 Profile Settings
The controls in this group adjust the default behaviour MercuryP will use when communicat-
ing with POP3 clients. Individual users on your system can have their own variations of these
settings in personal profiles if they wish – personal profiles always override the global default
settings.
Mark retrieved mail as read If this option is checked, Mercury will mark mail as having been
read once it is successfully downloaded by a POP3 client. Pegasus Mail users who subse-
quently look at their mail locally will observe this status, and it can also be useful in conjunc-
tion with the Offer only unread mail option to limit the mail presented to the user via POP3.
Offer only unread mail When this option is checked, Mercury will only present mail that has
not been marked as “read” to clients connecting via POP3. Many POP3 clients have mecha-
nisms that achieve the same thing, but this approach is significantly faster in almost all cases.
Manufacture “status” headers Some POP3 clients, particularly Eudora, expect to see the
non-standard “status” header in messages they download. The “status” header contains infor-
mation about whether or not the message has been read, and is not normally maintained by
Mercury. If this option is checked, Mercury will manufacture “status” headers when the mes-
sage is downloaded by the client. Pegasus Mail does not require this option.
Ignore POP3 delete commands Check this control if you want to create a read-only POP3
mailbox. The POP3 “DELE” command, which is used by the client to delete messages from
the mailbox, will be ignored when this command is checked. This option is usually better set
in a specific user’s POP3 profile than globally.
POP3 deletions survive resets The POP3 protocol specification requires that any messages
deleted in a session should be restored if the connection is broken abnormally: if your clients
have intermittent or unreliable connections, this can be a nuisance, since it means that deleted
messages will be presented to them again the next time they connect. Checking this control
tells Mercury that all deletions should be made regardless of how the connection is terminat-
ed. This command effectively results in non-standard behaviour on the part of the POP3 serv-
er and should be used carefully.
Logging The General logging field allows you to specify a file in which MercuryP should
write information about incoming mail connections. If you leave this field blank, no general
log will be kept. Session logging is a special mode in which a complete transcript of every
incoming session is stored in a file. You provide the name of a directory, and MercuryP will
create a file for each session, with the extension .MP. Session logs can provide invaluable de-
bugging information if you are having trouble communicating with certain POP3 mail cli-
ents, but they consume disk space at a frightening rate. You will typically only use session
logging to resolve problems.
Local profile settings
Local profile settings can be made on a per-user basis by creating a text file called POP3.PRO
in the user's new mail directory. POP3.PRO can contain any of the following statements, each
of which corresponds to the same facilities found in the global profile settings (see above):
Mark read
Show read
Show status
No delete
Delete is final