tpop3d, copyright (c) 2000-2003 Chris Lightfoot <chris@ex-parrot.com>
  http://www.ex-parrot.com/~chris/tpop3d/

$Id$

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.


Introduction

tpop3d is yet-another-pop3-server. The intention has been to write a
server which is fast, extensible, and secure. `Extensible' is used
specifically in the context of new authentication mechanisms and mailbox
formats. Presently the distribution supports the following authentication
mechanisms:

    auth-pam       uses Pluggable Authentication Modules
    auth-passwd         /etc/passwd (and optionally /etc/shadow)

    auth-mysql          a vmail-sql style MySQL database; see
                            http://www.ex-parrot.com/~chris/vmail-sql/
                        or another database with user-specified SQL queries
    auth-pgsql          a PostgreSQL database
    auth-ldap           an LDAP directory
    auth-flatfile       /etc/passwd-style flat files
    auth-other          an external program
    auth-perl           embedded perl subroutines

The latter five options provide virtual domain support; the first two are
designed to authenticate local (Unix) users. The auth-mysql, auth-other
and auth-perl drivers also contain support for event-driven POP-before-SMTP
relaying; see README.POP-before-SMTP for more details.

tpop3d also provides the means to cache authentication results for higher
performance under heavy load. This feature should be considered experimental.

The following mailbox formats are supported:

    bsd             for BSD (`Unix') mailspools
    maildir             Qmail-style maildirs
    empty               null driver

tpop3d implements an optional metadata caching scheme for BSD mailspools,
which offers improved performance in cases where many users leave large
numbers of messages on the server between sessions.


Usage instructions

Have a look at the man page, tpop3d.8.


Installation

Have a look at the file INSTALL in the distribution. tpop3d uses gnu autoconf,
so it should be reasonably simple to make it work.


Modifying and extending tpop3d

Have a look at the file HACKING in the distribution. tpop3d is fairly well
commented and you should find it easy to hack whatever functionality you want
into it. You may also wish to read the list of Things To Do in TODO.


Mailing list

tpop3d now has a mailing list, tpop3d-discuss@lists.beasts.org. This is a
low-traffic mailing list which will also be used for announcements of new
tpop3d revisions. To subscribe, send an email with the subject `subscribe' to
tpop3d-discuss-request@lists.beasts.org.

