### 2.2 Remote Mailboxes ¶

Remote mailboxes are accessed via one of the remote message protocols.

The basic remote mailbox types are:

pop ¶

  Remote mailbox accessed using the Post Office Protocol (POP3). Default port number 110.

  The URL is:

      pop://[user[:pass][;auth=+APOP]@]host[:port][;notls]

  The host gives the name or IP address of the host running a POP3 server. Optional port can be used to connect to a port other than the default 110.

  The user and pass supply authentication credentials. If any of them is missing, Mailtils will first try to obtain it from the ticket file. If that fails, the behavior depends on the type of the controlling terminal. If the terminal is a tty device (i.e. the program accessing the mailbox was started from the command line), it will ask the user to supply the missing credentials. Otherwise it will issue an appropriate error message and refuse to access the mailbox.

  By default, the usual POP3 authentication is used. The ‘`auth=+APOP`’ authentication parameter instructs Mailutils to use APOP authentication instead.

  If the server offers the STLS capability, Mailutils will attempt to establish encrypted TLS connection. The ‘`notls`’ parameter disables this behavior.

pops ¶

  Remote mailbox accessed using the Post Office Protocol (POP3). The transmission channel is encrypted using the transport layer security (TLS). The default port is 995.

  The URL is:

      pops://[user[:pass][;auth=+APOP]@]host[:port]

  The meaning of its components is the same as for ‘`pop`’ type.

imap ¶

  Remote mailbox accessed via the Internet Message Access Protocol. Default port number is 143.

  The URL is:

      imap://[user[:pass]@]host[:port][;notls]

  The host gives the name or IP address of the host running a IMAP4 server. Optional port can be used to connect to a port other than the default 143.

  The user and pass supply authentication credentials. If any of them is missing, Mailtils will first try to obtain it from the ticket file. If that fails, the behavior depends on the type of the controlling terminal. If the terminal is a tty device (i.e. the program accessing the mailbox was started from the command line), it will ask the user to supply the missing credentials. Otherwise it will issue an appropriate error message and refuse to access the mailbox.

  If the server offers the STARTTLS capability, Mailutils will attempt to establish encrypted TLS connection. The ‘`notls`’ parameter disables this behavior.

imaps ¶

  The ‘`imaps`’ type differs in that its transmission channel is encrypted using the transport layer security (TLS). The default port is 993.

  The URL is:

      imaps://[user[:pass]@]host[:port]

  The meaning of its components is the same as for ‘`imap`’ type.