On Wednesday, Dec 24th 2003 at 09:21 -0600, quoth Steven Stern:
=>I'm popping mail from my FC1 server using the IPOP3 daemon that was already
=>there. Dang, but it is slow. It takes a long time to just to pick up one
=>short message, mainly due (I think) to process start time. It gets created
=>and stopped with each POP session. Does anyone have a suggestion for a better
=>POP3 daemon?
=>
=> -- Steve
Ummm, I have a suggestion. I had the same problem. No it's nothing to do with long process start time. Make sure your identd is running:
No, better yet: make sure that your firewall REJECTS requests to ident (port tcp/113). Do not DROP them silently, but REJECT them so that the client gets an answer quickly. What is happening now is that your mail client is making an ident request, and waiting for an answer until it times out; REJECTing ident requests will provide an immediate answer (even if that answer is "no comment") and will make your long wait disappear.
Ident provides the name of the user running or requesting the service, and it's giving out information that you do not necessarily want to give. It was a "friendly" feature back when the Internet was friendlier... now it's a small security risk and provides no real benefit. Just say no.
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.simpaticus.com
