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I have an interview coming up and I want to play around with POP3 and SMTP protocol.

I'm trying to login to my gmail's pop3 server account using Microsoft Telnet command line program but it's not working.

I'm typing pop.gmail.com 995 into the command window. I think it's not working because Gmail servers require SSL. I have tried using Putty to connect to pop.gmail.com at port 995 but this too is not working.

If Microsoft Telnet or Putty is not working, what else would?

Thanks!

drAlberT
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burnt1ce85
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3 Answers3

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You can install OpenSSL for Windows, and use it to connect to servers using SSL. Type this in the command line:

openssl s_client -connect pop.gmail.com:995

By the way, Gmail's SMTP servers require authentication too (unless you're connecting from anotehr known mail server), so you'd better start with something simpler.

user1686
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  • i tried to do it with gmail but can't actually do it with gmail. aol is better for this work. –  Apr 09 '11 at 18:48
  • @rezax: It works fine with Gmail and I have used this many times. I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise. – user1686 Apr 09 '11 at 23:39
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You could use stunnel to create an SSL tunnel and telnet through it.

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If you really want to learn about these protocols... fire up vmware, get hold of ubuntu, and dig in - running a simple smtp/pop3 server is not mega taxing, great practice and you'll learn LOADS more :)

Tom Newton
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