the evn show Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Problem: I have a POP3 account that does not allow outside my ISPs address block. I would like to use Mail.app to access this account from friends houses, school, wireless hotspots, etc - but that is not always possible. Proposed Solution: Use an SSH tunnel and an old machine in my basement to get access to my e-mail anywhere and as an added bonus it will be over SSH so I don't have to worry about kids with wireless sniffers picking up passwords and other sensitive information. Obsticle: I cannot find a way to tell mail.app to use the tunnel because it refuses to connect on anything other than port 110 for pop3. Additional information: I'd rather not setup the tunnel on port 110 because 1) You need to be root to do this (not that that's a big deal really, but I'd rather not sudo when I don't absolutely have to) 2) I have more than one POP3 server I'd like to access this way so at least one tunnel would have to be on somewhere other than port 110. Any suggestions (I'm not interested in getting rid of mail.app as my mail-client)? details for those interested: --------------------------------- First I make sure I can SSH to a server on my local network from my Powerbook (evn@evnbook:evn)$ ssh 192.168.1.104 -l evn Last login: Wed Mar 10 00:20:22 2004 from 192.168.1.100 They called it BSD, and Open because it's always free! (evn@bsdbox:evn)$ Great, now to make sure the SSH server can access the mail server (evn@bsdbox:evn)$ telnet shawmail.cg.shawcable.net 110 Trying 24.71.223.43... Connected to shawmail.cg.shawcable.net. Escape character is '^]'. +OK Messaging Multiplexor (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.16 (built May 14 2003)) quit +OK goodbye Connection closed by foreign host. (evn@bsdbox:evn)$ Perfect. The basic connectivity between the nodes works, so now I'll setup the tunnel. (evn@evnbook:evn)$ ssh -N -f -L 11110:shawmail.cg.shawcable.net:110 evn@192.168.1.104 And then test that to make sure it's behaving properly (evn@evnbook:evn)$ telnet 127.0.0.1 11110 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost. Escape character is '^]'. +OK Messaging Multiplexor (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.16 (built May 14 2003)) quit +OK goodbye Connection closed by foreign host. (evn@evnbook:evn)$ Perfect. So when I try to tell mail to use that in the account preferences for that particular mail account: server: 127.0.0.1 11110 and server: 127.0.0.1:11110 NOTHING. Is there some hidden option I need to enable, or can I somehow trick mail into doing what I want it to do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliott Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Um, I'm not sure if this is it, but in the Advanced tab of that account's preferences it has a port preference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Dorr Veteran Posted March 10, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 10, 2004 I'll see if I can get in contact with my roommate. We're both on spring break right now, but he's got this sort of thing set up himself because we don't have WEP on our wireless network (the router doesn't seem to like using it...). I believe it's actually tunneling through his connection back home in order to connect to his Road Runner email and Georgia Tech email. I don't know too many of the specifics, so I'll see if he can get on here to give some aid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the evn show Posted March 10, 2004 Author Share Posted March 10, 2004 Um, I'm not sure if this is it, but in the Advanced tab of that account's preferences it has a port preference. that's exactly what I was looking for. Strangely I didn't even see the advanced tab, even though it was "right there". I changed the port to 11110, the server to 127.0.0.1, and then saved settings. When I pressed "get mail" it asked for my password which I copy/pasted from keychain and pressed okay. Now it's working perfectly. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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