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Re: RFC 3501 (Use of CAPABILITY in IMAP4S session)

Subject: Re: RFC 3501 Use of CAPABILITY in IMAP4S session
From: Dr Balwinder S Dheeman
Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 07:44:40 +0530
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking
On 05/15/2005 05:29 AM, Scott Lowe wrote:
I'm experimenting with the use of Perdition as an IMAP4S proxy in front of a proprietary messaging system. Perdition will accept the IMAP4S connection, then send unencrypted IMAP4 to the back-end messaging system.

I'm a bit concerned, though, that the IMAP4S connection isn't necessarily as secure as I would like. In particular, I am concerned about the IMAP4 client sending authentication credentials before the TLS connection has been established. I've been reviewing RFC 3501 in an effort to verify that the IMAP4 client first sends a CAPABILITY command before attempting to authenticate. If so, then Perdition will return both the STARTTLS and LOGINDISABLED responses, indicating that the TLS connection must first be established, then authentication will be permitted.

Anyone have a clue on this one? Packet captures thus far have been inconclusive...although this may be due to my inexperience with tcpdump.

I think, Ethereal may help a lot; is more intutive as compared to tcpdump.

Inspired from a Net::SMTP Client Library in standard Ruby Libs, I've developed Net::NNTP Client Library; plz have a look at detailed docs as well as source at ...

Home: http://nntp.rubyforge.org/
Download:                                 rubyforge.org/projects/nntp/">http://rubyforge.org/projects/nntp/

But implementation of some of the Authentication methods is incomplete in both of the above packages. I have searched a number of RFC's and, or drafts, but me too am clueless till yet.

I would love to hear from you on any further progress.

Regards,
--
Dr Balwinder Singh Dheeman            Registered Linux User: #229709
CLLO (Chief Linux Learning Officer)   Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Anu's Linux@HOME                      Distros: Ubuntu, Fedora, Knoppix
More:                                 anu.homelinux.net/~bsd/">http://anu.homelinux.net/~bsd/  Visit:                                 counter.li.org/">http://counter.li.org/

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