N3

N3 is an experimental POP3 server for node.js. It doesn't actually fetch any real mail messages but is able to send arbitrary data in the form of e-mail messages to any POP3 enabled e-mail client. For example latest Twitter messages or blog posts etc.

The demo server (pop3_server.js) currently sends the same message with every request as a new message (with minor changes though).

Secured connections

N3 supports both unencrypted connections on port 110. See pop3_server.js for examples.

Authentication

N3 supports following authentication mechanisms:

• USER
• APOP
• AUTH PLAIN
• AUTH CRAM-MD5

Authentication system is extendable by allowing to add new methods to the SASL AUTH command.

For example to add a method FOOBAR (taken from pop3_server.js):

// AUTH FOOBAR user pass
N3.extendAUTH("FOOBAR",function(authObj){
    var params = authObj.params.split(" "),
        user = params[0],
        pass = params[1];

    if(!user) // username is not set
        return "-ERR Authentication error. FOOBAR expects <user> <password>"

    return authObj.check(user, pass);
});

When the client asks for server capabilities with CAPA, the SASL response will be

CLIENT: CAPA
SERVER: ...
SERVER: SASL PLAIN CRAM-MD5 FOOBAR

The client is then able to log in with the method FOOBAR which expects username and password for its parameters

CLIENT: AUTH FOOBAR andris 12345
SERVER: +OK You are now logged in

See sasl.js for more complex examples - PLAIN and CRAM-MD5 (APOP and USER are built in methods and do not go through the SASL AUTH interface).

Usage

Install with npm

npm install pop3-n3

Require the module

var n3 = require("pop3-n3");

1. Run pop3_server.js and add a POP3 account to your e-mail client pointing to the node.js server. With the demo script usernames don't matter, any name goes, but the password needs to be 12345

   node pop3_server.js
   

For example, if you run pop3_server.js in localhost then the incoming settings should be something like:

protocol: pop3
server: localhost
port: 110
username: anything_goes
password: 12345

NB! Some clients (iPhone) require valid SMTP server in order to add a new account. You can use any valid SMTP server.

License

MIT. If you make any impromevents to the POP3 server code, then it would be nice to push the changes to here also (waiting for improvements to the protocol, new authentication methods etc.).

NB

Make sure that port 110 is open for incoming connections!