Bug 191829 - Meaningless error message when unable to connect to remote mail server
Summary: Meaningless error message when unable to connect to remote mail server
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: fetchmail
Version: 4
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Miloslav Trmač
QA Contact: Brock Organ
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2006-05-15 23:38 UTC by Tethys
Modified: 2007-11-30 22:11 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version: 6.3.4-0.fc5.1
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2006-06-07 22:06:35 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Tethys 2006-05-15 23:38:25 UTC
Description of problem:
If fetchmail tries to connect to a remote server that isn't listening on
the appropriate port (say 110 for pop3), then it issues a rather generic
and not particularly helpful error message:

leto:~% fetchmail
fetchmail: Query status=2 (SOCKET)

This should really be changed to something that gives a bit more information.
For example, trying to telnet to the same machine gives:

leto:~# telnet 194.106.56.118 110
Trying 194.106.56.118...
telnet: connect to address 194.106.56.118: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

Which gives a much better indication of the problem.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
fetchmail-6.2.5.5-1.fc4

How reproducible:
Every time

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run fetchmail against a host that isn't listening on the applicable port
2. 
3.
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:

Comment 1 Miloslav Trmač 2006-06-07 22:06:35 UTC
Thanks for your report.

Reporting of this error is better in fetchmail-6.3.4, available in FC-5:
$ fetchmail 
Enter password for mitr@localhost:
POP3 connection to localhost failed: Connection refused
fetchmail: Query status=2 (SOCKET)



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