hotwayd - HTTPMail to POP3 gateway daemon for Hotmail, MSN, Lycos and Spray.se

hotwayd [options]

Hotwayd is a proxy that sits between a HTTPmail server and your POP3 mail client. With it, it is possible to interact with a HTTPMail server (such as hotmail.com, msn.com, various lycos servers in Europe and spray.se) in a similar way that Outlook Express(tm) can but using any standard POP3 compliant mail reader. The examples in the synopsis show standard entries in the 2 appropriate system configuration files to have the hotwayd "listen" on port 110 (the standard POP3 server port). If you have another POP3 server already listening on this port you can use any other value (e.g. 1100).

Create a POP account that connects to the server you installed hotwayd on, on the indicated port. In this example, and supposing you installed it on your own computer, this might be something like 127.0.0.1:110 . Then as your username enter your full email address with domain name. For your password, enter your usual mailbox password, or have your client ask it each time it is needed. That's all -- your client should now access your mail on the specified HTTPMail server as if it were a standard POP3 server.

It is now also possible to get any folder you like instead of just the inbox. Just put the name of the folder you want after the domain in your email address with a forward slash. For example, to get the folder named "hello" you would issue the command "user dave@hotmail.com/hello" at the prompt. So this means in your mail reader you should enter the user name as "dave@hotmail.com/hello". You will need to create a new mailbox in your mail reader for each folder. Work continues on an IMAP implementation of hotwayd which will circumvent this folder hack due to the native folder support in IMAP.

Use these options to control how the hotwayd server runs:

-h

Display usage infomation

-v

Display version information

-r

By specifying this flag hotwayd will mark messages as read on the HTTPMail server when they are downloaded using the POP3 commands RETR or TOP (the normal way a mail reader would download a message). Without this flag hotwayd will leave all messages marked as unread even if they are downloaded from the server and appear in your mail client. You obviously don't want to use this option if you compile with the HOTWAY_ONLY_NEW flag which makes hotwayd only act on unread messages. Check the FAQ at http://hotwayd.sourceforge.net/faq/ for more details.

-l log_level

Use this feature to specify how much info you want printed into the system logs. 0 for nothing, 1 for all errors which occur (including failed logins), 2 for all login attempts and end of session messages as well and 3 if you are feeling crazy and want your logs to get filled up quickly (can be useful for debugging).

-a access_list_file

If you want to restrict the users who can login to their HTTPMail accounts then use this option. Specify as argument a file containing a list of whitespace separated email accounts which may use the daemon to access their HTTPMail accounts. Anyone who tries to login but isn't in the list will be rejected by hotwayd. By not specifying the -a flag all users will be able to use the daemon. If the -a flag is specified but the file name given does not represent an existing file nobody will be able to access their HTTPMail mailbox.

-p proxy_server

Route all requests to the HTTPMail server through the specified proxy server in form http://address:port (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8080). Ensure you use "http://" in the address or else the proxy server parameter will be ignored!

-u proxy_username

Use proxy username to authenticate when using the specified proxy

-q proxy_password

Use proxy password to authenticate in conjunction with the username supplied when using the specified proxy

This is released under GPL, copy it freely! :-)

Check the web site (http://hotwayd.sourceforge.net/) for the most update set of FAQs, installation instructions and a help forum for any questions you may have.

You need to setup xinetd or inetd to get hotwayd to act as an Internet service. Check the hotwayd web site or check the file README for more details. A sample xinetd config file called hotwayd.xinetd is included with the hotwayd/hotsmtpd package.

See the hotwayd web site for the installation guide:

http://hotwayd.sourceforge.net/e107_plugins/custompages/Install.php

Project maintainer and main developer: 
  David Smith <courierdave@users.sourceforge.net>

Presently retired developers: RenE J. V. Bertin, Josh Myer

Other contributions: Frank de Lange, David McClosky, Korwin Smith, Timothy Lee & others.

Original author: Tomas Espeleta

hotsmtpd(1), hotimapd(1).

hotwayd homepage: (http://hotwayd.sourceforge.net/)