Blog O’ Matty

Removing messages from POP3S servers

While checking my e-mail recently, I noticed that my inbox contained several new messages that were roughly 3MB in size. The quantity of messages was choking my poor text-based e-mail client, so I needed to figure out what has happening. After spending a few minutes reviewing my maillog, I noticed that my mail retrieval program was erroring out while popping the 3MB message (it transferred the message, but wasn’t issuing a dele when it finished). Since my mail retrieval program was having issues retrieivng the 3MB file, I decided to fire up openssl and delete the message myself:

$ openssl s_client -quiet -connect mail.prefetch.net:995

depth=0 /C=US/O=mail.prefetch.net/OU=https://services.choicepoint.net/get.jsp?1605445126/OU=See www.rapidssl.com/cps (c)04/OU=Domain Control Validated - StarterSSL(TM)/CN=mail.prefetch.net
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:1
depth=0 /C=US/O=mail.prefetch.net/OU=https://services.choicepoint.net/get.jsp?1605445126/OU=See www.rapidssl.com/cps (c)04/OU=Domain Control Validated - StarterSSL(TM)/CN=mail.prefetch.net
verify error:num=27:certificate not trusted
verify return:1
depth=0 /C=US/O=mail.prefetch.net/OU=https://services.choicepoint.net/get.jsp?1605445126/OU=See www.rapidssl.com/cps (c)04/OU=Domain Control Validated - StarterSSL(TM)/CN=mail.prefetch.net
verify error:num=21:unable to verify the first certificate
verify return:1

+OK mail.prefetch.net Cyrus POP3 v2.2.12 server ready <1499164100.1140385444@mail.prefetch.net>

user myaccount
+OK Name is a valid mailbox

pass MYSPECIALPASSWORD
+OK Mailbox locked and ready

list
+OK scan listing follows
1 1893014
2 599397
3 4219
.

dele 1
+OK message deleted

quit
+OK
read:errno=0

I really dig openssl, and find myself using it daily. Giddie up!