POP

Post Office Protocol (POP)

This protocol is widely use to receive e-Mail from a mail server.

An alternative to receive mail is the more recent IMAP protocol, which additionally allows to manage the mails on the server without moving them to the mail client first.

Sending mail to a server - on the other hand - is done using SMTP.

History

The RFC 918 describes the "POST OFFICE PROTOCOL" version 2, which is obsoleted by RFC 1939 "Post Office Protocol - Version 3" used today.

The successor protocol IMAP offers some advanced features (not available with POP), but both IMAP and POP protocols are still widely used today.

Protocol dependencies

Example traffic

XXX - Add example traffic here (as plain text or Wireshark screenshot).

Wireshark

The POP dissector is fully functional.

Preference Settings

(XXX add links to preference settings affecting how POP is dissected).

Example capture file

XXX - Add a simple example capture file to the SampleCaptures page and link from here. Keep it short, it's also a good idea to gzip it to make it even smaller, as Wireshark can open gzipped files automatically.

Display Filter

A complete list of POP display filter fields can be found in the display filter reference

Show only the POP based traffic:

 pop 

Capture Filter

You cannot directly filter POP protocols while capturing. However, if you know the TCP port used (see above), you can filter on that one.

Show only the POP based traffic:

 tcp port pop3 

External links

Discussion


Imported from https://wiki.wireshark.org/POP on 2020-08-11 23:17:59 UTC