POP3 Monitor

The POP3 monitor works along with the SMTP monitor to test the availability and response time of a POP3 email service.

The following table lists the POP3 monitor files.

Table 1. POP3 monitor files
Monitor files	Name or location
Monitor executable	`nco_m_pop3`
Properties file	$ISHOME/etc/props/pop3.props
Rules file	$ISHOME/etc/rules/pop3.rules
Log file	$ISHOME/log/pop3.log

Guidelines for configuring POP3 monitor

The POP3 monitor operates along with the SMTP monitor by monitoring the mailbox to which the SMTP monitor sends test messages, and measuring that amount of time taken to deliver those messages.

Note: Ensure that the system clocks on the monitor host computer and the mail server are synchronized for the delivery time calculation to work correctly.

When the POP3 monitor has read the contents of the mailbox, it generates two different types of events:

Message-specific events
The POP3 monitor creates a message-specific event for each email message that it downloads from the mailbox. In this type of event, the monitor sets the $message element to Message Successfully Downloaded. The $timeToDeliver element is calculated as the time taken for the message to travel between the SMTP monitor that issued it and the mailbox that received it. The $hopCount element indicates the number of hosts the message hopped through to arrive at the mailbox.
Summary events
The monitor creates a summary event when it has processed all the messages in the mailbox. In this type of event, the $message element indicates the total number of messages successfully downloaded from the mailbox and the $totaltime element indicates the time taken to complete the requests. The $totaltime is in seconds.

Secure mail: The POP3 monitor supports connections to secure mail services. It can connect using SSL/TLS, or the STARTTLS command. When defining a POP3 monitor element, use the Security Type field to select the appropriate security. If the mail server requires a client-side certificate for SSL encryption, use the SSLname properties or command line options to specify a certificate file, key file, key password and cipher suite.

Client-side certificate: The POP3 monitor enables you to monitor servers that require client-side certificates for mutual authentication. Specify the SSL certificate file, key file, and key password while creating a profile element. Certificates must be in Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) format. If your certificate is in another format, you must convert it to PEM format. Certificates can be converted using software such as openSSL, which is available from http://www.openssl.org.
Note: If you always use the same certificate, key, and password in all profile elements, specify them using monitor properties instead of defining them in every profile element you create.

Configuring POP3 monitor tests

Note: Monitor the operation of the mail server mail.mycompany.com by configuring the SMTP monitor to send messages to a test mailbox, and configuring the POP3 monitor to retrieve the messages. The test mailbox has the address ismtest@mycompany.com and credentials ismtest/secret1. Use a connection timeout of 20 seconds, 2 retests on failure, and a retest interval of 5 seconds at each end, and test the services every ten minutes. Use the default service level classifications provided by the profile elements.

Table 2. POP3 monitor configuration
Field	Description
server	The IP address of the mail server. Example is `mail.mycompany.com`
description	A text field for providing descriptive information on the element.
port	The port number of the mail server. Default: `110`
securitytype	The type of secure connection opened with the mail server: `NONE` - Connect without security `SSL` - Send an SSLv2 `hello`, then negotiate SSLv2, SSLv3 or TLSv1 `STARTTLS` - Connect without security, issue a `STLS` command, then establish a connection over TLSv1. This is the most secure security type. `NONE` - Connect without security Default: `NONE`
username	The name of the mailbox.
password	The password used to log in to the mailbox, if necessary.
authenticationtype	The method of authentication to use and the label is Authentication Type: `STANDARD` - Uses a user/pass exchange where the password isn’t encrypted. This is appropriate for intermittent use of POP3. `APOP` - Use where the POP3 client connects to the server regularly. This offers a higher level of security than standard. Ensure that you specify an APOP Shared Secret if you select `APOP`. Note that not all servers support APOP. Default: `STANDARD`.
sharedsecret	The shared secret for APOP authentication, applicable only if you’re using the APOP authentication type. The string should be at least eight characters long and is obscured in the user interface.
timeout	The time, in seconds, to wait for the server to respond. Default: `30`
poll	The time, in seconds, between each poll. Default: `300`
failureretests	The number of times to retest before indicating a failure. Default: `0`
retestinterval	The time, in seconds, to wait between each failure retest. Default: `10`
verifycertificate	The verification certificate of the server. Default: `Disabled`

Use the POP3 monitor configuration parameters to define service tests.

Regular expression matching

You can perform a regular expression search on the information being downloaded by entering up to 50 different regular expressions. The monitor attempts to match the contents retrieved to each of the regular expressions.

If a match for a specified regular expression is found, the matched lines (or as much as can fit in the monitor’s internal buffer) are returned in the corresponding $regexpMatchn element. If the regular expression matches more than once in the information downloaded, only the first match is returned. The status of each regular expression test is indicated by the $regexpStatusn elements. You can use the regular expression matches and their status information as criteria for service level classifications.

For information about regular expression syntax, see Table 3.

Monitor elements

In addition to the test results common to all elements, the POP3 monitor generates a set of test results containing data specific to POP3 service tests.

Table 1 describes the additional elements for the POP3 monitor.

Elements indicated by an asterisk (*) are available as attributes. The names of the attributes are shown within brackets. Absence of an asterisk indicates there’s no equivalent attribute. Attributes shown in bracket but without an element indicate that they are only available as attributes, there’s no equivalent element.

Table 3. IMAP4 monitor elements
Element	Description
`$authentication`	The type of user authentication method required by the IMAP4 server (Standard or CRAM-MD5).
`$bytesPerSec`	The average number of bytes transferred each second.
`$bytesTransferred`	The number of bytes uploaded or downloaded.
`$connectTime`	The time taken to connect to the IMAP4 server.
$downloadTime* (`DownloadTime`)	The time taken to download the file.
`$hopCount`	The number of hosts the message hopped through to reach the mailbox.
`$inEvent`	Indicates that this event is part of a series of events. `1` indicates that it isn’t the final event, `0` indicates that it’s the final event.
`$lookupTime*`(`LookupTime`)	The time taken to obtain the IP address of the host server.
`$port*`(`Port`)	The port on which the service is monitored.
`$responseTime*` (`ResponseTime`)	The time between when the connection is established and the first byte of data is received.
`$security`	The type of secure connection opened with the mail server specified when adding an IMAP element (`NONE`, `STARTTLS` or `SSL`).
`$sentTo*`(`SentTo`)	The email address used by the SMTP monitor to send the original message.
`$smtpServer`	The name of the SMTP server from which the email was sent.
`$SSLHandshakeTime*` (`SslHandshakeTime`)	The time taken to establish the SSL connection.
`$timeToDeliver`	The time taken for an email message to travel between an SMTP monitor and its destination mailbox.
`$user*`(`ImapUser`)	The username (account name) used by the monitor to log in to the IMAP4 server.

Status message

The POP3 monitor provides status messages in the ResultMessage attribute when using IBM® Application Performance Management. These messages indicate the result of the test.

The following table describes the POP3 status messages.

Table 4. POP3 monitor status messages
Message	Description
`Message successfully downloaded`	The POP3 request was successful.
`Downloaded x messages`	Indicates how many messages were downloaded from the mailbox.
`Timed out waiting to read/write`	A data connection to the server was established, but it has stopped responding.
`Connection closed by foreign host`	The remote host closed the connection before the monitor expected.
`Connection failed`	The monitor failed to connect to the server. See the log file for more information.
`APOP not supported by the server`	The APOP authentication method isn’t supported by the server. Use the Standard authentication type instead.
`APOP service not available`	The APOP server implementation isn’t supported by the monitor. Use the Standard authentication type instead.
`Server does not support STLS capability`	The server doesn’t support `STARTTLS`. Use a different security type.

Properties

Properties specific to the POP3 monitor are described in the following table.

Table 5. POP3 monitor properties and command-line options
Property name	Property parameter	Description
`SSLCertificate File`	string	The path and filename of the digital certificate file used if no certificate is explicitly specified for a POP3 element during its creation. If the path isn’t absolute, the monitor interprets it relative to the working directory (`$ISHOME/platform/arch/bin`).
`SSLCipherSuite`	string	The cipher suite to use for SSL operations. Default: `RC4:3DES:DES:+EXP`. See Cipher suites for a description of the possible values.
`SSLDisableTLS`	integer	Disables TLSv1 for legacy support. Default: `0` - TLSv1 is enabled. Set to `1` to disable TLSv1.
`SSLKeyFile`	string	The file containing the SSL private key.
`SSLKeyPassword`	string	The password used to encrypt the SSL private key.

Cipher suites: The SSLCipherSuite property specifies the cipher suite used by the POP3 monitor. For more information about SSL settings, see SSL setting in Internet Service Monitoring.