on 1/16/02 10:16 AM, HENDERSON, Roy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I would like to be able to maintain ( ie create or delete ) POP3 accounts > via PHP but my ISP says this cannot be done. > > I find this confusing since they provide me a PHP-based control panel which > I use to do this manually ...
first, this is _totally_ doable--heck, they're already doing it with the control panel--but that isn't to say they should necessarily let you have direct access. it's really a function of how the ISP has their end setup. some POP accounts are real accounts on a box and you'd have to mess with /etc/passwd. not something ISP's like their customers doing :) essentially, they'd have to write an API for you to base your code on and leave a port open on a box somewhere listening for requests from you. this could take lots of time to create (which isp's don't have) and be a possible security nightmare. on the other hand, a progressive ISP who had their act together and a competent php programmer could probably get this to work. note that most solutions i've seen to this problem don't actually let you mess with anything directly. you basically end up creating a file (or making an entry in a database) that gets picked up by a cron job the ISP runs and they actually 'do the work'. this adds a little delay between you sending the request and when the cron job runs. but is a pretty cool solution. probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but i've lived on both sides of this fence :) mike -- mike cullerton michaelc at cullerton dot com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
