NAME

recorder - IMAP connection recorder

SYNOPSIS

/usr/local/sbin/recorder srcport address destport file

DESCRIPTION

The recorder program relays data between an IMAP client and server, and records the session in a format which allows the Archiveopteryx developers to replay and analyse it later.

If you have problems getting archiveopteryx(8) to work with a particular IMAP client, you can make the client connect to the recorder, instead of directly to imapd, and recorder will produce a transcript of the IMAP session. If the client opens more than one connection, recorder stores more than one file.

The file format is pure ASCII and can be edited. We suggest that you edit out your password, then send the rest to info@aox.org and we may be able to find out what's happening.

We have debug tools that can replay the connection, so we can fix any bugs on the server's side. In some cases, we can also add the file to our regression tests, so we can be sure that new versions of archiveopteryx(8) do not have the same error.

EXAMPLE

To intercept and record traffic to the IMAP server on 192.0.2.17 and place a record of the connections in files called /tmp/bugreport* you can do the following:

Disable TLS

recorder does not work when TLS is being used. (To TLS, a tool like recorder looks like a man-in-the-middle attack.)

To disable TLS, set the variable use-tls to disabled in /usr/local/etc/archiveopteryx/archiveopteryx.conf (see the archiveopteryx.conf(5) man page for more information.)

Restart Archiveopteryx

The change to use-tls only takes effect when you restart Archiveopteryx, e.g. by issuing the following command:

: /usr/local/libexec/aox/archiveopteryx restart

Start recorder

To make recorder listen on port 1430 and forward connections to the real server on port 143:

: /usr/local/sbin/recorder 1430 192.0.2.17 143 /tmp/bugreport

Connect to recorder

With the IMAP client, you connect to port 1430 on this host instead of the real server, and work as usual. Please don't do much more than is necessary to reproduce the problem, because it makes the bugreport files grow very large.

Stop: Just hit Control-C to stop recorder when you're done. The files called /tmp/bugreport* contain the IMAP session transcripts.
Remove passwords: Please edit the files to remove any passwords or other confidential data. If you can, don't change the number of words or bytes. It's best to change all the letters in passwords and confidential words to 'x'.

That's it. Now you can send an excellent bug report to info@aox.org.

AUTHOR

The Archiveopteryx Developers, info@aox.org.

VERSION

This man page covers Archiveopteryx version 3.2.0, released 2013-12-02, http://archiveopteryx.org/3.1.3