# POP3 Authentication with CRAM-MD5
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 23, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697 "2016-07-23T21:46:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@hexa](https://meta.discourse.org/u/hexa)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697/1 "2016-07-23T21:46:17Z")
Hi,
it’s me again, from [CRAM-MD5 Authentication for mail](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cram-md5-authentication-for-mail/47442).
I now need to authenticate to POP3 with CRAM-MD5, but the configuration does not expose that option.
```plaintext
2016-07-23 23:37:48 pop3-login: Info: Disconnected (tried to use unsupported auth mechanism): user=<>, method=PLAIN, rip=82.*.*.*, lip=78.*.*.*, TLS, TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)
```
Best regards, hexa
---
### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2016, 11:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697/2 "2016-07-24T23:37:52Z")
I think you’re doomed this time. I can’t even find support for CRAM-MD5 in the `Net::POP3` class which Discourse uses, let alone any way to configure it within Discourse. As an added bonus, there don’t appear to be a thundering herd of alternate POP3 libraries for Ruby which we could switch to to provide CRAM-MD5 support.
Short of you doing a lot of coding to add CRAM-MD5 support to `Net::POP3`, and providing a patch to Discourse to add a tickbox to use that support, I think you’re out of luck here.
Alternately, do you have the ability to forward e-mails sent to your incoming address(es) to another MTA? I’m on the hook for a blog post (and associated docker container) about how to do direct-delivery incoming e-mail (obviating the need for POP3 polling at all); if that would work for you, I’ll get that post out ASAP and you can switch to that.
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### Author:  [@hexa](https://meta.discourse.org/u/hexa)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697/3 "2016-07-25T00:01:52Z")
> [@mpalmer](#):
>
> Alternately, do you have the ability to forward e-mails sent to your incoming address(es) to another MTA? I’m on the hook for a blog post (and associated docker container) about how to do direct-delivery incoming e-mail (obviating the need for POP3 polling at all); if that would work for you, I’ll get that post out ASAP and you can switch to that.
Yeah, sure. That sounds great!
---
### Author:  [@andir0815](https://meta.discourse.org/u/andir0815)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 12:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697/4 "2016-08-23T00:13:30Z")
Hey, did you have a chance to write up how to do that yet? I’d like to get that setup as well.
andi-
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### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2016, 12:21am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697/5 "2016-08-23T00:21:04Z")
No, I haven’t written that up yet. Rest assured it’s still on the todo list, now with two votes next to it. 😀
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### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2016, 11:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697/6 "2016-08-31T11:04:26Z")
For anyone who is interested (and a little bit daring), the direct-delivery construction kit is now available for your amusement. Documentation in [this howto topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/straightforward-direct-delivery-incoming-mail/49487/1).
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697/7 "2019-03-01T20:00:19Z")
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2019, 10:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/pop3-authentication-with-cram-md5/47697/8 "2019-03-03T22:18:19Z")