Server in Thunderbird ?

[Erdemal]

When I launch Thunderbird, the mail CLIENT asks to be allowed to access the internet; this is OK. But a SERVER wants to access the internet too ??? I block it. Is it normal ???

[old Neil Parks]

Are you using Zone Alarm? In my experience, any time a pgm has asked for server access I've always said no, and the pgm seems to work just fine anyway.

[Erdemal]

Yes, I use Zone Alarm and Mozilla Thunderbird 0.3 (20031013)

I blocked the server that thunderbird wants to access the internet ! But I wonder why
Thunderbird has a Server build in ? A mailer is a client :)

My question is : IS IT NORMAL ?

I confess that I dont fully RTFM

Thnaks for fast reply

[mikeymike]

I'd put bets on the 'server' is the two ports that Firebird/Thunderbird/Mozilla opens, one listening to the other (and not to the outside world, but something as cack as ZoneAlarm would still complain). Further guessing makes me think those are for passing almost RPC type messages.

Get a command prompt up, and do "netstat -na" (minus quotes)

Example of what I'd expect:

TCP 127.0.0.1:3835 127.0.0.1:3836 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:3836 127.0.0.1:3835 ESTABLISHED

127.0.0.1 is an 'alias' address for your local machine. If stuff listens on that address, it can't be picked up by any other machine, as every TCP/IP stack has that alias address referring to itself.

I can't give you a full lesson on understanding netstat output as it requires a greater understanding of TCP/IP.

[Guest]

Why does thunderbird open two local tcp ports and listen to them?