SSL problem... SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:unknown protocol

["Martin v. Löwis"]

John Reese wrote:
> Morning.  I've been running into an error message pertaining to SSL
> that I don't understand, and I was hoping someone had some insight.
> Gmail provides POP access over SSL on port 587, so I tried to use
> poplib.POP_SSL, with the following results:
[...]
> socket.sslerror: (1, 'error:140770FC:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:unknown protocol')
> 
> 
> Any suggestions or insight?

It appears that pop.gmail.com *doesn't* provide SSL on port 587.

martin at mira:~/doc$ telnet pop.gmail.com 587
Trying 64.233.185.111...
Connected to pop.gmail.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mx.gmail.com ESMTP 13sm5173422wrl

This rather looks like an unencrypted SMTP connection to me. Indeed,
port 587 is the mail submission protocol.

Regards,
Martin