Re: emacs MUAs with working smtp authentication?

[Phillip Lord <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk>]

>>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

  >> From: "Bill White" <minutiae@gmail.com> Date: 29 Aug 2006
  >> 21:28:54 -0700
  >> 
  >> Are there any emacs-based MUAs that handle smtp authentication
  >> more or less "out of the box" with the setting of a few
  >> clearly-documented variables?  If so, can you point me to the
  >> documentation?
  >> 
  >> I'm using cvs emacs from this afternoon.

  Eli> I might misunderstand what you mean by ``smtp authentication'',
  Eli> but it seems to me that smtpmail.el is what you are looking
  Eli> for.

  Eli> If smtpmail doesn't fit the bill, please tell what's missing
  Eli> there.


Eli

I've been having the same problems. Quite a few people have been
having problems with setting up smtpmail to use authentication and
encryption. 

I think that part of the problem is the protocol, part the
documentation, part of the problem is the lack of good defaults within
the code. Finally, part of the difficulty is that, as far as I can
tell, it just doesn't work on windows.


First, the protocol. SMTP uses tls for encryption. smtpmail uses
gnutls to support this. Why smtp can't use an SSL layer, as IMAP (and
most other things) does I don't know. Still, there is little that can
be done about this. No doubt there are reasons that I am unaware of --
network/mail protocols are something I know little about. 

Second, the defaults. To use TLS, you have to reconfigure things like
the ports manually, and have to do so in multiple places. So, for
example, from the smtpmail documentation.....


;;(setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it) ; if you use `mail'
;;(setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it) ; if you use message/Gnus
;;(setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "YOUR SMTP HOST")
;;(setq smtpmail-local-domain "YOUR DOMAIN NAME")
;;(setq smtpmail-sendto-domain "YOUR DOMAIN NAME")
;;(setq smtpmail-debug-info t) ; only to debug problems
;;(setq smtpmail-auth-credentials  ; or use ~/.authinfo
;;      '(("YOUR SMTP HOST" 25 "username" "password")))
;;(setq smtpmail-starttls-credentials
;;      '(("YOUR SMTP HOST" 25 "~/.my_smtp_tls.key" "~/.my_smtp_tls.cert")))




Now authentication mail often uses a different port. So you have to
change this. But this is done in smtpmail-smtp-service. The 25's in
auth-credentials are only used to determine which credentials should
be used. Confusing. I don't know what the standards are, but most mail
readers you just click "SSL/TLS encryption" and the ports get set, or
guessed, automatically. 


Third, the documentation. Take...

;;(setq smtpmail-starttls-credentials
;;      '(("YOUR SMTP HOST" 25 "~/.my_smtp_tls.key" "~/.my_smtp_tls.cert")))


So, whats .my_smtp_tls.key then? Where does it come from? How do I get
it? Can I use gnutls to generate it? I have no idea at all. Further
investigation suggests that actually you can leave this blank, and it
should still work. 

Finally, it doesn't seem to work on windows. I spent three hours with
a debugger a couple of days ago -- I figured this was the only way to
see if I had the configuration right. It appears that starttls.el uses
Unix specific process handling, so won't work with NTEmacs.

At the moment, I have access to a non TLS based stream, but this isn't
going to last for ever. I suspect that many people are in the same
boat. 

Cheers

Phil