Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Chris Hall]

I'm sure this is probably already really old news, but I've spent over
12 hours on this already (though I have learned a lot - mostly good).

I've been using Emacs 20.7 for a years, vm and smtpmail for a couple.
Got 'em, installed 'em, configured 'em and ran 'em.  No problem, maybe
a couple of hours max on the mail-related portions, happy as a clam.

Switched ISP's a while back, requires SMTP AUTH, I had been using
other mail clients, they no problem w/SMTP AUTH.

Decided to switch back to vm, 'cuz whatever its faults, it being in
Emacs means a lot me.

Now the problem: SMTP AUTH not supported.  Upgrade vm.  No luck, check
the web, upgrade sendmail.el, smtpmail.el (from e-mails) and started
getting 'mail-envelope-from' 'Symbol definition void'.  Checked some
more, played w/various nil/non-nil 'use-mail-envelope'-like settings -
no change in behavior, at all. It seems, from what I've found (via
Google mostly) that there _were_ maybe a series of problems along
these lines?

Found some patches, from COMMITs and the like - none of 'em would even
apply on any of the versions of sendmail.el/smtpmail.el that I had on
my box.  I was especially interested in the couple that actually
*defined* a function 'mail-envelope-from'.

Read the sources for sendmail.el/smtpmail.el, manual for vm: it's got
to be in my .emacs, at this point I figuring, right?  Well, I sure
can't seem to find it.

BTW, I don't what I am doing wrong, but I have had less luck trying to
find a free-standing version of sendmail.el/smtpmail.el, current or
otherwise than any other file I have searched for in the last six
years.  Though there should be 29-49 versions, depending on which patch
I was looking at.

One sure way though, right?  Though not what anybody would exactly
call 'freestanding': last night, I grabbed the Emacs 21.2 sources from
gnu.org, built me the latest and greatest (stable - I think stable is
great in my 'hammer'.) (I thought I liked Emacs *before*!)  and sure
enough : new copies of sendmail.el/smtpmail.el!

With either the same exact 'bug'/behavior, or one displaying exactly
the same symptoms, i.e., error message.  And, vm won't initialize the
first time: some frickin silly back-trace at this point, (and I have
left out various twiddles in .emacs, C-h v's, 'set-variables', so on)
I'm losing steam.  Vm initalizes on the second try in the same Emacs
session, but the purty toolbar icons are gone, now just mere
rectangular outlines. But vm reads any mail sitting on my ISPs box,
and everything else seems normal enough, I can at least read my mail,
which is OK - mice are more distraction than truly useful, don't much
care about the icons, in my view.  Though those icons sure are purty.

Losin enthusiam, too - Sylpheed is looking like it wasn't so bad 
after all.

I would much appreciate any suggestions as to which tree I should be 
barking up.


+Chris Hall

-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
-- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and 4th President
"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good 
sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses." 
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81 

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Kai Großjohann]

The smtpmail.el in Emacs 21.2 does not support SMTP AUTH.  Simon
Josefsson has a patch on his web site.

The patch is part of the development version of Emacs and will be in
Emacs 21.4, I think.  (21.3 will be just a bugfix release.)
-- 
Ambibibentists unite!

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Kevin Rodgers]

There is no reference to envelope-from in the emacs-20.7/lisp/mail/*.el files.

The only AUTH patch I've seen is explicitly against the emacs-20.4/lisp/mail/
smtpmail.el file:

From: Andrew Innes <andrewi@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: smtpmail and login to server
Date: 05 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <uvh58lbib.fsf@gnu.org>
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help

It requires you to set/customize smtpmail-auth-login-username.  Is that
variable defined in your Emacs?  Did you recompile and reinstall smtpmail.el
and/or sendmail.el after you patched them?

The above patch didn't make it into 20.7, so perhaps it will still apply to a
clean 20.7 distribution.

-- 
<a href="mailto:&lt;kevin.rodgers&#64;ihs.com&gt;">Kevin Rodgers</a>

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>]

>>>>> "Chris" == Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:
> Switched ISP's a while back, requires SMTP AUTH, I had been using
> other mail clients, they no problem w/SMTP AUTH.

Could anybody give me the skinny about "why would an ISP require SMTP AUTH" ?


        Stefan

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Martin Stemplinger]

On Di Jan 28 2003 at 13:22, Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> wrote:

> Now the problem: SMTP AUTH not supported.  Upgrade vm.  No luck, check
> the web, upgrade sendmail.el, smtpmail.el (from e-mails) and started
> getting 'mail-envelope-from' 'Symbol definition void'.  Checked some
> more, played w/various nil/non-nil 'use-mail-envelope'-like settings -
> no change in behavior, at all. It seems, from what I've found (via
> Google mostly) that there _were_ maybe a series of problems along
> these lines?
>

I fetched smtpmail.el from CVS and also experienced the problem with
the void symbol 'mail-envelope-from'. After some fiddling around I
just commented the line 

(envelope-from (mail-envelope-from))

out in the function 'smtpmail-via-smtp'.

It works fine since (Emacs 21.2 on Windows XP).

Hope this helps
Martin

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Chris Hall]

Thanks, I will be trying that!

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 11:13:27 -0700
Kevin Rodgers <kevin.rodgers@ihs.com> wrote:

> There is no reference to envelope-from in the
> emacs-20.7/lisp/mail/*.el files.
> 
> The only AUTH patch I've seen is explicitly against the
> emacs-20.4/lisp/mail/ smtpmail.el file:
> 
> From: Andrew Innes <andrewi@gnu.org>
> Subject: Re: smtpmail and login to server
> Date: 05 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT
> Message-ID: <uvh58lbib.fsf@gnu.org>
> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
> 
> It requires you to set/customize smtpmail-auth-login-username.  Is
> that variable defined in your Emacs?  Did you recompile and reinstall
> smtpmail.el and/or sendmail.el after you patched them?
> 
> The above patch didn't make it into 20.7, so perhaps it will still
> apply to a clean 20.7 distribution.
> 
> -- 
> <a href="mailto:&lt;kevin.rodgers&#64;ihs.com&gt;">Kevin Rodgers</a>
> 


-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
-- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and 4th President
"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good 
sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses." 
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81 

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Chris Hall]

Thanks, I think a least one of the patches I got the other night was his
- I clearly remember the name.  I'm going to try this one first.  But
not tonight!

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:12:56 +0100
kai.grossjohann@uni-duisburg.de (Kai Großjohann) wrote:

> The smtpmail.el in Emacs 21.2 does not support SMTP AUTH.  Simon
> Josefsson has a patch on his web site.
> 
> The patch is part of the development version of Emacs and will be in
> Emacs 21.4, I think.  (21.3 will be just a bugfix release.)
> -- 
> Ambibibentists unite!


-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
-- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and 4th President
"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good 
sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses." 
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81 

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Chris Hall]

Um, so not anyone can send mail through them?  Dunno, really.  Could be
a good point.  Though the last couple of places I've worked ahve
required it, as well.

On 28 Jan 2003 14:06:49 -0500
"Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>"
<monnier+gnu.emacs.help/news/@flint.cs.yale.edu> wrote:

> >>>>> "Chris" == Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:
> > Switched ISP's a while back, requires SMTP AUTH, I had been using
> > other mail clients, they no problem w/SMTP AUTH.
> 
> Could anybody give me the skinny about "why would an ISP require SMTP
> AUTH" ?
> 
> 
>         Stefan


-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
-- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and 4th President
"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good 
sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses." 
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81 

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Chris Hall]

I'm pretty sure I found my problem - I had a 'mailaddress.el' lurking in
my load-path: custom one-liner I got out of a newgroup about 3 years
ago, and stuck in a site-lisp dir I had long forgotten about.  I
re-checked it them many times in the last couple of days (nights,
really), but found it tonight, mv'd it, and voila! Baaaad message gone!

Thanks though, I did tried your suggestion (there were *two*
references), then I started reading the code, then I decided it really
probably was my fault somehow, and decided I'd better be able to prove
it wasn't before I started complaining further.

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 21:19:39 +0100
Martin Stemplinger <mstemplinger@gmx.de> wrote:

> On Di Jan 28 2003 at 13:22, Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> wrote:
> 
> > Now the problem: SMTP AUTH not supported.  Upgrade vm.  No luck,
> > check the web, upgrade sendmail.el, smtpmail.el (from e-mails) and
> > started getting 'mail-envelope-from' 'Symbol definition void'. 
> > Checked some more, played w/various nil/non-nil
> > 'use-mail-envelope'-like settings - no change in behavior, at all.
> > It seems, from what I've found (via Google mostly) that there _were_
> > maybe a series of problems along these lines?
> >
> 
> I fetched smtpmail.el from CVS and also experienced the problem with
> the void symbol 'mail-envelope-from'. After some fiddling around I
> just commented the line 
> 
> (envelope-from (mail-envelope-from))
> 
> out in the function 'smtpmail-via-smtp'.
> 
> It works fine since (Emacs 21.2 on Windows XP).
> 
> Hope this helps
> Martin


-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
-- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and 4th President
"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good 
sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses." 
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81 

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Chris Hall]

Thanks for all the feedback - it proved to be just what I needed.

Baaad message gone!  Icons not as purty as when I only glimpsed them for
a second!

It seems I found the problem, and my .emacs has received a long overdue
inspection and clean-up.

It seems that 21.2 incorporates a surprising amount of what were
previously my favorite add-ons.  (Yay! No more checking for updates
when things seem funny!) I read the change notices for 21.2 (boy did
that take a while!) and started yanking everything 21.2 had sucked in:
speedbar, EUDC, and a few others.

But, I think the real culprit was a one-liner 'mailaddress.el' that I
somehow missed during my repeated wanderings down the load-path the last
couple of nights - it was in a site-lisp/ I had forgotten about, and
thought was gone.

Stop me if you've heard this one:
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller!  (I also read JOKES for the
first time)

Thanks everyone, or as we say here in Hawaii: Mahalo!

Next stop: SMTP AUTH patch!

(I would have used gnus to respond, but I'm too tired to remember how to
display 'read' message. G'nite.)


-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
-- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and 4th President
"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good 
sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses." 
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81 

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Simon Josefsson]

Martin Stemplinger <mstemplinger@gmx.de> writes:

> On Di Jan 28 2003 at 13:22, Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Now the problem: SMTP AUTH not supported.  Upgrade vm.  No luck, check
>> the web, upgrade sendmail.el, smtpmail.el (from e-mails) and started
>> getting 'mail-envelope-from' 'Symbol definition void'.  Checked some
>> more, played w/various nil/non-nil 'use-mail-envelope'-like settings -
>> no change in behavior, at all. It seems, from what I've found (via
>> Google mostly) that there _were_ maybe a series of problems along
>> these lines?
>>
>
> I fetched smtpmail.el from CVS and also experienced the problem with
> the void symbol 'mail-envelope-from'. After some fiddling around I
> just commented the line 
>
> (envelope-from (mail-envelope-from))
>
> out in the function 'smtpmail-via-smtp'.
>
> It works fine since (Emacs 21.2 on Windows XP).

If you use smtpmail.el from CVS, you also need sendmail.el from CVS.

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Simon Josefsson]

"Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>" <monnier+gnu.emacs.help/news/@flint.cs.yale.edu> writes:

>>>>>> "Chris" == Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:
>> Switched ISP's a while back, requires SMTP AUTH, I had been using
>> other mail clients, they no problem w/SMTP AUTH.
>
> Could anybody give me the skinny about "why would an ISP require SMTP AUTH" ?

Isn't the answer the same as why authentication is required it all, in
any protocol?

If you are thinking that ISPs should use IP based ACLs to allow
relaying for their customers, it's not going to work with todays
computer habits (people travel with their laptop and expect the mail
server to continue to work).

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>]

>> Could anybody give me the skinny about "why would an ISP require SMTP AUTH"?
> Isn't the answer the same as why authentication is required it all, in
> any protocol?

I'd only buy that if its use were systematic, which it obviously isn't.

> If you are thinking that ISPs should use IP based ACLs to allow
> relaying for their customers, it's not going to work with todays
> computer habits (people travel with their laptop and expect the mail
> server to continue to work).

By "laptop" you mean "those things with small screens and shallow
keyboards"?  I must admit I don't know enough of how those things work
when you try to use the Internet away from home (or office).
But it seems you'll need to get your IP from some ISP which is responsible
for routing to/from your IP and which has a mail server which you should
be able to use (like you probably use their DNS server).  And given such
a context, it seems that IP-based authentication would be pretty safe
for SMTP.


        Stefan

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Kai Großjohann]

"Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>" <monnier+gnu.emacs.help/news/@flint.cs.yale.edu> writes:

> By "laptop" you mean "those things with small screens and shallow
> keyboards"?  I must admit I don't know enough of how those things work
> when you try to use the Internet away from home (or office).
> But it seems you'll need to get your IP from some ISP which is responsible
> for routing to/from your IP and which has a mail server which you should
> be able to use (like you probably use their DNS server).  And given such
> a context, it seems that IP-based authentication would be pretty safe
> for SMTP.

To use a different mail server, you have to frob the config of your
mail client.  To frob the mail client config, you have to know which
is the right mail server to use.

All this is true for, say, the DNS server, as well.  But in that
case, DHCP can tell you about it, or the M$ extension to PPP.  But
there is no protocol in widespread use that would tell you which SMTP
server to use.

Isn't it much more convenient to send those SMTP packets round the
world a couple of times and thus to avoid changing your MUA config?
-- 
Ambibibentists unite!

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>]

>>>>> "Kai" == Kai Großjohann <kai.grossjohann@uni-duisburg.de> writes:
> All this is true for, say, the DNS server, as well.  But in that
> case, DHCP can tell you about it, or the M$ extension to PPP.  But
> there is no protocol in widespread use that would tell you which SMTP
> server to use.

I'd have thought that by now DHCP could seamlessly
pass info about SMTP server, HTTP proxy, ...

> Isn't it much more convenient to send those SMTP packets round the
> world a couple of times and thus to avoid changing your MUA config?

"Every networking problem can be solved by another round around the globe"


        Stefan


PS: Thanks for "the skinny".

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Simon Josefsson]

"Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>" <monnier+gnu.emacs.help/news/@flint.cs.yale.edu> writes:

>>> Could anybody give me the skinny about "why would an ISP require SMTP AUTH"?
>> Isn't the answer the same as why authentication is required it all, in
>> any protocol?
>
> I'd only buy that if its use were systematic, which it obviously isn't.

It takes time for people to realize that authentication is required.
Few of the old Internet protocols included authentication from the
start.

>> If you are thinking that ISPs should use IP based ACLs to allow
>> relaying for their customers, it's not going to work with todays
>> computer habits (people travel with their laptop and expect the mail
>> server to continue to work).
>
> By "laptop" you mean "those things with small screens and shallow
> keyboards"?

Yes.

> I must admit I don't know enough of how those things work when you
> try to use the Internet away from home (or office).  But it seems
> you'll need to get your IP from some ISP which is responsible for
> routing to/from your IP and which has a mail server which you should
> be able to use (like you probably use their DNS server).  And given
> such a context, it seems that IP-based authentication would be
> pretty safe for SMTP.

Ordinary users doesn't know about IP addresses and forgets about the
SMTP server after configuring it once.  One might think that DHCP
could set the SMTP server address as it does the DNS server address,
but there are practical problems: You cannot easily abuse a DNS server
as a client, but you can very easily abuse a SMTP server as a client
(spam).  Just because people with their laptops get their IP from an
ISP doesn't mean that the ISP know whom that person is, or know how to
sue her when she sends spam through their network.  If people route
their stuff via their home, it is not the ISPs problem any more.

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>]

> but there are practical problems: You cannot easily abuse a DNS server
> as a client, but you can very easily abuse a SMTP server as a client
> (spam).  Just because people with their laptops get their IP from an
> ISP doesn't mean that the ISP know whom that person is, or know how to
> sue her when she sends spam through their network.  If people route
> their stuff via their home, it is not the ISPs problem any more.

To get an IP number from an ISP, you already need some kind of
authentication, as far as I can see.  There are plenty of nasty things you
can do with an access to the internet other than spam (think SQL worm) and
they should be able to trace that back to you as well.


        Stefan

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Martin Stemplinger]

On Mi Jan 29 2003 at 18:25, Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> wrote:

> If you use smtpmail.el from CVS, you also need sendmail.el from CVS.

I don't know if this is evil but it works with just the replaced
smtpmail.el. Why do you recommend using sendmail.el also?

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Simon Josefsson]

Martin Stemplinger <mstemplinger@gmx.de> writes:

> On Mi Jan 29 2003 at 18:25, Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> wrote:
>
>> If you use smtpmail.el from CVS, you also need sendmail.el from CVS.
>
> I don't know if this is evil but it works with just the replaced
> smtpmail.el. Why do you recommend using sendmail.el also?

smtpmail.el calls a function `mail-envelope-from' which is defined in
sendmail.el.  But if it works for you, I don't suggest changing
anything.

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail and vm

[Simon Josefsson]

"Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com>" <monnier+gnu.emacs.help/news/@flint.cs.yale.edu> writes:

>> but there are practical problems: You cannot easily abuse a DNS server
>> as a client, but you can very easily abuse a SMTP server as a client
>> (spam).  Just because people with their laptops get their IP from an
>> ISP doesn't mean that the ISP know whom that person is, or know how to
>> sue her when she sends spam through their network.  If people route
>> their stuff via their home, it is not the ISPs problem any more.
>
> To get an IP number from an ISP, you already need some kind of
> authentication, as far as I can see.  There are plenty of nasty things you
> can do with an access to the internet other than spam (think SQL worm) and
> they should be able to trace that back to you as well.

True, but many ISP business cases are based on not having to identify
the individual user (e.g. public access Internet in various restricted
areas), so they try to get away with what they can.  People are aware
of how spam works, so by easing spamming they kill their own business.
Of course, anyone in the know can spam or inject SQL worms anyway, so
SMTP authentication will not prevent spam perfectly, nor would
requiring identity cards of everyone using the Internet everywhere
solve the SQL worm problem.

But maybe we are drifting off-topic...

Emacs 21.2, smtpmail, and vm

[Chris Hall]

I'm baaaack!

Well, after many more hours futzin' around with smtpmail and vm in my
beeeyoootiful new Emacs 21.2, I *still* can't get it work, but I do
have some feedback on the recent CVS version of smtpmail, if anyone is
interested.

BTW, 1) I am *not* what anyone would proficient in elisp, but I do
have a some degree of familiarity with it, 2) I'm a bit curious as to
why elisp CVS files don't contain their version - I got the most
recent version of sendmail and smtpmail 3 or 4 nights ago.

Situation : my ISP requires AUTH LOGIN PLAIN.  I use VM as my mail
reader.  I can read my mail no problem.  Sending it though . . .

If I set smtpmail-auth-credentials as specified in the smtpmail
preface comments, '("smtp hostname" 25 "username" "passord")'
smtpmail-try-auth-methods won't find *any* credentials, and
immediately sends 'MAIL FROM:' to my ISP, which then says
'authorization required', and closes the connection.

If I set credentials to a .netrc file (!) (after of course returning
to CVS, getting a copy of netrc.el and putting it in my load-path), I
get prompted for a password, even though it is already in .netrc, and
authentication proceeds - the smtp trace buffer shows the base64
exchange between vm and my ISP.

smtpmail then blows off with an argument mismatch somewhere in
smtpmail-try-auth-methods : 'smtpmail-try-auth-methods: Wrong type
argument : stringp, nil'.

So close!

FWIW, I commented out the last step in smtpmail-try-auth-methods (save
the password) and still got the same error.

My friends are irritated with me - I have spent so much time on this
(well, mail systems and RFCs in general too, to be honest), that I
have been neglecting our server, so I'll try again maybe in a week or
two.  (They don't seem to find mail systems nearly as interesting as I
have lately.)

Or not: I can successfully mail to our server using vm/smtpmail (over
port-forwarded ssh, of course!), and I think I'll set up our Postfix
to relay appropriate mail to my ISP. And maybe have my ISP forward my
mail to our server.

And Simon, if you read this, I tried the patched version from your
website: it didn't seem to support AUTH LOGIN, only AUTH CRAM-MD5,
though the CVS version I'm using now does.

-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual
warfare."  -- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and
4th President "My confidence is that there will for a long time be
virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses."
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail, and vm

[Kai Großjohann]

Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:

> If I set smtpmail-auth-credentials as specified in the smtpmail
> preface comments, '("smtp hostname" 25 "username" "passord")'
> smtpmail-try-auth-methods won't find *any* credentials, and
> immediately sends 'MAIL FROM:' to my ISP, which then says
> 'authorization required', and closes the connection.

I think it should be a list of such lists, like so:

(setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
      '( ("host" 25 "user" "passwd")
         ("anotherhost"25 "otheruser" "verysecret") ))

-- 
A turnip curses Elvis

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail, and vm

[Simon Josefsson]

Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:

> If I set smtpmail-auth-credentials as specified in the smtpmail
> preface comments, '("smtp hostname" 25 "username" "passord")'
> smtpmail-try-auth-methods won't find *any* credentials, and
> immediately sends 'MAIL FROM:' to my ISP, which then says
> 'authorization required', and closes the connection.

What does C-h v on the variable tell?  The setting you quote seem
incorrect.  If you are unsure about what the variable should contain,
I suggest using M-x customize-variable RET smtpmail-auth-credentials
RET.

> If I set credentials to a .netrc file (!) (after of course returning
> to CVS, getting a copy of netrc.el and putting it in my load-path), I
> get prompted for a password, even though it is already in .netrc, and
> authentication proceeds - the smtp trace buffer shows the base64
> exchange between vm and my ISP.

What did the .netrc line look like?  Maybe you need to add "port smtp".

> smtpmail then blows off with an argument mismatch somewhere in
> smtpmail-try-auth-methods : 'smtpmail-try-auth-methods: Wrong type
> argument : stringp, nil'.

M-x toggle-debug-on-error RET to get the full backtrace.

> And Simon, if you read this, I tried the patched version from your
> website: it didn't seem to support AUTH LOGIN, only AUTH CRAM-MD5,
> though the CVS version I'm using now does.

The web site version is for older emacsen, it is always better to try
with the CVS version if you are interested in reporting your findings.

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail, and vm

[Chris Hall]

On Mon, 03 Feb 2003 09:25:45 +0100
kai.grossjohann@uni-duisburg.de (Kai Großjohann) wrote:

> Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:
> 
> > If I set smtpmail-auth-credentials as specified in the smtpmail
> > preface comments, '("smtp hostname" 25 "username" "passord")'
> > smtpmail-try-auth-methods won't find *any* credentials, and
> > immediately sends 'MAIL FROM:' to my ISP, which then says
> > 'authorization required', and closes the connection.
> 
> I think it should be a list of such lists, like so:
> 
> (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
>       '( ("host" 25 "user" "passwd")
>          ("anotherhost"25 "otheruser" "verysecret") ))
> 
> -- 
> A turnip curses Elvis

Thanks, kai.  I tried that, too, but with one list element as a
filename, like the comments in the file suggested, thinking it would use
the first match it found, and go through the list in order.  Which it
did, but the issue isn't there - it is in the code reading the list, it
seems to me, after the debugging session?

I mean this *is* development code I got out of CVS, isn't it?


-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
-- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and 4th President
"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good 
sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses." 
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81 

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail, and vm

[Chris Hall]

On Mon, 03 Feb 2003 11:30:34 +0100
Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> wrote:

> Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:
> 
> > If I set smtpmail-auth-credentials as specified in the smtpmail
> > preface comments, '("smtp hostname" 25 "username" "passord")'
> > smtpmail-try-auth-methods won't find *any* credentials, and
> > immediately sends 'MAIL FROM:' to my ISP, which then says
> > 'authorization required', and closes the connection.
> 
> What does C-h v on the variable tell?  The setting you quote seem
> incorrect.  If you are unsure about what the variable should contain,
> I suggest using M-x customize-variable RET smtpmail-auth-credentials
> RET.

(setq smtpmail-auth-credentials  ; or use ~/.authinfo
      '(("~/.netrc")))
       ("outgoing.verizon.net" 25 "username" "password"))


> 
> > If I set credentials to a .netrc file (!) (after of course returning
> > to CVS, getting a copy of netrc.el and putting it in my load-path),
> > I get prompted for a password, even though it is already in .netrc,
> > and authentication proceeds - the smtp trace buffer shows the base64
> > exchange between vm and my ISP.
> 
> What did the .netrc line look like?  Maybe you need to add "port
> smtp".
> 
machine outgoing.verizon.net
	port smtp  <-- After I read your message. Is this the right place?
	login username
	password password

> > smtpmail then blows off with an argument mismatch somewhere in
> > smtpmail-try-auth-methods : 'smtpmail-try-auth-methods: Wrong type
> > argument : stringp, nil'.
> 
> M-x toggle-debug-on-error RET to get the full backtrace.
> 
> > And Simon, if you read this, I tried the patched version from your
> > website: it didn't seem to support AUTH LOGIN, only AUTH CRAM-MD5,
> > though the CVS version I'm using now does.
> 
> The web site version is for older emacsen, it is always better to try
> with the CVS version if you are interested in reporting your findings.

Thanks!  I can see you've been busy with it!

I haven't used the newsgroups much, but since I use free software so
much, I thought I'd try and save someone else some time, or at least
find out what I did wrong.  And I thought that since the code in CVS was
under development, that it would be OK to mention what I discovered.

I'm glad you are taking the time to implement this!

-- 
"No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
-- James Madison, Secretary of State to Mr. Jefferson, and 4th President
"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good 
sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses." 
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81 

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail, and vm

[Kai Großjohann]

Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:

> (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials  ; or use ~/.authinfo
>       '(("~/.netrc")))
>        ("outgoing.verizon.net" 25 "username" "password"))

I think there's one pair of parentheses too many around "~/.netrc".
And also, there's one closing paren too many...

Try this:

(setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
      '("~/.netrc"
        ("outgoing.verizon.net" 25 "user" "pass")))
-- 
A turnip curses Elvis

Re: Emacs 21.2, smtpmail, and vm

[Simon Josefsson]

Chris Hall <hall.cj@verizon.net> writes:

>> What does C-h v on the variable tell?  The setting you quote seem
>> incorrect.  If you are unsure about what the variable should contain,
>> I suggest using M-x customize-variable RET smtpmail-auth-credentials
>> RET.
>
> (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials  ; or use ~/.authinfo
>       '(("~/.netrc")))
>        ("outgoing.verizon.net" 25 "username" "password"))

There are two parenthesis too much, try:

(setq smtpmail-auth-credentials "~/.netrc")

Customize is your friend, it makes sure you only use valid settings.

>> > If I set credentials to a .netrc file (!) (after of course returning
>> > to CVS, getting a copy of netrc.el and putting it in my load-path),
>> > I get prompted for a password, even though it is already in .netrc,
>> > and authentication proceeds - the smtp trace buffer shows the base64
>> > exchange between vm and my ISP.
>> 
>> What did the .netrc line look like?  Maybe you need to add "port
>> smtp".
>> 
> machine outgoing.verizon.net
> 	port smtp  <-- After I read your message. Is this the right place?
> 	login username
> 	password password

It seems you must put everything on line, i.e.:

machine outgoing.verizon.net port smtp login username password password

This is probably a bug in netrc.el, your syntax looks valid according
to ftp(1).  Maybe you don't ever need the port setting.