starttls on W2k (cygwin) doesn't work

[Dr. Edmund Weitz]

Hi!

I have set up my MTA (Courier) to only accept encrypted connection and to
require authentication. From my Linux box I use GNU Emacs with Gnus and
sending mail works fine with starttls and Stephen Cranefield's and Simon
Josefsson's additions to smtpmail.el. From my W2k box it works with, cough,
cough, Outlook, but I didn't manage to make it work with NT Emacs which
would be my program of choice.

I've played around a little bit and checked several things and it looks to
me as if the problem is the (external) starttls program. It compiles under
cygwin but it doesn't seem to do what it's supposed to do. I hacked the
sources and I _think_ the problem has something to do with cygwin's
implementation of 'select' although I'm not sure. I'm not a C wizard and
I've reached a point where I'm lost.

Has anyone been able to use the combination of Windows, Emacs and starttls
successfully to send mail? Is an update of starttls (or another version
with the same functionality) available that works with cygwin or bare-bones
W2k?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Edi.

--
Dr. Edmund Weitz
Hamburg
Germany

[Simon Josefsson]

"Dr. Edmund Weitz" <e...@agharta.de> writes:

> Hi!
>
> I have set up my MTA (Courier) to only accept encrypted connection and to
> require authentication. From my Linux box I use GNU Emacs with Gnus and
> sending mail works fine with starttls and Stephen Cranefield's and Simon
> Josefsson's additions to smtpmail.el. From my W2k box it works with, cough,
> cough, Outlook, but I didn't manage to make it work with NT Emacs which
> would be my program of choice.
>
> I've played around a little bit and checked several things and it looks to
> me as if the problem is the (external) starttls program. It compiles under
> cygwin but it doesn't seem to do what it's supposed to do. I hacked the
> sources and I _think_ the problem has something to do with cygwin's
> implementation of 'select' although I'm not sure. I'm not a C wizard and
> I've reached a point where I'm lost.
>
> Has anyone been able to use the combination of Windows, Emacs and starttls
> successfully to send mail?

Not to my knowledge, sorry.

> Is an update of starttls (or another version with the same
> functionality) available that works with cygwin or bare-bones W2k?

V0.5 is available from ftp://ftp.opaopa.org/pub/elisp/.

I have seen patches to OpenSSL that adds a appl/starttls directory,
I'm not sure if they have been integrated or not. This may be a
starting point (if you like to work on open source but non-free
software, of course).

Also, perhaps you can configure your MTA to accept SMTP over SSL, that
should be easier to get to work, I think.

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

> I have seen patches to OpenSSL that adds a appl/starttls directory,
> I'm not sure if they have been integrated or not. This may be a
> starting point (if you like to work on open source but non-free
> software, of course).

If he's using Outlook, there is good reason to believe he's willing to
use non-free software. If he's using Emacs, there's good reason to
believe he's willing to use open-source software. I can't imagine
he'd have a philosophical problem with the license on openssh if he
uses both of those.

[Simon Josefsson]

Well, I use Outlook and OpenSSL as well but I would prefer to work on
free stuff in my copious free time... But mostly I don't care, I work
on it because it's fun, not because it's free.