running mutt on cygwin

[Ed Morton]

I'm running shell scripts on cygwin and would like to send an email to an
external account based on the results of the shell script. From reading the
documentation, I think I need to use mutt and exim and I've installed those. I
also think I need to run config commands (exim-config and ssmtp-config) and edit
config files (/etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf and /etc/exim.conf).

I have tried to make sense of all the documentation I can find on the subject
on-line and tried a ton of various combinations but no matter what I try I get
very unhelpful (to me) errors of various flavors like:

> ssmtp: Cannot open :25
> Error sending message, child exited 1 ().
> Could not send the message.

or

> ssmtp: Cannot open mail.company.net:110
> Error sending message, child exited 1 ().
> Could not send the message.

I admit I get stuck on responding to config script questions like "what is the
FQDN of your computer?". My response is usually "How the *#*$$ should I know?".

What I do know is:

The login I use under Cygwin = "mylogin"
The SMTP server I use for Thunderbird email access = "mail.company.net" (not the
real one - just a stand-in for this usenet posting)
The user name = "myusername" (so my external email address is of the form
"myuse...@mail.company.net")
The port I use on that server = 110
The server type = POP

Given that, can anyone point me in the right direction IN LAYMANS TERMS to
running the config tools and/or editing the config files so I can just send a
stinkin' email? Is there some other tool/config file I'm missing?

Some additional info:

I'm running exim version 4.76 and mutt 1.5.20.

wrt the info on port 25 being for outgoing and 110 being for incoming email.
Sure enough I checked elsewhere in my Thunderbird settings and found that my
particular ISP uses a different port completely for sending - 587. That still
didn't work of course (same as 2nd error above but with the new port number).

The 2 errors I posted were for different configuration values I was trying, just
as examples of the kinds of error I was getting.

I do know what FQDN means, I just don't know how to get it's VALUE for my PC.

sendmail doesn't exist on my system. Neither do "mail" or "mailx". I could go
looking for them and install them but I'm trying to use mutt for 2 reasons:

1) I hear it has more and more intuitive options
2) I had exim/mutt on cygwin with this same ISP working for years on a previous
PC but a few months ago that PC got a virus and croacked before I copied my
cygwin environment off it. All I remember about setting that up was that it was
easy so I wasn't worried about it :-( .

Regards,

Ed Morton.

[BluX]

Ed Morton wrote:

Well, hello there,
I can't really help much, Windows is out of my area of expertise, but can't you
simply invoke the hostname command from within the Cygwin shell to find out what
your FQDN is?

You should try to edit .muttrc file manualy, it is well commented and almost easier
than using configuration script. Sorry that I can't help more.

--BluX

--
To boldly go where I surely don't belong.

--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---

[Ed Morton]

Yes - that worked, thanks! Now I need to remember which script asked for that
and re-run it....

>
> You should try to edit .muttrc file manualy, it is well commented and almost easier
> than using configuration script. Sorry that I can't help more.

That's did help. Its a step in the right direction.

Ed.

[Ed Morton]

Finally figured out that the problem was that McAfee on my PC is blocking
access to my ISPs outgoing SMTP server port as part of it's general
protection against a possible virus sending out email from my PC. Thanks to
those who helped debug the issue.

Ed.


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