[9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello everybody!

I've been using a gmail account with the usual access via a web
browser for quite a while.
Sometimes I get little angry when using it, for various reasons, often
due to the firefox's slowness to render the page (scrolling a longer
thread is often pain for me).
I'd like to ask you. Do you use some client like e.g. mutt / heirloom
mailx / some plan9 client, and find its utility superior to a
web-based way? Do you e.g. use imap to connect to gmail and read mail?
I wonder if one can use such thin clients and not loose to much of
comfort / lucity / clarity / ease of use.

What do you generally consider the 'sucklest' way of reading mail?
(except for not reading it...)

Thank you!
Ruda

(I at least want to e.g. know, that using a web-client, although it is
a pain, is probably the way to go, and that I should perhaps have a
look for a quicker / simpler browser...)

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Jacob Todd]

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Acme has Mail. It doesn't do threading like mutt or anything, but it works.

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Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Akshat Kumar]

On 7/31/11, Jacob Todd <jaketodd422@gmail.com> wrote:
> Acme has Mail. It doesn't do threading like mutt or anything, but it works.

Robert Raschke coded a threaded version of Acme's News.
But that depends on the filesystem hierarchy of messages
in nntpfs. (n)upasfs does not thread messages at the level
of the fs. Indeed, it would be a better approach to thread at
the interface level, which should be possible all the same
and could apply to Acme's News interface as well (so we
can perhaps remove a lot of that code from nntpfs).

If anyone does this, I also suggest using Russ' rc version
(ported to Plan 9) of Acme Mail, instead of adapting the C
code.


Best,
ak

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Mathieu Lonjaret]

Btw, for those who don't know yet, I have a version here with
threading for p9p acme Mail:
https://bitbucket.org/mpl/acmemail-with-sort-by-thread/overview
nothing fancy but it suits my needs well enough.

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 10:14 PM, Jacob Todd <jaketodd422@gmail.com> wrote:
> Acme has Mail. It doesn't do threading like mutt or anything, but it works.

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

On 4 August 2011 17:49, Mathieu Lonjaret <mathieu.lonjaret@gmail.com> wrote:
> Btw, for those who don't know yet, I have a version here with
> threading for p9p acme Mail:
> https://bitbucket.org/mpl/acmemail-with-sort-by-thread/overview
> nothing fancy but it suits my needs well enough.
>
> On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 10:14 PM, Jacob Todd <jaketodd422@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Acme has Mail. It doesn't do threading like mutt or anything, but it works.

Can anybody point me to some recipe which would get me from a point
when I have p9p installed to a point when I can read mail from my
gmail account via imap(s) in p9p acme?

(I now spent some time on that, but have been unsuccessful so far.)
Thank you!
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

> Can anybody point me to some recipe which would get me from a point
> when I have p9p installed to a point when I can read mail from my
> gmail account via imap(s) in p9p acme?

Well, that's a pity nobody can help.... :(

Is there any reason for that man pages of p9p
http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/
do not mention neither upas nor mail?
(So nobody actually uses it today?)

Also, although some mail program is present,
/src/cmd/acme/mail
it is apparently not installed by default?

[I'm tired of the web interface. I tried mutt, which was easy to set
up since you can find instructions for this. But I want the acme mail.
And there seem to be many things `somehow around', but not a coherent
explanation of how to put the pieces (and which) together...]

Thanks
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Mathieu Lonjaret]

I'm not sure I've tried with gmail, I think I did, but a long time ago.
Otherwise it's pretty simple:

cd src/cmd/upas/nfs
mk install
factotum
factotum -g 'key=somekey proto=pass service=imap
server=some.imap.server.com user=your_username !password?'
(it will ask for the pass you want to store for that key)
mailfs -t some.imap.server.com
in acme, button-2 exec on Mail -s

Cheers,
Mathieu

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 12:42 PM, Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Can anybody point me to some recipe which would get me from a point
>> when I have p9p installed to a point when I can read mail from my
>> gmail account via imap(s) in p9p acme?
>
> Well, that's a pity nobody can help.... :(
>
> Is there any reason for that man pages of p9p
> http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/
> do not mention neither upas nor mail?
> (So nobody actually uses it today?)
>
> Also, although some mail program is present,
> /src/cmd/acme/mail
> it is apparently not installed by default?
>
> [I'm tired of the web interface. I tried mutt, which was easy to set
> up since you can find instructions for this. But I want the acme mail.
> And there seem to be many things `somehow around', but not a coherent
> explanation of how to put the pieces (and which) together...]
>
> Thanks
> Ruda
>
>

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Mathieu Lonjaret]

gmail wrapped the line; there shouldn't be a break between the service
and the server.

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 12:54 PM, Mathieu Lonjaret
<mathieu.lonjaret@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure I've tried with gmail, I think I did, but a long time ago.
> Otherwise it's pretty simple:
>
> cd src/cmd/upas/nfs
> mk install
> factotum
> factotum -g 'key=somekey proto=pass service=imap
> server=some.imap.server.com user=your_username !password?'
> (it will ask for the pass you want to store for that key)
> mailfs -t some.imap.server.com
> in acme, button-2 exec on Mail -s
>
> Cheers,
> Mathieu
>
> On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 12:42 PM, Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Can anybody point me to some recipe which would get me from a point
>>> when I have p9p installed to a point when I can read mail from my
>>> gmail account via imap(s) in p9p acme?
>>
>> Well, that's a pity nobody can help.... :(
>>
>> Is there any reason for that man pages of p9p
>> http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/
>> do not mention neither upas nor mail?
>> (So nobody actually uses it today?)
>>
>> Also, although some mail program is present,
>> /src/cmd/acme/mail
>> it is apparently not installed by default?
>>
>> [I'm tired of the web interface. I tried mutt, which was easy to set
>> up since you can find instructions for this. But I want the acme mail.
>> And there seem to be many things `somehow around', but not a coherent
>> explanation of how to put the pieces (and which) together...]
>>
>> Thanks
>> Ruda
>>
>>
>

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

> cd src/cmd/upas/nfs
> mk install
> factotum
> factotum -g 'key=somekey proto=pass service=imap
> server=some.imap.server.com user=your_username !password?'
> (it will ask for the pass you want to store for that key)
> mailfs -t some.imap.server.com
> in acme, button-2 exec on Mail -s
>
> Cheers,
> Mathieu

Thanks for your answer!
Anyway, I still haven't succeeded, and have a few questions.

1) Is nfs (lookman nfs or mailfs returns nothing) a new program
written for p9p just to be used for an imap connection to some mail
server?

2) Do I really have to add the key to factotum or is it enough (for
testing purposes) to just have it running (and it will ask me for
whatever is later needed)?

3) When I try to use mailfs, I get

% mailfs -t imap.gmail.com
/sbin/stunnel exec failed at /usr/sbin/stunnel3 line 39.
mailfs: imapconnect: no greeting

and I really do not know what's going on...
(I have tried to replace stunnel with stunnel3, as mentioned by Fazlul
Shahriar; but I actually I don't understand the matter.)

If you could clarify the situation for me a bit, I'd be appreciative.

Thanks
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Fazlul Shahriar]

> % mailfs -t imap.gmail.com
> /sbin/stunnel exec failed at /usr/sbin/stunnel3 line 39.
> mailfs: imapconnect: no greeting

I think your stunnel3 is broken. stunnel3 is actually a perl script
that runs stunnel 4. In your case, it thinks stunnel 4 is at
/sbin/stunnel, but it's not.

fhs

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

On 14 August 2011 01:26, Fazlul Shahriar <fshahriar@gmail.com> wrote:
>> % mailfs -t imap.gmail.com
>> /sbin/stunnel exec failed at /usr/sbin/stunnel3 line 39.
>> mailfs: imapconnect: no greeting
>
> I think your stunnel3 is broken. stunnel3 is actually a perl script
> that runs stunnel 4. In your case, it thinks stunnel 4 is at
> /sbin/stunnel, but it's not.
>
> fhs

Thank you! Really, stunnel3 is a perl script, and it looked for
stunnel at a wrong location (I have it under /usr/sbin, not /sbin). So
now I finally see sth. in my Acme (after executing '9 Mail -s'), which
is much nicer than before...

Thanks!
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Mathieu Lonjaret]

On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 8:38 PM, Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:
>> cd src/cmd/upas/nfs
>> mk install
>> factotum
>> factotum -g 'key=somekey proto=pass service=imap
>> server=some.imap.server.com user=your_username !password?'
>> (it will ask for the pass you want to store for that key)
>> mailfs -t some.imap.server.com
>> in acme, button-2 exec on Mail -s
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Mathieu
>
> Thanks for your answer!
> Anyway, I still haven't succeeded, and have a few questions.
>
> 1) Is nfs (lookman nfs or mailfs returns nothing) a new program
> written for p9p just to be used for an imap connection to some mail
> server?

http://9fans.net/archive/2009/02/415

> 2) Do I really have to add the key to factotum or is it enough (for
> testing purposes) to just have it running (and it will ask me for
> whatever is later needed)?

dunno. I suppose it should, I don't remember why I don't proceed like that.
try it and tell us? :)

> 3) When I try to use mailfs, I get
>
> % mailfs -t imap.gmail.com
> /sbin/stunnel exec failed at /usr/sbin/stunnel3 line 39.
> mailfs: imapconnect: no greeting
>
> and I really do not know what's going on...
> (I have tried to replace stunnel with stunnel3, as mentioned by Fazlul
> Shahriar; but I actually I don't understand the matter.)

what's your distro? have you checked what stunnel packages are available to you?
Isn't your /usr/bin/stunnel a symlink to another one?
also what Fazlul said.

> If you could clarify the situation for me a bit, I'd be appreciative.
>
> Thanks
> Ruda
>
>

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

On 11 August 2011 12:54, Mathieu Lonjaret
> in acme, button-2 exec on Mail -s

When I try to have several inboxes (?; what gmail calls labels), i.e. I run
9 Mail
9 Mail plan9
9 Mail CERN
for some reason it seems that only my INBOX (i.e. the acme window
related to the 1st line) is being updated when a new mail arrives.

Is it only my problem? Should the update work in all windows? Am I
doing sth wrong?

Thanks
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Fazlul Shahriar]

I just tried -- it works fine with gmail.

mailfs -t imap.gmail.com    # -t enable TLS
It'll ask your for your username/password. Then start Mail in acme.

mailfs will look for stunnel in your system. In my system, it found
stunnel 4, which it doesn't know how to use. So, I had to point it to
stunnel3:

--- a/src/cmd/upas/nfs/imap.c	Thu Aug 11 07:43:28 2011 -0400
+++ b/src/cmd/upas/nfs/imap.c	Thu Aug 11 08:12:24 2011 -0400
@@ -756,8 +756,8 @@
 		fd[2] = dup(2, -1);
 		tmp = esmprint("%s:993", server);
 		if(threadspawnl(fd, "tlsclient", "tlsclient", tmp, nil) < 0
-		    && threadspawnl(fd, "/usr/sbin/stunnel", "stunnel", "-c", "-r",
tmp, nil) < 0
-		    && threadspawnl(fd, "/usr/bin/stunnel", "stunnel", "-c", "-r",
tmp, nil) < 0){
+		    && threadspawnl(fd, "/usr/sbin/stunnel3", "stunnel", "-c",
"-r", tmp, nil) < 0
+		    && threadspawnl(fd, "/usr/bin/stunnel3", "stunnel", "-c", "-r",
tmp, nil) < 0){
 			free(tmp);
 			close(p[0]);
 			close(p[1]);


On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 6:42 AM, Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Can anybody point me to some recipe which would get me from a point
>> when I have p9p installed to a point when I can read mail from my
>> gmail account via imap(s) in p9p acme?
>
> Well, that's a pity nobody can help.... :(
>
> Is there any reason for that man pages of p9p
> http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/
> do not mention neither upas nor mail?
> (So nobody actually uses it today?)
>
> Also, although some mail program is present,
> /src/cmd/acme/mail
> it is apparently not installed by default?
>
> [I'm tired of the web interface. I tried mutt, which was easy to set
> up since you can find instructions for this. But I want the acme mail.
> And there seem to be many things `somehow around', but not a coherent
> explanation of how to put the pieces (and which) together...]
>
> Thanks
> Ruda
>
>

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[John Floren]

Nice! Works for me too...

But what about sending mail? I've only ever configured Plan 9 to act
as its own smtp server, have never done anything with p9p or a remove
server.


John

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 5:20 AM, Fazlul Shahriar <fshahriar@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just tried -- it works fine with gmail.
>
> mailfs -t imap.gmail.com    # -t enable TLS
> It'll ask your for your username/password. Then start Mail in acme.
>
> mailfs will look for stunnel in your system. In my system, it found
> stunnel 4, which it doesn't know how to use. So, I had to point it to
> stunnel3:
>
> --- a/src/cmd/upas/nfs/imap.c   Thu Aug 11 07:43:28 2011 -0400
> +++ b/src/cmd/upas/nfs/imap.c   Thu Aug 11 08:12:24 2011 -0400
> @@ -756,8 +756,8 @@
>                fd[2] = dup(2, -1);
>                tmp = esmprint("%s:993", server);
>                if(threadspawnl(fd, "tlsclient", "tlsclient", tmp, nil) < 0
> -                   && threadspawnl(fd, "/usr/sbin/stunnel", "stunnel", "-c", "-r",
> tmp, nil) < 0
> -                   && threadspawnl(fd, "/usr/bin/stunnel", "stunnel", "-c", "-r",
> tmp, nil) < 0){
> +                   && threadspawnl(fd, "/usr/sbin/stunnel3", "stunnel", "-c",
> "-r", tmp, nil) < 0
> +                   && threadspawnl(fd, "/usr/bin/stunnel3", "stunnel", "-c", "-r",
> tmp, nil) < 0){
>                        free(tmp);
>                        close(p[0]);
>                        close(p[1]);
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 6:42 AM, Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Can anybody point me to some recipe which would get me from a point
>>> when I have p9p installed to a point when I can read mail from my
>>> gmail account via imap(s) in p9p acme?
>>
>> Well, that's a pity nobody can help.... :(
>>
>> Is there any reason for that man pages of p9p
>> http://swtch.com/plan9port/man/
>> do not mention neither upas nor mail?
>> (So nobody actually uses it today?)
>>
>> Also, although some mail program is present,
>> /src/cmd/acme/mail
>> it is apparently not installed by default?
>>
>> [I'm tired of the web interface. I tried mutt, which was easy to set
>> up since you can find instructions for this. But I want the acme mail.
>> And there seem to be many things `somehow around', but not a coherent
>> explanation of how to put the pieces (and which) together...]
>>
>> Thanks
>> Ruda
>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[David du Colombier]

> But what about sending mail? I've only ever configured Plan 9 to act
> as its own smtp server, have never done anything with p9p or a remove
> server.

It's pretty much the same as on Plan 9.

See $PLAN9/mail/lib/rewrite.

--
David du Colombier

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

On 11 August 2011 19:55, David du Colombier <0intro@gmail.com> wrote:
>> But what about sending mail? I've only ever configured Plan 9 to act
>> as its own smtp server, have never done anything with p9p or a remove
>> server.
>
> It's pretty much the same as on Plan 9.
>
> See $PLAN9/mail/lib/rewrite.

I must say that now I have spent about 5 hours trying to make sending
email from p9p work, but so far without success.
[Perhaps it is often much more instructive to write down 10 lines to
explain than just write that it is much the same as somewhere else...]

After reading quite a few man pages, I've tried to simplify my attempts.
Now I have a simple file 'q' with the email I want to send (I put 'cat
>q' instead of 'qmail...' into 'rewrite'):
>-------
;cat q
>From ruda Sun Aug 28 14:52:01 CES 2011 remote from bluestar
To: rsykora@cern.ch
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:52:01 +0200
From: ruda
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

aahahha

;
<-------

now when I try (74.125.39.108 should be smtp.gmail.com):
cat q | upas/smtp -a -d -h a.com 74.125.39.108 rudolf.sykora@gmail.com
rsykora@cern.ch

I get:
mxlookup returns nothing
220 mx.google.com ESMTP u18sm633897fah.41
EHLO bluestar.ch
250-mx.google.com at your service, [128.141.146.177]
250-SIZE 35882577
250-8BITMIME
250-STARTTLS
250 ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
Sun Aug 28 15:33:22 CES 2011 connect to 74.125.39.108:
250-mx.google.com at your service, [128.141.146.177]
250-SIZE 35882577
250-8BITMIME
250-STARTTLS
250 ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
QUIT
221 2.0.0 closing connection u18sm633897fah.41

If anybody could suggest what I should do to be able to send...

(E.g. I don't understand why I need any '-h a.com' or what should
really be there. Further, I do not know if I have to have an entry in
factotum before the try or if factotum would ask when neccessary [as
it does in the imap case, i.e. when I just read the email].)

(I on purpose try to bypass all those upas/qer, upas/runq, ... stuff;
I believe a simple line like above should first succeed before any
such stuff is needed. Also, when I tried to use the queues, sth kept
on bringing qmail script to life each few seconds [and I was not able
to tell what], the file log/mail/smtp.fail was steadily growing and I
could not stop it [finally I renamed qmail to stop it].)

Thank you!
(I just so much want to get rid of the web browsers...)
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[erik quanstrom]

> now when I try (74.125.39.108 should be smtp.gmail.com):
> cat q | upas/smtp -a -d -h a.com 74.125.39.108 rudolf.sykora@gmail.com
> rsykora@cern.ch

i'm confused.  are you using plan 9 or p9p?

i would think that a.com is wrong.  you need to use your real domain.
also i think you want the real target system, not an ip address.
mx lookup for google isn't broken for me.

	; fn mxquery {x=`{ndb/dnsquery google.com mx | sort +1n | sed 1q}; echo $x(4)>[1=2]; ndb/dnsquery $x(4)}
	; mxquery google.com >[2=]
	aspmx.l.google.com ip	74.125.47.27


on plan 9, upas typically uses /mail/lib/remotemail to send
to remote systems.  my remotemail looks like

	#!/bin/rc
	sender = $1; addr = $2; * = $*(3-)
	fd=`{/bin/upas/aliasmail -f $sender}
	switch($fd){
	case *.*
		;
	case *
		fd=quanstro.net
	}
	exec /bin/upas/smtp -h $fd $addr $sender $*

this is invoked by qmail/kickqueue which are tickled
by sending mail and/or a cron job.

	; cat /cron/upas/cron
	# kick mail retries (replace ladd with your system)
	0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * *	ladd		/bin/upas/runq -a /mail/queue /mail/lib/remotemail

	# clean up after grey list
	47 4 * * *	ladd	rm -rf /mail/grey/tmp/*/*

ymmv, and there may be nupasisms in here.

- erik

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

On 28 August 2011 17:15, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> now when I try (74.125.39.108 should be smtp.gmail.com):
>> cat q | upas/smtp -a -d -h a.com 74.125.39.108 rudolf.sykora@gmail.com
>> rsykora@cern.ch
>
> i'm confused.  are you using plan 9 or p9p?

p9p now

> i would think that a.com is wrong. you need to use your real domain.

you may well be right. I have no idea what/why I should write there. I
am using a notebook that is used regularly at diferent places and the
only thing I now want is to pass my e-mail to gmail via smtp (where I
have an account) so that it then can be sent further. Thus I'd expect
that all I need is i) the mail itself with the info to whom it should
be sent, and ii) login/password for the gmail account. I don't see any
reason for any other domain name... I just wrote that a.com there so
that there is something (so, simply, understand that I do not
understand...).

> also i think you want the real target system, not an ip address.
> mx lookup for google isn't broken for me.
>
>        ; fn mxquery {x=`{ndb/dnsquery google.com mx | sort +1n | sed 1q}; echo $x(4)>[1=2]; ndb/dnsquery $x(4)}
>        ; mxquery google.com >[2=]
>        aspmx.l.google.com ip   74.125.47.27

well, is there any difference if I use smtp.gmail.com or the
corresponding ip? (for the former to work I need, I have a feeling,
add sth somewhere [ndb?], so the ip was easier for the experiment).

> on plan 9, upas typically uses /mail/lib/remotemail to send
> to remote systems.  my remotemail looks like
>
>        #!/bin/rc
>        sender = $1; addr = $2; * = $*(3-)
>        fd=`{/bin/upas/aliasmail -f $sender}
>        switch($fd){
>        case *.*
>                ;
>        case *
>                fd=quanstro.net
>        }
>        exec /bin/upas/smtp -h $fd $addr $sender $*
>

on p9p a similar thing is also in remotemail...

> this is invoked by qmail/kickqueue which are tickled
> by sending mail and/or a cron job.
>
>        ; cat /cron/upas/cron
>        # kick mail retries (replace ladd with your system)
>        0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * *        ladd            /bin/upas/runq -a /mail/queue /mail/lib/remotemail
>
>        # clean up after grey list
>        47 4 * * *      ladd    rm -rf /mail/grey/tmp/*/*
>
> ymmv, and there may be nupasisms in here.
>
> - erik

Ok. But putting aside the way how different programs are invoked,
finally there is always that line with
/bin/upas/smtp -h $fd $addr $sender $*
that actually sends the mail (which it reads from stdin). This line of
yours has to have -a added since gmail needs authentication (so
finally a key in factotum). So before engaging the rewrite,
remotemail, vf, qer, runq, ... (?) programs, I would like to be able
to send an email using just this and be sure it works...

Thanks
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Richard Miller]

To use the plan9port version of upas/smtp with authenticated connections,
you need a couple of fixes which I've just submitted. 'hg pull -u' will
get them.

The plan9port upas/smtp also does not support tls, which is required
by gmail. The workaround is to run smtp inside a tls tunnel, as shown
below. Note that you can't use 'localhost' to address the near end
of the tunnel because smtp doesn't like forwarding to 127.0.0.1.

bash-3.1$ hostname
epia
bash-3.1$ cat msg
Subject: test

hello
bash-3.1$ 9p read factotum/ctl
key proto=pass role=client server=epia service=smtp user=example@gmail.com !password?
bash-3.1$ sudo /usr/sbin/stunnel3 -c -d 12345 -r smtp.gmail.com:465
bash-3.1$ $PLAN9/bin/upas/smtp -ai 'tcp!epia!12345' 9fans@hamnavoe.com xxx@example.com <msg
epia Aug 31 15:01:34 9fans@hamnavoe.com sent 127 bytes to xxx@example.com

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

On 31 August 2011 16:22, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> To use the plan9port version of upas/smtp with authenticated connections,
> you need a couple of fixes which I've just submitted. 'hg pull -u' will
> get them.
>
> The plan9port upas/smtp also does not support tls, which is required
> by gmail. The workaround is to run smtp inside a tls tunnel, as shown
> below. Note that you can't use 'localhost' to address the near end
> of the tunnel because smtp doesn't like forwarding to 127.0.0.1.
>
> bash-3.1$ hostname
> epia
> bash-3.1$ cat msg
> Subject: test
>
> hello
> bash-3.1$ 9p read factotum/ctl
> key proto=pass role=client server=epia service=smtp user=example@gmail.com !password?
> bash-3.1$ sudo /usr/sbin/stunnel3 -c -d 12345 -r smtp.gmail.com:465
> bash-3.1$ $PLAN9/bin/upas/smtp -ai 'tcp!epia!12345' 9fans@hamnavoe.com xxx@example.com <msg
> epia Aug 31 15:01:34 9fans@hamnavoe.com sent 127 bytes to xxx@example.com

I tried to follow this recipe, however, not fully succeeded...
1) I ran 'hg pull' and 'hg update' in my $PLAN9 directory.
2) My computer has a name 'bluestar' (output of 'hostname').
3) I created the testing message 'mesg'.
4) I added the key to factotum by running:
factotum -g 'proto=pass role=client server=bluestar service=smtp
user=rudolf.sykora@gmail.com !password?'
and I entered my gmail password when promted.
5) I issued:
sudo /usr/sbin/stunnel3 -c -d 12345 -r smtp.gmail.com:465
6) then issued:
$PLAN9/bin/upas/smtp -ai 'tcp!bluestar!12345' rudolf.sykora@gmail.com
rudolf.sykora@cern.ch <msg
and got this:
smtp: bad network /net/tcp!bluestar!12345 (tcp!bluestar!12345)
so I tried
$PLAN9/bin/upas/smtp -ai 'tcp!128.141.146.215!12345'
rudolf.sykora@gmail.com rudolf.sykora@cern.ch <msg
where 128.141.146.215 is my current ip address. (What and where should
I add so that the name bluestar would be resolved? I obtain the ip
using dhcp, thus it can vary from boot to boot, together with the
domain...) The result is:

Fri Sep  9 21:34:17 CES 2011 connect to tcp!128.141.146.215!12345:
250-mx.google.com at your service, [128.141.146.215]
250-SIZE 35882577
250-8BITMIME
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN XOAUTH
250 ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES

but it does not seem like any email has been sent anywhere...

Btw. I don't quite understand what '9fans@hamnavoe.com' really stands
for. Plan9 man page says it should perhaps be a sender, but then, I
want to send as if from my gmail account; and more, even from gmail
web I can send under different names, but these are not arbitrary, but
must have been varified in advance. So should there stand any of these
addresses I can use when sending from the web interface?

Thanks for help!

Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Richard Miller]

> smtp: bad network /net/tcp!bluestar!12345 (tcp!bluestar!12345)

This should have been corrected by the hg update.  But update only
changes the source code - you still have to rebuild the command with
  cd $PLAN9/src/cmd/upas/smtp
  mk smtp.install

> so I tried
> $PLAN9/bin/upas/smtp -ai 'tcp!128.141.146.215!12345'
> ... The result is:
>
> Fri Sep  9 21:34:17 CES 2011 connect to tcp!128.141.146.215!12345:
> 250-mx.google.com at your service, [128.141.146.215]
> 250-SIZE 35882577
> 250-8BITMIME
> 250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN XOAUTH
> 250 ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
>
> but it does not seem like any email has been sent anywhere...

If the login to gmail smtp server is not successful, smtp just exits
quietly.

Since you are using 128.141.146.215 as the server name, you have to
use 'server=128.141.146.215' instead of 'server=bluestar' in the
factotum entry.

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

On 14 September 2011 14:39, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
>> smtp: bad network /net/tcp!bluestar!12345 (tcp!bluestar!12345)
>
> This should have been corrected by the hg update.  But update only
> changes the source code - you still have to rebuild the command with
>  cd $PLAN9/src/cmd/upas/smtp
>  mk smtp.install

Ok. I wonder how I could forget to rebuilt then, but I did.
Anyway, after rebuilding I get:

;$PLAN9/bin/upas/smtp -ai 'tcp!128.141.146.215!12345'
rudolf.sykora@gmail.com rudolf.sykora@cern.ch <msg
Segmentation fault
;

... so still unsuccessful to send email...
Thanks for further comments.
I will also try to find out some details about the segmentation fault.

Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[David du Colombier]

> Ok. I wonder how I could forget to rebuilt then, but I did.
> Anyway, after rebuilding I get:
>
> ;$PLAN9/bin/upas/smtp -ai 'tcp!128.141.146.215!12345'
> rudolf.sykora@gmail.com rudolf.sykora@cern.ch <msg
> Segmentation fault
> ;

I obtained the same behavior on Fedora 15. It doesn't happen
on earlier releases of Fedora, even when using the same
dynamically linked smtp binary.

Probably you updated something like glibc before rebuilding.

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00000035db80edbb in raise () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0

--
David du Colombier

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

> I obtained the same behavior on Fedora 15. It doesn't happen
> on earlier releases of Fedora, even when using the same
> dynamically linked smtp binary.
>
> Probably you updated something like glibc before rebuilding.
>
> Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
> 0x00000035db80edbb in raise () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
>
> --
> David du Colombier

I don't quite understand whether this knowledge can help me or not...
Thanks for comments.
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[David du Colombier]

> ;$PLAN9/bin/upas/smtp -ai 'tcp!128.141.146.215!12345'
> rudolf.sykora@gmail.com rudolf.sykora@cern.ch <msg
> Segmentation fault

Yesterday, I found time to fix this problem.

It happens when gethostbyname fail to resolve your hostname.

You can apply this patch:
http://codereview.appspot.com/download/issue5370105_1.diff

It hasn't been merged in plan9port yet, but I'm sure it will be soon.

--
David du Colombier

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[erik quanstrom]

> but it does not seem like any email has been sent anywhere...
>
> Btw. I don't quite understand what '9fans@---.com' really stands
> for. Plan9 man page says it should perhaps be a sender, but then, I
> want to send as if from my gmail account; and more, even from gmail

when the man page refers to the command-like "sender" it
means the envelope sender.  the envelope sender appears in unix mbox
format as the 'From ' line at the beginning of each message.  this is
not the same as the 'From: ' line in the smtp header.

but none of this has anything to do with gmail's willingness to relay
mail.

- erik

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello all!

On 4 August 2011 17:49, Mathieu Lonjaret <mathieu.lonjaret@gmail.com> wrote:
> Btw, for those who don't know yet, I have a version here with
> threading for p9p acme Mail:

I tried it now, using my gmail account and imap access.
At first the threading seemed to work.
However, when I sent a new mail to myself from another account, about
10 older mails appeared at the top (in the acme list of mails), but
these have nothing to do with my sent e-mail, and I wonder what they
actually have in common...

[I quickly went through $PLAN9/src/cmd/acme/mail/mesg.c, where the
majority of changes appear, but the number of changes is too large,
and since I do not understand the logic...]

Anyway, if the threading worked, I believe it'd be useful.

Best regards
Ruda

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[dexen deVries]

On Sunday 31 July 2011 22:00:57 Rudolf Sykora wrote:
> I've been using a gmail account with the usual access via a web
> browser for quite a while.
> Sometimes I get little angry when using it, for various reasons, often
> due to the firefox's slowness to render the page (scrolling a longer
> thread is often pain for me).
> I'd like to ask you. Do you use some client like e.g. mutt / heirloom
> mailx / some plan9 client, and find its utility superior to a
> web-based way? Do you e.g. use imap to connect to gmail and read mail?
> I wonder if one can use such thin clients and not loose to much of
> comfort / lucity / clarity / ease of use.
>
> What do you generally consider the 'sucklest' way of reading mail?
> (except for not reading it...)


i'm using gmail's IMAP in cached (`disconneted') mode; operations are
performed on local files. that's fast (low latencies). my (linux) mail client:
kmail does threading and has comfy in-line search of title, author etc.
somehow i always end up disabling threading thou.

i assume firefox renders HTML pixel-by-pixel, which causes general slowness
over network. some VNC servers have automatic scroll decetction heueristics
and send scroll events rather than full redraws if client supports that, but
that's a hack. networked X11 seems to work well with scrolling, but firefox's
chrome (widgets) over networked X11 are still damn slow.

--
dexen deVries

> It's called trolling. It's been done since there were bangs in people's
email addresses.

thaumaturgy, on HN

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[hiro]

I prefer gmail's basic html view. It's working reliably, because it's
not maintained any more: http://mail.google.com/mail/h/

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Sun, 31 Jul 2011 22:00:57 +0200
Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:

> (I at least want to e.g. know, that using a web-client, although it is
> a pain, is probably the way to go, and that I should perhaps have a
> look for a quicker / simpler browser...)
>

Indeed. I find Firefox seems to run javascript about half the speed
Opera does while using more CPU.

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)]

> I've been using a gmail account with the usual access via a web
> browser for quite a while.
> Sometimes I get little angry when using it, for various reasons, often
> due to the firefox's slowness to render the page (scrolling a longer
> thread is often pain for me).
> I'd like to ask you. Do you use some client like e.g. mutt / heirloom
> mailx / some plan9 client, and find its utility superior to a
> web-based way?

At Flock we used Gmail as our corporate email service :-P I just
pointed upas/fs at Google's IMAP servers and carried on using Acme
Mail and nedmail as usual.  htmlfmt(1) is a superior HTML mail
reader, in my books.

Using a small rc script it was trivial to run two distinct mail client
instances on my terminal — one pointed at Google for work mail, the
other pointed at my own IMAP server for personal mail.

Like Eric, I used nedmail as a dumb threading tool.  It was very
useful as a brute force defence against all the cron spam our servers
sent out.  I would run a script that invoked nedmail to whack all the
usual suspects based on subject, from, and to headers, then read the
leftovers in Acme.  Upas also made it very simple to write adhoc
scripts to usefully process all that cron spam, something you'll never
be able to do with a webmail client.

--lyndon

[9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[erik quanstrom]

> Robert Raschke coded a threaded version of Acme's News.
> But that depends on the filesystem hierarchy of messages
> in nntpfs. (n)upasfs does not thread messages at the level
> of the fs. Indeed, it would be a better approach to thread at
> the interface level, which should be possible all the same
> and could apply to Acme's News interface as well (so we
> can perhaps remove a lot of that code from nntpfs).

upas/fs has all the information it needs to do the threading,
and it's cached.  the client, otoh will need to scan the entire mail box to
determine threading.  this can be pretty slow if your mailbox
is not small.  and threading's usefulness depends on your mailbox
being not small.

what upas/fs lacks is the ability to present the same mailbox many
times.  this would allow for a single store rather than moving
messages around.  nedmail is already equiped to handle threading,
since it handles subfolders already.

(for lack of threading, i use nedmail's g/subject/h or g/sender/h.)

> If anyone does this, I also suggest using Russ' rc version
> (ported to Plan 9) of Acme Mail, instead of adapting the C
> code.

this sounds tempting, but how are you going to thread efficiently
in rc?

(russ' upas/nfs is much different in presentation than upas/fs.)

- erik

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Russ Cox]

>> If anyone does this, I also suggest using Russ' rc version
>> (ported to Plan 9) of Acme Mail, instead of adapting the C
>> code.

russ has an rc version of acme mail?

russ

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Charles Forsyth]

>russ has an rc version of acme mail?
>
>russ

you need to keep up!

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[David Leimbach]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 355 bytes --]

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 8:02 AM, Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net>wrote:

> >russ has an rc version of acme mail?
> >
> >russ
>
> you need to keep up!
>
>
Sorry, you weren't' meant to read that.  That email was from the future.

My bad... let me just plug this time stability thingy back into this food
processor looking doodad.

Dave

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 695 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] mail client; general question web vs command

[Akshat Kumar]

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 6:42 AM, Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com> wrote:
>>> If anyone does this, I also suggest using Russ' rc version
>>> (ported to Plan 9) of Acme Mail, instead of adapting the C
>>> code.
>
> russ has an rc version of acme mail?
>
> russ

Take the hint, Russ!