Re: [9front] mail crazyness

[William Gunnells <gunnells@gmail.com>]

Oh i know and I have read. Just when I think I know I don’t. Kind of wish I knew someone close by. But sadly I don’t. Just to see how they use it. Because I know I'm not using it right. Not giving up just discouraged. There is something about this.

> On Jul 23, 2020, at 1:08 AM, sirjofri+ml-9front@sirjofri.de wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> that's why I used half a year reading all documentation I could find on plan 9. You need a solid understanding of how things work.
> 
> Factotum for example. You need factotum, even if you don't want to store your passwords. Every software uses factotum for authentication.
> 
> Upas is nice and opens the default mailbox with your -f parameter. It's important to understand what upas as a filesystem is and read the man page to learn more about it.
> 
> Obviously, read the man pages. Start by typing:
> 
> man factotum
> man upasfs
> 
> And read what's there. Also read the fqa. Read the important sections.
> 
> I know plan9 is frustrating if you are a beginner, it's good to forget everything you know from other systems, including unix. Start at zero and be a learner.
> 
> I hope this is constructive and helpful.
> 
> Have fun
> 
> sirjofri
> 
> 23.07.2020 11:56:33 William Gunnells <gunnells@gmail.com>:
>> I have never had such a hard time getting something that should be so simple to work
>> 
>> It seems like I type out the same commands over and over again and gamble at what needs to be done.
>> 
>> This a huge amount of confusion. If I boot the system into cpu/auth mode I seem to get further. But honestly I don’t believe it. I know that wherever or however I log in I am glenda
>> 
>> Typing in the same commands over and over is simply silly. Nothing seems to stick
>> 
>> I actually got the mail to work only for the container to accidentally get rebooted because of other issues
>> and the fact I really didn’t understand persistence
>> 
>> To actually check mail I have to type the following
>> 
>> auth/factotum. By the way this is either in the profile or cpurc. Not sure why I have to do that. Seems silly.
>> 
>> echo ‘key proto=pass server=imap.gmail.com service=imap user=thinktankworkspaces !password=whaterver’>/mnt/factotum/ctl
>> 
>> then run
>> upas/fs -f /imaps/imap.gmail.com/thinktankworkspaces@gmail.com
>> 
>> Even after I get this far I’m still not to sure I did things right. A prompt does ask me to enter the password.
>> 
>> It seems like /mnt/factotum/ctl has two entries,  one with full email including the @ symbol and one without the @ symbol. Seems kind of redundant. Why run the echo statement in the first place.
>> 
>> But no. I’m not done yet
>> 
>> i need to mount this file or open this file
>> echo open /imaps/imap.gmail.com/thinktankworkspaces mbox >/mail/fs/ctl Still not sure if I need the @ symbol or not. But guess what I get an error permission denied or its busy or whatever
>> 
>> I have to run upas/fs -n
>> 
>> Honestly not even sure about the order of this verses -f anymore. Seems like -n doesn’t interfere with file or something like that according to the man page.
>> 
>> But it seems to be the only way to mount that file or whatever.
>> 
>> And I have to do that on the same screen, same namespace, because I can’t draw another screen. I already did too much work to get this far.  I can run acme and enter ‘Mail’ somewhere/anywhere then click it and things seem to work. But I can only send email from myself to myself using my gmail.com account. I can’t send it to another person or another email account. I can’t figure out why. It did work before the crash. Oh and I won’t bore you with the details of doing this twice on two draw screens because i wanted to test ‘faces’. Lot's of copy and paste.
>> 
>> I suspect it has something to do with rewrite. I made the mistake of deleting it. But since the original file had very little anyways. I didn’t think it was a big deal to delete it and 'cp rewrite.gateway rewrite'.
>> 
>> Then change the domain to \1@gmail.com. But while it worked before. It no longer works now. I can’t send mail.
>> 
>> I thought perhaps because I deleted and re-created it, if you look closely its owned by Glenda
>> ——rw-rw-r-- M 24 glenda upas 1154 Jul 23 06:40 rewrite
>> 
>> Plan9 does not have chown, and chgrp does not work something about stats.
>> 
>> while I have the correct imap in /mnt/factotum/ctl I also made sure I had the correct smtp in /mnt/factotum/ctl
>> 
>> Still now sure what /mail/lib/remotemail is supposed to do. I have run it before to see what it does. It does make a connection without errors. Perhaps this is a wrapper for for upas. Seems logical
>> 
>> I have the correct sender, address and gmail statements as listed in the documentation.
>> 
>> i believe I have the x509 files created for both /sys/lib/tls/mail and /sys/lib/tls/smtp
>> 
>> Why honestly is this so difficult. I believe this to be a huge problem. There is no step by step instructions that say.
>> 
>> Wait!!!! Don’t change screens, because you will be in a different namespace. Oh wait please remember this doesn’t persists. Oh wait you kind of want things in a profile. Why are they not in the profile in the first place. They can be in there and commented out. And HONESTLY. How do I know this profile is really working.
>> 
>> The profile already had the following to begin with.
>> 
>> webfs
>> plumber
>> upas/fs -n
>> rio -i riostart
>> 
>> I still have to type this when I drawterm from another OS. So I don’t see the point.
>> 
>> If I boot to CPU/Auth and want yo run rio from the terminal its an even greater nightmare. But no big deal
>> I did figure it out
>> 
>> I need to have
>> mouseport=ps2
>> vgasize=1024x768x16
>> aux/mouse $mouseport
>> fork; aux/realemu; aux/vga -m visa -l $vgasize # wow really who came up with that
>> #####and I need
>> bind -a ‘#i’ /dev
>> ####then
>> exec rio -i riostart
>> 
>> Now I have a GUI that comes up after reboot as cpu/auth
>> 
>> I swear auth/keyfs and auth/factotum were mounted or started in that cpurc file
>> 
>> For the love of God why do I have to type it in again.
>> 
>> Why when I drawterm from another OS it doesn’t seem to really make a difference and I have to type auth/keyfs or auth/factotum or whatever.
>> 
>> I do check log files. Sometimes they are helpful. Like incorrect this or incorrect that but then sometimes it reads a tls message has been sent at such and such time. But no mail was actually sent. OMG
>> 
>> Lastly I’m super confused on persisting. It seems wasteful to run the commands in some mounted area and re-echo the same commands again. There should be a way to pull in or merge from existing /factotucm/ctl
>> 
>> Clarity would be nice
>> 
>> Damn. I hate asking for Pink Ponies.
>> 
>