Gnus in an Exchange Server environment with authentication

Gnus in an Exchange Server environment with authentication

[Don Dwiggins]

I've been happily using Gnus for a while now in a corporate environment,
interacting with the Exchange server via POP and SMTP.  Recently, the
network admin made a change to Exchange that makes it impossible for me to
send mail to an outside address via SMTP -- I get something to the effect
that it can't relay the message (I had to get a newer version of SMTPmail.el
just to be able to talk to Exchange at all).  I suspect that it has to do
with Exchange using NT Integrated Authentication, which is how Outlook talks
to it.

I'm a Python developer, and have found that I can send messages using CDO
(Windows Collaboration Data Objects).  I'm thinking about writing a little
Python application that I can call from Emacs (possibly using Pymacs) to
send a message, but I'm not sure where to start on the Emacs side.

Any pointers toward this or better approaches appreciated.
-- 

Don Dwiggins				"Solvitur Ambulando"
d.l.dwiggins@computer.org

Re: Gnus in an Exchange Server environment with authentication

[Simon Josefsson]

Don Dwiggins <dond@advancedmp.com> writes:

> I've been happily using Gnus for a while now in a corporate environment,
> interacting with the Exchange server via POP and SMTP.  Recently, the
> network admin made a change to Exchange that makes it impossible for me to
> send mail to an outside address via SMTP -- I get something to the effect
> that it can't relay the message (I had to get a newer version of SMTPmail.el
> just to be able to talk to Exchange at all).  I suspect that it has to do
> with Exchange using NT Integrated Authentication, which is how Outlook talks
> to it.
>
> I'm a Python developer, and have found that I can send messages using CDO
> (Windows Collaboration Data Objects).  I'm thinking about writing a little
> Python application that I can call from Emacs (possibly using Pymacs) to
> send a message, but I'm not sure where to start on the Emacs side.
>
> Any pointers toward this or better approaches appreciated.

Maybe you can authenticate yourself in SMTP.  For XEmacs, upgrade
mail-lib and look in smtpmail.el; for Emacs you need to wait for Emacs
21.4 (or use CVS sendmail.el + smtpmail.el).

Re: Gnus in an Exchange Server environment with authentication

[Don Dwiggins]

Simon Josefsson writes:

> Maybe you can authenticate yourself in SMTP.  For XEmacs, upgrade
> mail-lib and look in smtpmail.el; for Emacs you need to wait for Emacs
> 21.4 (or use CVS sendmail.el + smtpmail.el).

Thanks, but I'm doing that already.  I picked up the newer smtpmail.el, and
now I can send mail within the company, but not to outside addresses (the
"can't relay" problem that I mentioned).  

I'm in an area where my understanding is sketchy, but I think I need somehow
to manage NTLM-style authentication before Exchange will agree to send my
messages out.  As I said, I can do it successfully using CDO from Python, so
I'm kind of focusing on that approach.  What I think I'm asking for here is
some guidance on writing an elisp wrapper that will fit in the message mode
mail sending "system", and that will call a Python script to get the work
done.
-- 

Don Dwiggins		     "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who
d.l.dwiggins@computer.org     survive; the 'learned' find themselves fully equipped
                              to live in a world that no longer exists."
                               --  Eric Hoffer 

Re: Gnus in an Exchange Server environment with authentication

[Kai Großjohann]

Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@computer.org> writes:

> I'm in an area where my understanding is sketchy, but I think I need somehow
> to manage NTLM-style authentication before Exchange will agree to send my
> messages out.  As I said, I can do it successfully using CDO from Python, so
> I'm kind of focusing on that approach.  What I think I'm asking for here is
> some guidance on writing an elisp wrapper that will fit in the message mode
> mail sending "system", and that will call a Python script to get the work
> done.

Well, you can look at the various message-send-mail-with-*
functions.  Maybe if you can make your script be call-compatible with
sendmail, then you can just use message-send-mail-with-sendmail and
change the variable sendmail-program.
-- 
Ambibibentists unite!

Re: Gnus in an Exchange Server environment with authentication

[Simon Josefsson]

Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@computer.org> writes:

> Simon Josefsson writes:
>
>> Maybe you can authenticate yourself in SMTP.  For XEmacs, upgrade
>> mail-lib and look in smtpmail.el; for Emacs you need to wait for Emacs
>> 21.4 (or use CVS sendmail.el + smtpmail.el).
>
> Thanks, but I'm doing that already.  I picked up the newer smtpmail.el, and
> now I can send mail within the company, but not to outside addresses (the
> "can't relay" problem that I mentioned).  
>
> I'm in an area where my understanding is sketchy, but I think I need somehow
> to manage NTLM-style authentication before Exchange will agree to send my
> messages out.  As I said, I can do it successfully using CDO from Python, so
> I'm kind of focusing on that approach.  What I think I'm asking for here is
> some guidance on writing an elisp wrapper that will fit in the message mode
> mail sending "system", and that will call a Python script to get the work
> done.

Perhaps you can use sendmail.el and frob `sendmail-program'; it is
made for delivering via an external program.

FYI, if it is NTLM via SASL, smtpmail.el/imap.el/sieve.el/more? will
use the elisp SASL library in the future (iff the copyrights can be
assigned), and it contains a NTLM SASL mechanism.  The XEmacs sieve
package already use it, mail-lib will likely too soon.  Then you can
use smtpmail.el.  But perhaps it isn't NTLM in SASL.