Re: [OT]sendmail ssl authentication

[David <de_bb@arcor.de>]

reader@newsguy.com writes:
> Sending a message with `mail -v' and watching the smtp conversation I
> see my messages get to the comcast mail server, (posted separately)
> but there is no mention of any authentication problem only a
> `deferred' and then timeout.

There is a great tool for testing SMTP connections called "swaks":

http://www.jetmore.org/john/code/#swaks

> In case anyone suggests it: I don't really want to side step and use
> the smtp.el package inside of gnus because I like for other mail tools
> like mailx to work too.

OK. My next suggestion would then be to switch to Exim or
Postfix. They're usually easier to configure and many distributions have
scripts to create the configuration for you, based on some simple
settings (Exim on Debian, for example).

> Currently I have sendmail.mc setup to use authinfo, and as I've
> mentioned it worked for mnths but now the server has changed over to
> using ssl and uses a different port... I think 465.  At least that
> is what popped up when I checked the ssl box on thunderbird.

The problem is: there are two different ways to send mail with SSL
encryption: a correct one (SMTP+STARTTLS) and a broken one (ssmtp). The
latter is a typical Outlook-kludge (which is why many ISPs do it) and is
usually done over port 465, so it might indeed be that you're dealing
with ssmtp. If so, even switching to smtp.el won't help you since it
doesn't support ssmtp.

See this thread for details and how to test with telnet/swaks what
you're dealing with:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help/52049

>Does anyone know what I need in sendmail setup to allow ssl
>authentication at my ISP smtp server?

I'd suggest you better ask that question in a group dealing with
sendmail.

-David