sending mail via VTCP/Secure

[Dave Cohen <dnc@bigfoot.com>]

Hello all,

My question is not specific to gnus.  I apologize for asking it here,
but I expect there's enough expertise out there to answer this one
quickly and easily.

My problem is with sending mail from emacs.  Normally, this works fine
for me.  But recently my company started to use a product called
VTCP/Secure.  This product sets up a virtual private network between
our SMTP server and remote sites.  So, when I'm connecting from home,
I can't access our smtp server unless I'm running the VTCP/Secure
client, called VSClient.  This is supposed to give me access to the
SMTP server as if I were on a lan, but as you probably guessed, it
doesn't work.  Why we don't use ssh I have no idea.

Instead, when I send mail, emacs shows me "sending..." in the
minibuffer, but it never returns.  I wait and wait, and eventually I
quit the operation, which I must do to get emacs responding again.
Meanwhile, the VSClient log indicates that a connection was made, a
small amount of data was exchanged, then the connection terminated.
The amount of data is clearly not enough to be the entire email.

Does anyone out there have experience with VSClient or products like
it?  Can someone give me an better understanding about what emacs does
when sending mail?  Any tips on debugging this?


Some more information that may be relevant:

When connected normally (at the office, not using VSClient), I have no
trouble sending mail.

When connected via VSClient, my nnimap backend to gnus works fine.  So
I can read mail, but not send.  The imap server is the same machine as
the smtp server.  I can also use ange-ftp over VSClient.

When connected via VSClient, MS Outlook can send mail, while emacs
can't.  Sad but true.  Can you see why I want to get to the bottom of
this?

I'm running emacs on NT 4.  Gnu Emacs 20.5.1.  Gnus 5.8.4.

Below the relevant smtp settings from my .emacs.

Any help is greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

-Dave


;;;; Sending mail
(setq user-full-name "Dave Cohen")
(setq user-mail-address "dnc@bigfoot.com")
(setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "mail.company.com")
(setq smtpmail-local-domain nil)
(setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)

;; This causes myself to be BCCed on all mail I send.
(setq mail-self-blind t)

(load-library "smtpmail")
(setq send-mail-function 'feedmail-send-it)
(autoload 'feedmail-send-it "feedmail")
(autoload 'feedmail-run-the-queue "feedmail")
(setq feedmail-buffer-eating-function 'feedmail-buffer-to-smtpmail)
(setq feedmail-enable-queue t) ; optional
(setq feedmail-queue-chatty t) ; optional


;; from .gnus               
(setq gnus-post-method 'current)
(setq message-interactive t) ;; wait for success
(setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)