Re: Balsa + libESMTP patch

[Brian Stafford <brian stafford uklinux net>]

On Tue,  1 May 23:09 Carlos Morgado wrote:

| > Attached is a patch which replaces the use of sendmail and
| > Balsa's original SMTP client with libESMTP.
| > 
| > You will need to obtain at least version 0.6.1 of libESMTP
| > from http://www.stafford.uklinux.net/libesmtp/ to use this
| > patch.
| > 
| The patch doesn't add a --with-libesmtp, does it ? It should :)

I don't see why.  The libESMTP patch is a *replacement* for the
existing code.  Balsa's existing SMTP client is buggy and does
not comply with RFC 821.  Piping messages into sendmail is
inflexible and requires a complex MTA installation just to
post mail, especially on a workstation which has no need for
an MTA.

I have been using the patched Balsa for upwards of two months now
in various configurations with many SMTP servers with no problems.
I decided it was time the wider community had the opportunity to
try it.  Bottom line is if you don't like the patch, don't apply it.

| > To set up the patched version of Balsa, go to
| > Settings/Preferences/Mail Servers and specify the remote SMTP
| > server mail is submitted to.  The syntax is hostname[:port].
| 
| there was a smtp port inputbox in the config dialog. why didn't you
| use that?

Because libESMTP parses the host[:port] syntax. This is a fairly
standard sort of thing anyway, e.g. Netscape and a handful of other
programs use this syntax also.   I may add the ability to parse URI
syntax in the future (if a URI syntax for SMTP is standardised).
I felt that forcing the application to synthesise the correct syntax
from a host name and a port number was a bit kludgy and was rather
more work than necessary, so I removed the port number box.

| > Since libESMTP defaults to port 587 rather than 25 you will
| 
| errrrr. why ?

Errrrr, see RFC 2476.  libESMTP aims to be compliant with the current
set of mail standards which apply to mail *submission*.  To that end
it will shortly comply with RFC 2821 and RFC 2822 rather than RFC 821,
RFC 822, RFC 974 and portions of RFC 1123 which are now obsolete.

| > most likely need to specify the server as something like
| > 'localhost:25'.  User and Pass Phrase must be specified if the
| > SMTP server requires authentication.

Regards
Brian Stafford