Sending mail with SSL/TLS

[Gerardo Ballabio <g ballabio cineca it>]

Hi all,
may I request your help?

I've been using balsa happily for a couple of years, but now I've just 
changed job and the mail server at my new location requires SMTP 
authentication and SSL/TLS encryption in order for outgoing mail to be 
sent. I haven't been able to get it to work. I invariably get this message:
"Could not send the message to [address deleted]:
554: <[address deleted]>: Recipient address rejected: Access denied
Message left in your outbox."

I've opened the "Preferences" menu at the "Outgoing mail" section, 
filled in the "Remote SMTP Server", "User" and "Pass Phrase" fields, and 
selected "Required" for "Use TLS" (have also tried "If Possible", didn't 
work either). Then there is a field asking for "Certificate Pass 
Phrase". I guess I must generate a certificate, but don't know how. (I 
tried to supply a dummy pass phrase hoping that Balsa would generate it 
for me, but it didn't.) I've never used SSL or TLS before.
I did a Google search for "Balsa SSL" and found an "SSL Certificate 
HOWTO" and it does have a "To use this certificate with Balsa" section, 
but unfortunately it only says "FIXME". Meanwhile, I've been able to set 
up Mozilla to send mail (which I'm using right now), thus I guess it has 
automatically generated a certificate for me.

Thus my question is, is there any way that Balsa can do the same? If 
not, is my guess correct that I must set up SSL and generate a 
certificate, and is there anything special that I must do in order for 
Balsa to find that certificate?
(The system is a fresh Debian Woody install with the unofficial Gnome 
2.2 port, and the version of Balsa is 2.0.12 from that port. I 
understand SSL support is enabled, since reading incoming mail via IMAP 
also requires SSL and it does work -- by the way, I tried to do the same 
via POP3, but I couldn't find how to enable SSL; I guess that isn't 
implemented yet.)

Thank you very much.
 Gerardo Ballabio