Re: Does anybody here use mc's : mail -s <subject> -c <cc> <to> ?

[/dev/rob0 <rob0 gmx co uk>]

Comments directed to both posters are inline.

On Sat, Feb 09, 2013 at 10:12:48AM -0600, tooth pik wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 09, 2013 at 10:49:56AM +0200, chris glur wrote:
> > AFAICS an email client has 2 parts:
> > 1. a data-base to manage the In/Out mails

Database? What? A MUA either uses IMAP to read mail, or it reads the 
local mail files (mbox or maildir, typically.)

> > 2. transport agent/s for send and receive.

Something to open the network socket and speak IMAP or SMTP, yes.

> > Since mc is THE superb data-base manager, it seems that it could 
> > do email well?
>
> I don't know if mc will do mail or not -- if you are looking for 
> something sensible why not use mutt?  I can verify mutt can send 
> and receive gmail, having become disenchanted with the service 
> provided by my ISP.  You'll want to be sure to use the sendmail 
> provided by postfix

I don't recommend a MTA for this. Too many moving parts. Recent 
mutt(1) versions support SMTP, and it has long had IMAP support (and 
POP3 also, but let's just let POP3 die as it should have a decade 
ago.)

> (just install postfix: it'll de-install the old sendmail if it's 
> there).

That will vary by OS/distro. Not necessarily true.

>  You'll need google's certificates:  there's a good
> (well, usable) set of instructions on setting it all up at:
>
>     http://www.linuxexpert.ro/Linux-Tutorials/fetchmail-for-gmail-accounts.html

Ugh, fetchmail sucks, and it provides nothing of benefit here. All 
you need is in mutt. Learn mutt well and you're done. Without 
bothering to review your tutorial, I'll guess it's bad.

> > In my failed-state location, ISP's email facilities have crapped 
> > out, or perhaps the natives can only use FB & twitter; so I've 
> > had to resort to gmail, which is very inefficient and frustrating 
> > in the default/http mode.
>
> fetchmail will pull gmail Inbox contents down to your pc where mutt
> can display in threads, and allow you to compose replies in vim, all
> very efficient.

(vim or your editor of choice, including mcedit)

> > Does "mail -s <subject> -c <cc> <to>" use `sendmail` [or its 
> > proxy]?

I don't see a "mail" feature in mc. If you are talking about the CLI 
mail(1) utility, it has a man page. Heirloom mailx indeed defaults to 
sendmail(1) for outbound sending.

> > sendmail is punishment to setup !

Any MTA will provide a sendmail binary for mail submission. There are 
also null clients like msmtp and nullmailer, but again, if using mutt 
there is no need for anything else.

> fetchmail, mutt, postfix all will need to be tweaked -- some
> punishment, yes, but in the end quite well worth the effort

Much of that effort was wasted, or at least misdirected.

> > gmail needs TLS/SSL
> > Is TLS/SSL a part of `sendmail`, or will `sendmail` call TLS/SSL?

Your submitting client would use STARTTLS as the second command in 
its SMTP connection to gmail. The remainder of the connection is 
encrypted, and through this encrypted connection your credentials 
would be presented to gmail.

All MUAs (such as mutt) and MTAs (Postfix or Sendmail) nowadays 
implement TLS.

> postfix's sendmail will use it if you tell it to, and get those
> certificates installed
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