Another laptop, another attempt at configuring outgoing email#

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:20:57 +0000

Another laptop, another attempt at configuring outgoing email. That is, it's the same laptop as last week, but I'd been putting off this task.

Requirements:

• Doesn't require me to stop using Gnus

• Works wherever I can find reasonable connectivity - does not require me to be on a specific IP address or network, or able to send SMTP directly to servers around the world.

• Can queue mail when I'm not connected to any such network.

• Reasonably secure: certainly nothing involving open relays

• Doesn't involve half a day learning about SASL or SMTP AUTH or stuff like that

• Ideally, no need for lots of silly small scripts littering ~/bin/

Available: a shell host that I have ssh access to.

Solution: harness the awesome power of smtpmail.el

(require 'smtpmail)
(defun ssh-smtpmail-send-it ()
  (let* ((smtpmail-smtp-server "localhost")
	 (smtpmail-smtp-service 2525)
	 (smtp-local-domain "telent.net")
	 (smtp-sendto-domain "telent.net")
	 (sendmail (start-process "ssh-smtp" nil
				  "/usr/bin/ssh"
				  "-L" "2525:localhost:25"
				  "loaclhost.telent.net"
				  "cat"))
	 (ready-p nil))
    (labels ((filter (p s)
		     (if (string-match "tunnel is ready" s)
			 (setq ready-p t)
		       (message "Received from SSH connection: %s" s))))
      (unwind-protect
	  (progn
	    (set-process-filter sendmail 'filter)
	    (process-send-string sendmail "tunnel is ready\n")
	    (while (not ready-p)
	      (accept-process-output sendmail))
	    (message "")
	    (smtpmail-send-it))
	(process-send-eof sendmail) ; ask it nicely first
	(kill-process sendmail))))); if that does nothing, inhume it forcefully
(setq send-mail-function 'ssh-smtpmail-send-it)
(setq message-send-mail-function 'ssh-smtpmail-send-it)

Needs to be able to connect to the shell host (yes, really, it is called loaclhost) without a password, which is what ssh-agent was invented for. Needs no configuration changes on the shell host (nor even root access, though it happens that I have that anyway). How it works: (1) opens an ssh connection to the shell host and runs cat, additionally with a tunnel connecting port 2525 on my laptop to 25(smtp) on the shell machine; (2) prints something to the cat process and waits for it to come back - by this time the tunnel should also be ready for use; (3) calls smtpmail-send-it, (4) cleans up. This is, I feel, marginally less tacky than sleep n where n is chosen experimentally to be (a) greater than the connection/tunnel setup time, (b) less than would drive me mad while waiting.

Incoming mail, if you were wondering, is delivered to a maildir on loaclhost then synced with the notebook using maildirsync

In other laptop-related news: still can't get ACPI S3 suspend to work. swsuspend2 doesn't like my pcmcia wireless card (it's an Atmel thing). APM suspend does work, but running with no ACPI causes the fan to spin constantly which is annoying in a quiet environment and probably shortening battery life. But: I may be able to dispense with the PCMCIA wireless card as I have a mini-pci card arriving tomorrow from Solwise. It's not yet certain whether that will give me any better PM support, but it can use the laptop's builtin antenna so maybe it'll at least give me better reception. Will see. It would be nice also if I can get it to distinguish more of the pointer buttons from each other (four physical buttons but X only sees two) so that I can have a proper middle button again.