Re: more on starttls, gnutls-cli and using tls for mail

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 12:23:09 -0400 Karl Fogel <address@hidden> wrote: 

KF> Separately, I think it's bad that we removed the Elisp-based API for
KF> passing this authn information, since some people (like me) are already
KF> using Elisp to fetch the auth creds securely from elsewhere, and having
KF> to dynamically construct a ~/.authinfo file as a means of passing that
KF> information *to other Elisp* is, shall we say, a really poor API.

KF> There's no reason we can't have both `smtpmail-auth-credentials' and
KF> ~/.authinfo (or ~/.authinfo.foo), and simply fall try the former when
KF> the latter is unavailable.

KF> However, that's a larger change, or semi-reversion.  I don't know if it
KF> would be accepted; I guess it belongs in a distinct thread.

`smtpmail-auth-credentials' is not a good interface for many reasons.
It was very, very well discussed in the past.  Everything it can do,
should be possible with `auth-source-search'.

`auth-source' supports multiple backends.  There's no reason we can't
provide a backend that does the dynamic fetching you want and does not
use a authinfo/netrc file.  The authinfo/netrc backend supports entry
creation and can share the file with other consumers such as libcurl;
this is the main reason why it's the default now.

You should also note that you can configure `auth-sources' to use any
combination of backends.  So your custom ELisp backend could be first,
then you'd hit the Secrets API, then the authinfo/netrc backend.  This
is simply impossible with `smtpmail-auth-credentials'.

Ted