Re: How to configure for smtps protocol

[Uday Reddy]

On 12/13/2011 8:41 PM, Alan wrote:

> There is a clue from reading in the VM Info manual (in my case,
> version 8.1), about the POP servers.  It says:
>
> "For SSL, you must have the stunnel program installed and the variable
> `vm-stunnel-program' must name it in order for POP over SSL to work.
> The default value of this variable, `"stunnel"', should be sufficient
> if the program is installed in your normal command search path."

This is an unfortunate confusion.

In the old days, when VM was designed, people knew the difference 
between mail readers and mail senders (even though mail readers always 
provided links to the mail senders in order to reply to messages). 
Nowadays the distinction between mail readers and mail senders is less 
well recognized.

The point here is that VM is a mail reader, not a mail sender.  The VM 
Info manual that you quoted above is talking about the mail reader.  On 
the other hand, Rene is facing issues with the mail sender, in 
particular the smtpmail package, which is part of Gnu Emacs.

The "Emacs SMTP Library" manual, distributed with Gnu Emacs, is in fact 
the best source of information.  The manual says:

`smtpmail-starttls-credentials'
     The variable `smtpmail-starttls-credentials' contains a list of
     tuples with hostname, port, name of file containing client key, and
     name of file containing client certificate.  The processing is
     similar to the previous variable.  The client key and certificate
     may be `nil' if you do not wish to use client authentication.

Rene has set this variable to `nil', meaning he doesn't wish to use 
"client authentication".  Is that the right thing to do?

(Why the protocols people can't write text that mere mortals can 
understand is always a question for me.)

The EmacsWiki page on GnusGmail, 
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GnusGmail, is also a good source of 
information.  If somebody can write a page like this for VM, the VM 
users would be quite grateful!

Cheers,
Uday