mail authentication (was Re: mail: Sending...failed with exit value 71)

[gebser]

At 19:42 (UTC-0000) on Tue, 9 Dec 2003 Glenn Morris said:

= gebser@speakeasy.net wrote:
= 
= ...
= 
= New guess: you have got a not-part-of-Emacs package called smtp.el
= installed somewhere in your load path, and it is screwing things up.
= ...

Glenn,

You're a genius.  With all the paths to emacs, I didn't notice that I'd
installed flim in one of them; this was where the funky variables were
coming from and almost certainly where the bugs were being bred.  I
tar/gzip'd the whole package up, deleted the files, rebooted emacs, and
viola-- it's working now (almost...).  You're a genius.

New problem: Yes, emacs' mail is now working... to a degree.  I can send 
mail with it to myself, but only within the local machine.  If I try to 
send via my ISP, I get nothing.  That is to say, I know that emacs is 
connecting to the ISP and handing off the email, but it never gets 
delivered back to me.  I suspect that the ISP is simply tossing it out 
due to lack of authentication from me.  I found a couple functions 
alleged to remedy that:

     ;; Authenticate using this username and password against my server.
     (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
           '(("hostname" "port" "username" "password")))
     ;; Use STARTTLS without authentication against the server.
     (setq smtpmail-starttls-credentials
           '(("hostname" "port" nil nil)))
     

I don't know whether to fill in my hostname or that of my ISP, or the
one in one function and the other in the second function.  Also, I use a
couple different email addresses (usernames and passwords) on the same
ISP-- how would I handle that in (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials ...)?

Has anyone set this up before?  Tips much appreciated.  (Glenn, thanks 
again.)


tia,
ken