Subject: Re: bug#31990: 26.1; Stuck in loop trying to send bug report

From: Robert Pluim <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 11:49:35 +0200

Live System User <[email-masked]> writes:

>> Then how do you expect emacs to know that for those 2 particular
>> servers it should prompt straight away?
>
>   Because (I believe) that the protocol requires a "password" or
>   certificate.

Thatʼs unfortunately not the way SMTP authentication works, itʼs very
much optional (and some servers change their authentication
requirements based on the recipient of the mail youʼre trying to
send).

>
>>                                         Or are you asking for a
>> generic 'if AUTH in capabilities then prompt username and password'
>> feature?
>
>   I'm requesting to restore the capability that
>   `smtpmail-auth-credentials' provided previously.
>
>>
>>>   Previously, one used `smtpmail-auth-credentials' for this.
>>
>> Which as Eli points out needed to be stored somewhere as well.
>
>   But it doesn't have to be stored on *disk*.
>
>   It can be defined anew each Emacs session and thus only "stored"
>   in *memory*.

I would find it very annoying to have to do that, but to each his
own. I doubt that having the username in memory is any more secure
than having it in an encrypted file.

Having said that, there might be a case that smtpmail should prompt
for authentication if smtpmail-smtp-user is set even without a
corresponding .authinfo setting. Iʼll take a look.

Robert