I have a user who is unable to use mutt to login. I tested and sent a muttrc that worked for me and all he needed to do was put in his username and password.
Which failed.
After some back and forth, I figured out that his password contains a '$' and a '[' in it, and it seems like one of, or both, of these characters may be the issue. Is that expected? The account and password work properly via iOS and macOS mail, so the issue does't appear to be dovecot, but I find it very odd that mutt would have a glaring issue like this, so I am wondering if there is something else that I need to do.
Mutt 2.0.4 (2020-12-30)
The configuration looks like this:
# Imap settings set imap_user = "user@example.com" set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
# Smtp settings set smtp_url = "smtps://mail.covisp.net:587" set smtp_pass = "lasHhds[er$asd"
# Remote mail folders set folder = "imaps://mail.covisp.net:993" set spoolfile = "+INBOX" set postponed = "+/Drafts" set record = "+/Sent Mail" set trash = "+/Trash"
--
On 20/01/2021 13:27 @lbutlr <kremels@kreme.com> wrote:
I have a user who is unable to use mutt to login. I tested and sent a muttrc that worked for me and all he needed to do was put in his username and password.
Which failed.
After some back and forth, I figured out that his password contains a '$' and a '[' in it, and it seems like one of, or both, of these characters may be the issue. Is that expected? The account and password work properly via iOS and macOS mail, so the issue does't appear to be dovecot, but I find it very odd that mutt would have a glaring issue like this, so I am wondering if there is something else that I need to do.
Mutt 2.0.4 (2020-12-30)
The configuration looks like this:
# Imap settings set imap_user = "user@example.com" set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
# Smtp settings set smtp_url = "smtps://mail.covisp.net:587" set smtp_pass = "lasHhds[er$asd"
# Remote mail folders set folder = "imaps://mail.covisp.net:993" set spoolfile = "+INBOX" set postponed = "+/Drafts" set record = "+/Sent Mail" set trash = "+/Trash"
--
mutt treats them as variables most likely. Have you tried adding \ ?
Aki
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 04:27:11AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
Use single quotes around the password. Double quotes make $asd to be interpreted as shell variable and replaced with (most likely) empty string, so you get a shortened passwort in effect.
PS. Also a mutt lover :-)
-- Piotr "Malgond" Auksztulewicz firstname@lastname.net
On 20 Jan 2021, at 04:33, Piotr Auksztulewicz <dcml@hasiok.net> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 04:27:11AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
Use single quotes around the password. Double quotes make $asd to be interpreted as shell variable and replaced with (most likely) empty string, so you get a shortened passwort in effect.
This worked, thank you.
Also… grrrrr. Who though expansion inside a password string was a clever idea and can I introduce them to a clue bat? :p
PS. Also a mutt lover :-)
With the amount of HTML mail out there I really don't understand how people are able to use it anymore. Now, if I could get a 'stip html down to plain text' side function to work…
script execution error (#127): sh: line 3: fortune: command not found
On Wed, 20 Jan 2021 at 15:59, @lbutlr <kremels@kreme.com> wrote:
On 20 Jan 2021, at 04:33, Piotr Auksztulewicz <dcml@hasiok.net> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 04:27:11AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
Use single quotes around the password. Double quotes make $asd to be interpreted as shell variable and replaced with (most likely) empty string, so you get a shortened passwort in effect.
This worked, thank you.
Also… grrrrr. Who though expansion inside a password string was a clever idea and can I introduce them to a clue bat? :p
PS. Also a mutt lover :-)
With the amount of HTML mail out there I really don't understand how people are able to use it anymore. Now, if I could get a 'stip html down to plain text' side function to work…
Someone using mutt in 2021 must be a hater of all forms of GUI :-)
-- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 "Oh, the cruft.", grep ^[^#] :-)
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 05:58:38AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
Also… grrrrr. Who though expansion inside a password string was a clever idea and can I introduce them to a clue bat? :p
Well, this is just the result of a generic config file parser, every statement gets processed the same way. I guess the mutt author did not want to create special cases for some parameters like password, and everything is clearly stated in the manual. It is also quite intuitive for Unix/sh people that '$xxx' is different from "$xxx".
PS. Also a mutt lover :-)
With the amount of HTML mail out there I really don't understand how people are able to use it anymore. Now, if I could get a 'stip html down to plain text' side function to work…
Just install a text-based browser, there are several: lynx, links, w3m and more. I prefer w3m. Make sure mutt + metamail are configured properly and mutt will launch the browser. Most legitimate HTML email is just pure text, just slightly marked up if at all. If you get mostly-pictures HTML message, it's 99.99% spam.
Most HTML emails have a plain text alternative and it will be displayed instead. Some emails have empty plain text alternative, it is a small nuisance then, you need to hit 'v' to see the MIME parts and navigate to HTML one.
Anyway, I still find text access very useful to check mails quickly without having to fire up some slow beast such as Thunderbird, or while working from some firewalled environment - it is often easy to SSH out. Hint: run your sshd also on port 443. If that doesn't work, run stunnel on top. It didn't work for me only once, when one company enabled TLS hijacking on the firewall temporarily (probably by mistake), stunnel then warned me about wrong TLS cert :-) Also I hate webmail, and I haven't installed any on my mail server, so I need mutt, badly.
-- Piotr "Malgond" Auksztulewicz firstname@lastname.net
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 01:58:38PM CET, "@lbutlr" <kremels@kreme.com> said:
On 20 Jan 2021, at 04:33, Piotr Auksztulewicz <dcml@hasiok.net> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 04:27:11AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
Use single quotes around the password. Double quotes make $asd to be interpreted as shell variable and replaced with (most likely) empty string, so you get a shortened passwort in effect.
This worked, thank you.
Also… grrrrr. Who though expansion inside a password string was a clever idea and can I introduce them to a clue bat? :p
set imap_pass = $smtp_pass seems a good usecase.
PS. Also a mutt lover :-)
With the amount of HTML mail out there I really don't understand how people are able to use it anymore. Now, if I could get a 'stip html down to plain text' side function to work…
In my .mailcap I have text/html; w3m -I %{charset} -T text/html; copiousoutput;
and in my .muttrc : auto_view text/html
-- Erwan
On 20 Jan 2021, at 07:20, Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 01:58:38PM CET, "@lbutlr" <kremels@kreme.com> said:
On 20 Jan 2021, at 04:33, Piotr Auksztulewicz <dcml@hasiok.net> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 04:27:11AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
Use single quotes around the password. Double quotes make $asd to be interpreted as shell variable and replaced with (most likely) empty string, so you get a shortened passwort in effect.
This worked, thank you.
Also… grrrrr. Who though expansion inside a password string was a clever idea and can I introduce them to a clue bat? :p
set imap_pass = $smtp_pass seems a good usecase.
But imap_pass = "$smtp_pass" seems like a silly use case.
PS. Also a mutt lover :-)
With the amount of HTML mail out there I really don't understand how people are able to use it anymore. Now, if I could get a 'stip html down to plain text' side function to work…
In my .mailcap I have text/html; w3m -I %{charset} -T text/html; copiousoutput;
Interesting, I do not know about .mailcap (I use mutt only to send some automated mails ro users who want the data formatted in an HTML table).
and in my .muttrc : auto_view text/html
Maybe that is what he does. I certainly looks very readable (which mutt is not, as a general rule, when viewing HTML mail).
It does seem to hide the links entirely, so you cannot, I assume click on any "Click here to confirm" links or whatever. Still, does look quite workable.
-- Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening. Or what, for that matter.
It would be useful to automatically de-HTML e-mails, but this is not a task for dovecot. Even more useful would be to deprecate HTML in e-mails.
-------- Original Message -------- On Jan 20, 2021, 13:58, @lbutlr wrote:
On 20 Jan 2021, at 04:33, Piotr Auksztulewicz <dcml@hasiok.net> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 04:27:11AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
Use single quotes around the password. Double quotes make $asd to be interpreted as shell variable and replaced with (most likely) empty string, so you get a shortened passwort in effect.
This worked, thank you.
Also… grrrrr. Who though expansion inside a password string was a clever idea and can I introduce them to a clue bat? :p
PS. Also a mutt lover :-)
With the amount of HTML mail out there I really don't understand how people are able to use it anymore. Now, if I could get a 'stip html down to plain text' side function to work…
script execution error (#127): sh: line 3: fortune: command not found
On 25/01/2021 09:08, Rupert Gallagher wrote:
It would be useful to automatically de-HTML e-mails, but this is not a task for dovecot. Even more useful would be to deprecate HTML in e-mails.
Why would it be useful to deprecate HTML in emails? Presumably you're arguing for an alternative, more restricted markup language such as Enriched Text[1], Markdown[2]? Mutt already supports Enriched Text, but is probably the most popular MUA which does. I'm not aware of an MUA that natively renders Markdown bodies - most of the tutorials I see about that involve composing the message in Markdown and then converting it to HTML for sending - but to be honest, at this point the effort is a bit late. Realistically, how are you going to render that Markdown text in a Graphical MUA? Either you're going to write a custom control which renders the markup as styled text (that is, converts **bold** to a bold-face font etc) or you're just going to run the Markdown through a Markdown->HTML converter and pass it to a Web Browser component (both the converter and the renderer are "solved problems" so guess which solution developers would choose), in which case, what's the point of going "around the houses"?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_text
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
-------- Original Message -------- On Jan 20, 2021, 13:58, @lbutlr < kremels@kreme.com> wrote:
On 20 Jan 2021, at 04:33, Piotr Auksztulewicz <dcml@hasiok.net> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 04:27:11AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote: >> set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password > > Use single quotes around the password. Double quotes make $asd to be > interpreted as shell variable and replaced with (most likely) empty > string, so you get a shortened passwort in effect. This worked, thank you. Also… grrrrr. Who though expansion inside a password string was a clever idea and can I introduce them to a clue bat? :p > PS. Also a mutt lover :-) With the amount of HTML mail out there I really don't understand how people are able to use it anymore. Now, if I could get a 'stip html down to plain text' side function to work… script execution error (#127): sh: line 3: fortune: command not found
If someone needs to send a formatted text, then they can use a text editor on headed paper, export to PDF and send it as attachment. E-mail proper is the plain text body of the message. When people send fancy HTML and expect me to read it on my phone, then they have wasted their effort, because the message is too heavy to download, heavy to display, and because I ultimately read e-mails in plain text. And most of the times it is spam.
-------- Original Message -------- On Jan 25, 2021, 10:55, Darac Marjal < mailinglist@darac.org.uk> wrote:
On 25/01/2021 09:08, Rupert Gallagher wrote: It would be useful to automatically de-HTML e-mails, but this is not a task for dovecot. Even more useful would be to deprecate HTML in e-mails. Why would it be useful to deprecate HTML in emails? Presumably you're arguing for an alternative, more restricted markup language such as Enriched Text[1], Markdown[2]? Mutt already supports Enriched Text, but is probably the most popular MUA which does. I'm not aware of an MUA that natively renders Markdown bodies - most of the tutorials I see about that involve composing the message in Markdown and then converting it to HTML for sending - but to be honest, at this point the effort is a bit late. Realistically, how are you going to render that Markdown text in a Graphical MUA? Either you're going to write a custom control which renders the markup as styled text (that is, converts **bold** to a bold-face font etc) or you're just going to run the Markdown through a Markdown->HTML converter and pass it to a Web Browser component (both the converter and the renderer are "solved problems" so guess which solution developers would choose), in which case, what's the point of going "around the houses"?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_text [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
-------- Original Message -------- On Jan 20, 2021, 13:58, @lbutlr < kremels@kreme.com> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 04:27:11AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
set imap_pass = "lasH-hds[er$asd" # Not a real password
Use single quotes around the password. Double quotes make $asd to be interpreted as shell variable and replaced with (most likely) empty string, so you get a shortened passwort in effect. This worked, thank you. Also… grrrrr. Who though expansion inside a password string was a clever idea and can I introduce them to a clue bat? :p PS. Also a mutt lover :-) With the amount of HTML mail out there I really don't understand how people are able to use it anymore. Now, if I could get a 'stip html down to plain text' side function to work…
On 20 Jan 2021, at 04:33, Piotr Auksztulewicz <dcml@hasiok.net> wrote: script execution error (#127): sh: line 3: fortune: command not found
On 26/01/2021 18:18, Rupert Gallagher wrote:
If someone needs to send a formatted text, then they can use a text editor on headed paper, export to PDF and send it as attachment. E-mail proper is the plain text body of the message. When people send fancy HTML and expect me to read it on my phone, then they have wasted their effort, because the message is too heavy to download, heavy to display, and because I ultimately read e-mails in plain text. And most of the times it is spam.
And yet, ironically, this message you sent is in HTML.
It does have a plain text part, but it's base64 encoded. Not a problem for any half-decent MUA, but for those read hardcore users that read their mail directly from ~/maildir (or something like that), it's an extra decoding step ;-)
-- "Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it." -- Dave Barry
Eduardo M KALINOWSKI eduardo@kalinowski.com.br
On 25 Jan 2021, at 02:08, Rupert Gallagher <ruga@protonmail.com> wrote:
It would be useful to automatically de-HTML e-mails, but this is not a task for dovecot. Even more useful would be to deprecate HTML in e-mails.
Well, that is never going to happen.
I have tried, but failed,. To write a sieve and script to strip HTML parts of messages and if the message is only HTML to pipe it through w3m and add the html portion as an emo attachment (in case it has links that need clicking, like on some 'confirm you exist' emails.
So far, that has failed and dovecote/sieve doesn't give enough logging when scripts fail (script works when run manually, fails when run from sieve, but no information on why it failed). For not I have given up.
I get a LOT of mail that is pointlessly HTMLized (including on this list) and would very much like to strip it down to plain text, but so far the best option appears to use a text-based mail client to access those messages.
What I may do is simply put all the HTML mail into a special jail (er, I mean mailbox) so that I don't encounter it accidentally.
Honestly, I do not main HTML per se, it is when the HTML specifies font size, colors, background colors, and other garbage like that that I despise it. A well formed HTML message is is fine, but those are very rare.
-- Vampires have risen from the dead, the grave and the crypt, but have never managed it from the cat. --Witches Abroad
On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 08:52:14AM -0700, @lbutlr wrote:
I have tried, but failed,. To write a sieve and script to strip HTML parts of messages and if the message is only HTML to pipe it through w3m and add the html portion as an emo attachment (in case it has links that need clicking, like on some 'confirm you exist' emails.
I truly hate those. Most often they now require Javascript, too. I use ssh and neomutt. I'm going to write a macro to take the html attachment and put it in a website directory. I've been doing it the long hard manual way. I hate forced javascript. No excuse but sloppiness to have that on a confirm you exist page.
In any case, this is just nice to vent a little steam out. I don't think we can do much except chastise users of mailing lists. Sounds like a good macro to send a polite form letter reply to evildoers.
Honestly, I do not main HTML per se, it is when the HTML specifies font size, colors, background colors, and other garbage like that that I despise it. A well formed HTML message is is fine, but those are very rare.
+1
Thanks for the great software and long hard work to find the most miniscule hidden bugs!
Chris Bennett
participants (10)
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＠lbutlr
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Aki Tuomi
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Chris Bennett
-
Darac Marjal
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Eduardo M KALINOWSKI
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Erwan David
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Odhiambo Washington
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Piotr Auksztulewicz
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Rupert Gallagher
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Stuart Henderson