[Fsf-friends] DRAFT FAQ... for email users in Goa

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

	RECENTLY, a shiftover of mail-servers in Goa (from Goatelecom
	to Sancharnet.in) caused quite a few glitches in e-mail 
	access here. Below are some threads from the debate. We are
	trying to find solutions (many have been found), and seek your
	help in pointing us in the right direction. Please note that
	some of the suggestions below are tentative and not tested in
	all conditions. Hence, your suggestions on these, and 
	pointing out of inaccuracies,  would be more than welcome. 
	Kindly send your responses to fred@bytesforall.org with
	subjectline reading EMAIL FAQ... FN

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DRAFT FAQ: FOR GNULinux EMAIL USERS IN GOA, INCLUDING THOSE ON SANCHARNET
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                                              Compiled by FN for ILUG-Goa

It is found that sancharnet does not accept webmail logging from konquerer,
but from mozilla it works. I am using RH 7.2.  Dialling through kppp script
is also not smooth due to long time it takes for password authentication.
Has anybody else in the list found the same problem? -- Bijon B Shaha
<bbshaha@gmx.net>

	I had to enable the silent option in /etc/ppp/options to enable
	wvdial to connect. But this connect now takes ages at least 1.5 min
	from handshake tone to final connection. Is this a problwm with
	Sancharnet speeds? Or is it a problem with my machine? What's the
	best and fastest connect setting? I'm using wvdial.. no extra
	settings in the file. -- Ashely Delaney <delaneyashley@softhome.net>

> > For me after the silent option I get the connection and it takes around
> > 30 secs to connect.

That's about as long as it takes for me also... This is almost 20-25 seconds
slower then Windows based systems. I tried it out! I don't like my Linux box
slower then something else :-( 

> In wvdial.conf, will Stupid Mode =1 be of use?

Nope.. tried that. The stupid thing does just that. Starts ppp before
username and password and hence disconnects almost immediately. BTW I must
note that with the option passive it took 30 seconds, and with option
'silent' it took 1 min and the next time it disconnected. Any ideas??? --
Ashley Delaney <delaneyashley@softhome.net>

	Wvdial which used to work flawlessly for dialling to goatelecom has
	become unusable due to long authentication time required by
	Sanchanet. The program after starting desparelty ppp waits and waits
	and waits and eventually comes out to start redialling. Has anyone
	found a solution as many linux users use wvdial for automatic
	dialling?  -Bijon B Shaha <bbshaha@gmx.net>

I use wvdial and have to enable 'silent' option in /etc/ppp/options to make
sancharnet dialing to work with wvdial. However after configuring using
debian tool pppconfig and using pon and poff it worked in the first shot.
Still there are problems while sending mails using sancharnet smtp. --
Rajesh Fowkar

	Use PAP authentication without dialup script or terminal. -- Derek
	Cordeiro <derek_cordeiro@gmx.net>

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Does anybody know how to configure Mozilla mail to handover outgoing mail to
exim? -- Mahesh T Pai

	Very simple. Just put your outgoing smtp server as localhost (or
	your machine hostname) Exim listens on the port 25 of your local
	machine as defined in your inetd.conf file. You don't need to edit
	it. Just a tip: If you use fetchmail to retrieve your email you can
	install one of the many available pop3 servers. UW i.e. university
	of washington pop3, imap is quite good. <derek_cordeiro@gmx.net>

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Wanna get your hotmail email in a linux email client? Use hotwayd proxy
server http://hotwayd.sourceforge.net/ -- Derek Cordeiro
<derek_cordeiro@gmx.net>

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	There are problems while sending mails using sancharnet smtp. --
	Rajesh Fowkar

smra.sancharnet.in requires SMTP authorization. Old email clients do not
support authorization. Change your email client. You may not be able to send
email using an MTA such as sendmail, postfix, exim etc.. Use an email client
directly or get the use of an alternative SMTP server(relayhost) -- Derek
Cordeiro <derek_cordeiro@gmx.net>

	Strange -- I had no problems in setting up wvdial. It just worked
	with same options as for Goatelecom. Regarding the mail sending -- a
	line on CSI-Goa (Computer Society of India-Goa chapter) list helped. 
	I got three helpful responses. Sancharnet requires authentication
	for sending mails. I set that option on Sylpheed and it is working.
	-- Anil Seth <anilseth@sancharnet.in>

Thats good to hear. But does wvdial.conf have the option Stupid Mode = 1 
enabled?

Sylpheed supports SMTP auth. Not all email clients support the same. Older
versions of kmail -- e.g. kmail on RHL7.2 Debian woody 3.0, Mandrake 8.1 --
do not support smtp auth.

MTAs most probably will not support the same as they are full fledged SMTP 
servers and not any email client like Sylpheed. 

Sancharnet could, like many other servers, have allowed POP before SMTP
authentication so that most users (using sendmail, postfix, old email
clients) will be able to use the given SMTP server

BTW users of old versions of ppp should use 'passive' instead of 'silent'.
-- Derek Cordeiro <derek_cordeiro@gmx.net>

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	Debian vs Redhat: In Debian the wvdial package contains a file
	/etc/ppp/peers/wvdial-pipe whereas in RedHat Lnx the same does not
	exist. Is it that this file is not important?(Then why does it
	continue to exist even in Knoppix?) There is a utility called
	pppstatus in Debian Woody(and Knoppix). The same I downloaded and
	compiled on Mandrake, RedHat, But it fails to do the job (it
	provides a terminal interface graph). Has anyone tried it, Any
	answers? -- Derek Cordeiro

I can add a lot to that since yesterday I made a mess of my dialup accounts.
Redhat ppp dialer (rather the ifup-ppp script) also uses a file in the same
directory. It is created with the names like ppp0, ppp1. It contains the
command for connecting to the ISP using wvdial. (These files should actually
be temporary and dynamic and should be cleaned up when the connection is
closed. My problem may have been a side effect of abnormal terminations.)

For the curious, I used a shortcut to make sancharnet correspond to ppp0.
The idiot kept dialing goatelecom! I got rid of goatelecom entry in
wvdial.conf. It then complained about no phone number. Oh, well. I learnt -
short cuts are dangerous.

Regarding the ppp status, from my experience with Modem Lights, I would
guess that these programs actually use the Modem Lock file for the status.
If the modem is using /dev/ttyS0 and the monitoring program is using
/dev/modem, the status will not be shown. The file name will be something
like /var/lock/LCK..ttyS0 -- Anil Seth <anilseth@sancharnet.in>

	These files i.e. ppp0, ppp1 to my knowledge only contain a command
	wvdial with different options. The file "wvdial-pipe" contains pppd
	options like "noipdefault" etc. That's the reason I want to know
	it's significance.(It does not contain the command wvdial)

	The RedHat Network control creates ppp0, ppp1,...only upto version
	8.0. RHL 9.0 directly edits the /etc/wvdial.conf file. There are
	additional settings in /etc/sysconfig/network(network-scripts)
	folder-- Derek Cordeiro

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