alpine does not use sendmail by default

I am trying to see if I can change from pine to alpine.
My computer acts as its own mail server and under pine pine simply calls
sendmail to send out the mail.
The man page for alpine claims that alpine should do the same if neither
smtp-server and sendmail-path are unset Unfortunately I just get "No smtp
server set" error message when I try to send mail.

So it is eithr back to pine, or perhaps someone can tell me how to get
alpine to behave.

Thanks

Unruh <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote:
> I am trying to see if I can change from pine to alpine.
> My computer acts as its own mail server and under pine pine simply calls
> sendmail to send out the mail.
> The man page for alpine claims that alpine should do the same if neither
> smtp-server and sendmail-path are unset Unfortunately I just get "No smtp
> server set" error message when I try to send mail.

> So it is eithr back to pine, or perhaps someone can tell me how to get
> alpine to behave.

When I switched from pine to alpine it just worked. My setup is similar to
yours. My sendmail-path and smtp-server are unset. Have you done anything
else beside switch from pine to alpine. Have you changed MTA's or upgraded
or something?

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, Unruh wrote:

> I am trying to see if I can change from pine to alpine.
> My computer acts as its own mail server and under pine pine simply calls
> sendmail to send out the mail.
> The man page for alpine claims that alpine should do the same if neither
> smtp-server and sendmail-path are unset Unfortunately I just get "No smtp
> server set" error message when I try to send mail.
>
> So it is eithr back to pine, or perhaps someone can tell me how to get
> alpine to behave.
>
> Thanks

Maybe it has the wrong path for the sendmail command. Try

strings alpine | grep sendmail

to see if the path matches what it should. The configure option

--with-smtp-msa=PATH

may be used to change the path at configure time.

Steve

Steve Hubert <hubert@washington.edu> writes:

>On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, Unruh wrote:

>> I am trying to see if I can change from pine to alpine.
>> My computer acts as its own mail server and under pine pine simply calls
>> sendmail to send out the mail.
>> The man page for alpine claims that alpine should do the same if neither
>> smtp-server and sendmail-path are unset Unfortunately I just get "No smtp
>> server set" error message when I try to send mail.
>>
>> So it is eithr back to pine, or perhaps someone can tell me how to get
>> alpine to behave.
>>
>> Thanks

>Maybe it has the wrong path for the sendmail command. Try

> strings alpine | grep sendmail

>to see if the path matches what it should. The configure option

> --with-smtp-msa=PATH

>may be used to change the path at configure time.

Now the error is
Error sending: No default posting command.



>Steve

Steve Hubert <hubert@washington.edu> writes:

>On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, Unruh wrote:

>> I am trying to see if I can change from pine to alpine.
>> My computer acts as its own mail server and under pine pine simply calls
>> sendmail to send out the mail.
>> The man page for alpine claims that alpine should do the same if neither
>> smtp-server and sendmail-path are unset Unfortunately I just get "No smtp
>> server set" error message when I try to send mail.
>>
>> So it is eithr back to pine, or perhaps someone can tell me how to get
>> alpine to behave.
>>
>> Thanks

>Maybe it has the wrong path for the sendmail command. Try

> strings alpine | grep sendmail

>to see if the path matches what it should. The configure option

There is a bunch of stuff obviously from html pages in apline help but no
specific sendmail path
What does a correctly formatted entry look like?
Mine came directly from the Mandriva rpm.


> --with-smtp-msa=PATH

>may be used to change the path at configure time.

>Steve

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008, Unruh wrote:

> What does a correctly formatted entry look like?
> Mine came directly from the Mandriva rpm.

It depends on the system, but a fairly common location is
/usr/sbin/sendmail. If your system is running a sendmail daemon maybe an
easier approach would be to set the Smtp Server to localhost instead of
trying to execute sendmail each time you send mail. Or set Smtp Server to
the name of some other Smtp Server accessible to you. You may want to use
the submission port (587) and cause authentication to take place by
setting something like

Smtp Server = smtp.example.com:587/user=username

Steve

Steve Hubert <hubert@washington.edu> writes:

>On Tue, 29 Jul 2008, Unruh wrote:

>> What does a correctly formatted entry look like?
>> Mine came directly from the Mandriva rpm.

>It depends on the system, but a fairly common location is
>/usr/sbin/sendmail. If your system is running a sendmail daemon maybe an
>easier approach would be to set the Smtp Server to localhost instead of
>trying to execute sendmail each time you send mail. Or set Smtp Server to
>the name of some other Smtp Server accessible to you. You may want to use
>the submission port (587) and cause authentication to take place by
>setting something like

>Smtp Server = smtp.example.com:587/user=username

I actually use postfix, but postfix has a sendmail alias, which is in both
/usr/lib/sendmail and /usr/sbin/sendmail.

I get
[Error sending: No default posting command.]
as the error messages

In the .pinerc file I have
smtp-server=
and
sendmail-path=
Ie, both are unset.

If I set
sendmail-path=/usr/lib/sendmail -oem -t -oi

It works, but the docs say that is supposed to be the default if
sendmail-path is unset. And I do not want to get all my users to change
their .pinerc files.

It is also supposed to read /etc/pine.conf but does not. Aha
if I put in /usr/lib/pine.conf, it does read THAT!
Sheesh. Why change the default location.
And why change the default!


but putting

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008, Unruh wrote:

It is also supposed to read /etc/pine.conf but does not. Aha if I put
in /usr/lib/pine.conf, it does read THAT! Sheesh. Why change the
default location. And why change the default!

Pine/Alpine set the default to /usr/lib/, not /etc/. Some linux
distributions prefer to put their files in /etc/, so they changed them in
some moment. In case of doubt you can know where to find them, if you
look in the .pine-debug1 file, almost at the top it tells you the path
to where the files being read is, and that includes files like pine.conf,
and pine.conf.fixed.

--
Eduardo
http://staff.washington.edu/chappa/alpine/

Eduardo Chappa <chappa@u.washington.edu> writes:

>On Wed, 30 Jul 2008, Unruh wrote:

> It is also supposed to read /etc/pine.conf but does not. Aha if I put
> in /usr/lib/pine.conf, it does read THAT! Sheesh. Why change the
> default location. And why change the default!

>Pine/Alpine set the default to /usr/lib/, not /etc/. Some linux

/usr/lib is a silly place to put them-- lib is libraries, not configuration
files. /etc is the traditional place for configuration files.
But I guess neither you not I am going to change their minds.


>distributions prefer to put their files in /etc/, so they changed them in
>some moment. In case of doubt you can know where to find them, if you
>look in the .pine-debug1 file, almost at the top it tells you the path
>to where the files being read is, and that includes files like pine.conf,
>and pine.conf.fixed.

Thanks.

>--
>Eduardo
>http://staff.washington.edu/chappa/alpine/

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008, Unruh posted:
> /usr/lib is a silly place to put them-- lib is libraries, not configuration
> files. /etc is the traditional place for configuration files.

That is, of course, until some new distribution comes around and changes
the "official" definition of the roles of these various directories yet
again. Once upon a time, /etc was for system files and /usr/lib was used
as a library of any number of user-level accessory files, including binary
libraries, configuration files, dictionaries, scripts, etc.

Let's not forget /usr/share, and the /usr/libexec vs. /usr/sbin fooferaw.

The problem with sweeping statements that such-and-such location is
"silly" (or "traditional") is that for every such statement, you can find
someone (and some distribution) who says the exact opposite.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.