Subject: automatic password entry

From: [email-masked] (Paul Thompson)
Date: 13 Jun 1996 03:46:31 GMT

Is there any way of configuring PINE to automatically enter
one's password when using PINE to read mail from a remote host
using imap (or ?) protocol?

I have checked the .pinerc file but nothing seems to do this function, not even 
the 'initial keystrokes list'...am I missing something obvious/

Thanks
Paul
-- 
Paul Thompson | Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we 
              | learn nothing from history.  I know people who can't learn from
              | what happened this morning.  Hegel must have been taking the
              | long view.  -The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan

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From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 10:21:41 +0100 (BST)

What most people really want when they ask this method is a way of
"pre-authenticating" to the IMAP server.  This is certainly possible for
UNIX Pine providing your server is set up appropriately.  (Can anyone
comment on PC-Pine?)

The steps are:

1.  On the computer running the IMAP server...

a)  Make a symbolic link from /etc/rimapd to point to the real imapd
executable.

b)  Set up your username so that the server trusts the computer you'll be
running Pine on (by setting up a suitable .rhosts file for your username
*on the mail server*).  This then lets you use "rsh" from the named
computer to the IMAP server computer to run commands without having to
supply a username/password (this is determined via the rsh mechanism
itself).

[IMPORTANT: if you get this wrong you can open a security hole to your
username on the mail server; check with your local support desk on how to
do this.]

2.  On the computer you run Pine on...

a)  Test you got the .rhosts file set up properly by typing the following
command:
	rsh imapserver.yoursite.yourdomain /etc/rimapd
You SHOULD get a welcome banner line along the lines of:
	* PREAUTH mailer.york.ac.uk IMAP2bis Service 7.8(100) at Thu, 13
		Jun 1996 10:17:07 +0100 (BST)
To which you should respond:
	A01 logout
If you get prompted for a password then your .rhosts file is wrong.  Other
error messages should give a clue as to what is wrong (probably with the
rsh mechanism or the symbolic link you set up).

b)  Try using Pine to open a mailbox using IMAP on your server.  It should
now open without prompting you for a username and password.

[NOTE FOR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS: Rather than expecting each user to set up
a .rhosts file for themselves (and possibly getting it wrong!) consider
using a "hosts.equiv" file to create a systemwide list of trusted hosts
... but make sure you consider the security implicartions first! :-]

Cheers,

Mike Brudenell                                         <[email-masked]>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Computing Service, University of York, Heslington, York, YO1 5DD, UK
Tel: +44-1904-433811  FAX: +44-1904-433740  http://www.york.ac.uk/~pmb1/

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From: [email-masked] (TRAN Huu Da)
Date: 13 Jun 1996 10:52:47 GMT

Un jour, Paul Thompson ([email-masked]) a spiculi sur:

| Is there any way of configuring PINE to automatically enter one's
| password when using PINE to read mail from a remote host using imap (or 
| ?) protocol? 

Would you really want PINE to keep your passwd somewhere? In a text file 
perhaps? (".pinerc"). I believe it's a security issue.

__________________________________________________________________________
   TRAN, Huu Da                          mailto:[email-masked]
   B.Sc info (2e année)            http://www.jsp.umontreal.ca/~tranhu/
   Université de Montréal       http://libertel.montreal.qc.ca/~tranhu/
----->   C'est sûrement pas l'université qui partage mes opinions   <-----

On n'arrive jamais aussi loin que lorsqu'on ne sait où on va.    -- Goethe

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From: Daniel Silen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 17:48:40 +0200

> username on the mail server; check with your local support desk on how to

On our system, the /etc/passwd (and shadow) don't contain any passwords.
Instead all daemons that need it, queries a special "security-server"
for which user is connected to this port, and thereby limits the use
of passwords to a minimum (only used in terminal-servers when connecting).

This means that a user connecting with IMAP to the mailserver can't use
a password to identify himself. The authentication must be done by asking
the securityserver.

We also don't want the average joe to be able to rsh to the mailserver.
They should be limited to just use "user-servers".

Because of this I have tried to patch the imap-server to use our special
authentication method, and thereafter respond with the "PREAUTH"-message.
However this won't work for some reason. (Pine tries to connect,
and thereafter responds something like "the server closed the connection".
Seems like pine is expecting something to happen (probably to get a ok to
authentify the user), which never occurs, and then gets dissconnected
after a timeout from the server. When I telnet manually everything seems
to be fine.)

(We now NFS-mounts the /var/mail on the user-servers, something we would
like to get rid of, because that NFS is too slow for our needs)

Anyone got an idea why the patched IMAP-server won't work with Pine?
An idea what we might need to do to Pine to accept a preauth-message
from a (in it's view) a regular IMAP-connection?

All suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Sincerely

Daniel Silén, sysadm Algonet AB <[email-masked]>

PS
We use Pine3.92 and the IMAP4-toolkit (modified)
--
main(){char*p,s[]="\32ÿ\2S##s}#Cÿ\2\202#ssu3ÿ\0323#s{3\22#ÿc##sss#\22ÿ\2S##sss5\
ÿ\0323---#Cÿ";p=s;while(*p)putchar(*p!=-1?(*p&240?(*p-=16,32):((*p)-=2,*p<2?p++:
0,35)):(p++,10));}

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 13:03:41 -0700

On Thu, 13 Jun 1996, Daniel Silen wrote:
> However this won't work for some reason.

You need to write more code in map_open() in c-client/imap2.c

In the current code, PREAUTH is only believed when you do an rsh
connection, not when you do a TCP connection.  This is changed in some
newer versions of imap-4 toolkit, but the version used by Pine is still an
older one. 

-- Mark --

DoD #0105, R90/6 pilot, FAX: (206) 685-4045  ICBM: N 47 39'35" W 122 18'39"
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.