[Alpine-info] O365 XOAUTH2 via fetchmail

[Jonathan Siegle]

Yeah, they have to click a few things in portal.azure.com and then it just 
works. Check out 
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECN/Support/KB/Docs/UsingAlpinewitho365 
which has a good tip (  touch ~/.pine-passfile   ).

-Jonathan

On 2022-04-21 at 12:23, Sewell, David R (drs2n) wrote:


> 

> I hadn't been paying close enough attention to the list to realize that I could now get Alpine to work with my university's Exchange server. So I followed the instructions, got the token for

> Microsoft, successfully authenticated—and hit a window saying "Administrator approval required" with a form for me to submit a justification for allowing Alpine to access my account. So I guess

> someone somewhere in my university's IT division might or might be getting a request and might or might not do anything about it. Just when the technical hurdle is solved, a social/political hurdle

> crops up.

> 

>  

> 

> I'll file a help desk ticket in a few days if I don't hear anything and maybe let the list know how it goes—in particular, if the request is denied and what the reasoning might be in that case.

> 

>  

> 

> David S.

> 

>  

> 

> -- 

> 

> David Sewell

> 

> Manager of Digital Initiatives and the Rotunda Imprint

> 

> The University of Virginia Press

> 

> Email: dsewell at virginia.edu   Tel: +1 434 924 9973

> 

>  

> 

> From: Alpine-info <alpine-info-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Eduardo Chappa <alpine.chappa at yandex.com>

> Date: Wednesday, April 20, 2022 at 9:06 PM

> To: Andrew C Aitchison <andrew at aitchison.me.uk>, "alpine-info at u.washington.edu" <alpine-info at u.washington.edu>

> Subject: Re: [Alpine-info] O365 XOAUTH2 via fetchmail

> 

>  

> 

> On Wed, 20 Apr 2022, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:

> 

>  

>

>       OAUTH2 support has been has been in the contrib section of fetchmail 7

> 

> for at least 4 years. On Saturday (16 April 2022) Matthias Andree, the

> 

> fetchmail maintainer, wrote

> 

> https://sourceforge.net/p/fetchmail/mailman/fetchmail-users/?viewmonth=202204&viewday=16

> 

>  

> 

>     So if the abomination of hundreds of pages of a "standard" just for

> 

>     authentication by itself does NOT suffice to implement OAuth2, then

> 

>     we should probably leave it out and remove the experimental bits that

> 

>     are in fetchmail's code before a release, even from contrib, and

> 

>     replace them with a document README.OAuth2 that starts with "why does

> 

>     fetchmail not implement OAuth2".

> 

>  

> 

>     Or else somebody show me to a mail service that is not just some SOHO

> 

>     site and that *does* implement OAuth2 without requiring jumping

> 

>     through arbitrary hoops and showing dressage tricks or play sit up

> 

>     and beg or something, then we can implement it and document "why you

> 

>     cannot use OAuth2 with Google" instead.

> 

>  

> 

> so I fear that the reluctance to support OAUTH2 has not gone away :-(

> 

>  

> 

> This worries me because fetchmail, mutt, alpine, etc. are all in the same

> 

> boat. Our survival partly depends on the existence of our competitors,

> 

> because having a mutt user access a server tells administrators to take

> 

> care of a need that later might come from an Alpine user, and so having a

> 

> bunch of programs that need access to user data, that respect privacy and

> 

> security helps all of us.

> 

>  

> 

> In addition, we (mutt, fetchmail, alpine, etc.) all have to move to

> 

> modernize our clients, and this is one of the ways in which we have to do

> 

> it. There are other steps that need to be taken to modernize Alpine that

> 

> need to be done, which will come later. I accept that IMAP and SMTP access

> 

> will be gone from some of my accounts but I still need access to that data

> 

> through Alpine, so lots of work still remains to be done for that to

> 

> happen and what I hope is that other clients (mutt, fetchmail, etc.) will

> 

> do the same. Alpine has a robust library to access remote mailboxes and

> 

> lacks support for some modern access methods. I am working on bringing

> 

> those to Alpine too, and I hope people will realize that we might have to

> 

> leave IMAP and SMTP behind some day too, and that that's okay, because we

> 

> will still have everything we had in the past without these protocols.

> 

>  

> 

> We are not there yet. We still live in the world of IMAP and SMTP, but it

> 

> is starting to go away with companies like Google and Microsoft pushing

> 

> their products and methods and restricting access to their services to

> 

> competitors like Alpine for reasons of privacy and security concerns. We

> 

> have to be ready and we will be ready. We will get there, and I hope that

> 

> other developers like those of Mutt and Fetchmail realize about this now

> 

> so we can all continue coexisting when the world (or Google and Microsoft)

> 

> have turned the page on IMAP and SMTP and they do not support these

> 

> protocols anymore.

> 

>  

> 

> --

> 

> Eduardo

> 

> _______________________________________________

> 

> Alpine-info mailing list

> 

> Alpine-info at u.washington.edu

> 

> http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/alpine-info

> 

>  

> 

> 

>

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