[vdr] Re: ANNOUNCE: mailbox plugin 0.1.0 for IMAP/POP3 accounts

[Alexander Rieger <lists@seca.inka.de>]

Hi all,

first of all I want to thank the people which sent me some feedback on 
their success or failure to compile/start/use the plugin.

As the mailbox-plugin uses the c-client library and as different linux 
distributors build their packages in different ways and I am not able to 
test all these combinations at home, I depend on your valuable feedback 
and your help to update the README and the Makefile to make the 
installation of the plugin more straightforward.

After having exchanged some private mails with some users I want to 
summarize the most common pitfalls (with some solutions and some 
requests for help :)

Tomorrow I will place the following text on the web-server at

  <http://sites.inka.de/seca/vdr/problems.txt>

and update it at regular intervals. Later on I will incorporate these 
hints in the README / Makefile and/or a separate file.

Of course I won't bother the VDR-Mailinglist with this complete text again.

To make it as easy as possible to build/run the plugin on various 
distributions I would like to add as many as possible distribution 
dependent hints to the README. Therefore I kindly ask you to drop me a 
short personal mail (to <alex at seca.inka.de>) with the following 
information:

- Linux distribution and version number on the VDR PC
- c-client package name or compiled from source
- used settings for IMAPINCDIR and IMAPLFLAGS
- parameters used in MailBox-string to connect to the imap-server
  (e.g. right now, I know at least of one user who successfully
  connects with '.../imap/ssl/novalidate-cert')
- name and version of the imap-server

Contents:

1. Compilation
1.1 error because "linkage.c" is missing
    (at least SuSE 8.1, 8.0 and Gentoo 1.4)

2. Starting vdr with the plugin
2.1 unresolved external "crypt"
    (at least Mandrake 9.1)

3. Misc

-----

All file-names are relative to the directory of the plugin: 
$VDRDIR/PLUGINS/src/mailbox

1. Compilation
==============
1.1 error because "linkage.c" is missing
----------------------------------------
(at least SuSE 8.1, 8.0 and Gentoo 1.4)
(OK: SuSE 8.2, Debian 3.0)

The compiler complains about a missing file "linkage.c" while compiling 
AxMail/src/AxMailBoxMgr.cpp.

Possible workaround is below.

Explanation/Background:
-----------------------
The c-client-library uses internally so called 'drivers' to access the 
mailboxes. These drivers must be initialized/registered before the first 
access to a mailbox.

Therefore an application which uses the c-client-library must call the 
appropriate functions at the beginning / before the first mailbox 
access. To make it easy for the application developer the author of 
c-client delivers a source-file "linkage.c" with the necessary function 
calls which should be included in the source of the client-application 
at a place where these commands are executed before mail access.

Unfortunately the package maintainers of some versions of some linux 
distributions didn't include the file "linkage.c" in the 
include-directory of the c-client-package. Ok, thats understandable as 
it's quite unusual to have a *.c-file in an include directory.

Nevertheles I used '#include "linkage.c"' as the author states in the 
documentation:

----- snip -----
 void mail_link (DRIVER *driver);
 	driver	pointer to the driver to be added

      This function adds the specified driver to the list of mailbox
 drivers.  Initially there are no drivers lunk, so all programs which
 intend to use c-client need to have at least one call to this function.

      A function which uses IMAP4 would have a statement such as:
 	mail_link (&imapdriver);	/* link in IMAP driver */
 early in the program's initialization.  Normally, this is done by the
 statement
 	#include "linkage.c"
 which will include the "system standard driver linkage" defined when
 c-client was built.  By using linkage.c instead of explicit mail_link()
 calls, you are guaranteed that you will have a consistant linkage among
 all software built on this system.
----- snip -----
(Full text at:
<http://www.washington.edu/imap/documentation/internal.txt.html>)

So I followed the documentation exactly, but unfortunately the linkage.c 
isn't contained in all distributions.

Workaround:
-----------
If you don't have a file linkage.c on your pc you could try the following:

Create a file named 'linkage.c' in the subdirectory AxMail/src/
and put the following lines into that file:

----- snip -----
  mail_link (&mboxdriver);        /* link in the mbox driver */
  mail_link (&imapdriver);        /* link in the imap driver */
  mail_link (&nntpdriver);        /* link in the nntp driver */
  mail_link (&pop3driver);        /* link in the pop3 driver */
  mail_link (&mhdriver);          /* link in the mh driver */
  mail_link (&mxdriver);          /* link in the mx driver */
  mail_link (&mbxdriver);         /* link in the mbx driver */
  mail_link (&tenexdriver);       /* link in the tenex driver */
  mail_link (&mtxdriver);         /* link in the mtx driver */
  mail_link (&mmdfdriver);        /* link in the mmdf driver */
  mail_link (&unixdriver);        /* link in the unix driver */
  mail_link (&newsdriver);        /* link in the news driver */
  mail_link (&philedriver);       /* link in the phile driver */
  mail_link (&dummydriver);       /* link in the dummy driver */
  auth_link (&auth_md5);          /* link in the md5 authenticator */
  auth_link (&auth_pla);          /* link in the pla authenticator */
  auth_link (&auth_log);          /* link in the log authenticator */
  ssl_onceonlyinit ();
  mail_parameters (NIL,SET_DISABLEPLAINTEXT,(void *) 2);
----- snip -----

This are the contents of the file linkage.c on my develoment system.

Alternatively you could replace the line

#include "linkage.c"

(around line 70) in AxMail/src/MailBoxMgr.cpp with the above lines.

Note: I would expect that the following two lines

  mail_link (&imapdriver);        /* link in the imap driver */
  mail_link (&pop3driver);        /* link in the pop3 driver */

could be enough. At least on my system the plugin works as expected with 
these two lines. If you don't use plain-text-passwords, try adding the 
last five lines from above too.

*Please*: Send me a short mail if you have the mentioned problem and if 
this workaround solves the problem for you. I need some information 
about your system (see questions above) and which lines from above made 
the plugin work for you.

I'm sorry for the inconveniences - I don't think that this workaround is 
really the best solution. At this point, I'm still not sure how to solve 
this problem in future versions of the plugin.

2. Starting vdr with the plugin
===============================
2.1 unresolved external "crypt"
-------------------------------
Please add '-lcrypt' to your IMAPLFLAGS (and write me a short mail if 
that solves the problem.

3. Misc
=======
If you get a message like "Can't get status of mailbox..." please check 
that your settings for the mail account are correct. Please ensure also, 
that you have braces around the Mailbox-String and that the spelling of 
all parameters (like '/imap/notls/norsh') is correct.

(to be continued...)

have fun,
Alex




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