[Patches] [ python-Patches-572031 ] AUTH method LOGIN for smtplib

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Patches item #572031, was opened at 2002-06-21 12:27
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Category: Library (Lib)
Group: Python 2.3
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Gerhard Häring (ghaering)
>Assigned to: Barry A. Warsaw (bwarsaw)
Summary: AUTH method LOGIN for smtplib

Initial Comment:
Unfortunately, my original SMTP auth patch doesn't work
so well in real life. There are two methods to
advertise the available auth methods for SMTP servers:

old-style: AUTH=method1 method2 ...
RFC style: AUTH method1 method2

Microsoft's MUAs are b0rken in that they only
understand the old-style method. That's why most SMTP
servers are configured to advertise their
authentication methods in old-style _and_ new style.
There are also some especially broken SMTP servers like
old M$ Exchange servers that only show their auth
methods via the old style.

Also the (sadly but true) very widely used M$ Exchange
server only supports the LOGIN auth method (I have to
use that thing at work, that's why I came up with this
patch). Exchange also supports some other proprietary
auth methods (NTLM, ...), but we needn't care about these.

My argument is that the Python SMTP AUTH support will
get a lot more useful to people if we also support

1) the old-style AUTH= advertisement
2) the LOGIN auth method, which, although not
standardized via RFCs and originally invented by
Netscape, is still in wide use, and for some servers
the only method to use them, so we should support it

Please note that in the current implementation, if a
server uses the old-style AUTH= method, our SMTP auth
support simply breaks because of the esmtp_features
parsing.

I'm randomly assigning this patch to Barry, because
AFAIK he knows a lot about email handling. Assign
around as you please :-)



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