Hi All,

I've been working on getting internet email based password resets and account validation working. Unfortunately, I can't send anything directly from mystic because there is a 20-character SMTP username and password limit
in the configuration UI. Amazon AWS (SES) uses these awful, very long random character strings for SMTP credentials. I tried pasting in my password anyway but it fails to authenticate so it really does seem to truncate it. I know
SMTP is working because I was able to get a modified version of xqtr's python script to send email without issue.

Short of requesting a fix in a future release (calling g00r00) :) - is there any way to modify a configuration file or some other way to shoehorn this
long password in?

Also, how can I determine what email address the validation/reset emails will be sent using? Is there a way to specify this?

Thanks in advance,
Mike

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Stellar Darkness BBS, Toronto, Canada (21:4/162)

Hello lemonlime!

On 26 Nov 2019, lemonlime said the following...

Short of requesting a fix in a future release (calling g00r00) :) - is there any way to modify a configuration file or some other way to
shoehorn this long password in?

Sounds to me like the only "immediate" option would be to send outgoing
e-mails through a local SMTP server, which would allow you to use arbitrarily long passwords and such.

I'm doing that (using Exim4 on Debian 10 here) to get TLS working for my no-reply outlook.com BBS e-mail address (as Microsoft decided on some peculiarities during the SMTP handshake that Mystic currently does not
adhere to).

Also, how can I determine what email address the validation/reset emails will be sent using? Is there a way to specify this?

The From: address is hard-coded as "sysop@<your FQDN as specified in
Mystic>", so I had to use Exim4 to change this to my actual outlook.com address before sending it out.

Of course it would be nice to be able to specify this in the Mystic setup instead. :)

Best regards
Zip

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)

I'm doing that (using Exim4 on Debian 10 here) to get TLS working for my no-reply outlook.com BBS e-mail address (as Microsoft decided on some peculiarities during the SMTP handshake that Mystic currently does not adhere to).

Thanks as always, Zip! That's very helpful. I'll look into Exim4 as well -
this could be a good solution as long as I keep it locked down really well.

The From: address is hard-coded as "sysop@<your FQDN as specified in Mystic>", so I had to use Exim4 to change this to my actual outlook.com address before sending it out.

Of course it would be nice to be able to specify this in the Mystic setup instead. :)

Okay cool - nice to know that Exim4 can change this as well. With Amazon SES,
I can create a user called "sysop" for outgoing mail, so I don't think this should be a problem for me actually.

Thanks again!
Mike

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Stellar Darkness BBS, Toronto, Canada (21:4/162)

On 26 Nov 2019, Zip said the following...

Sounds to me like the only "immediate" option would be to send outgoing e-mails through a local SMTP server, which would allow you to use arbitrarily long passwords and such.

I haven't looked, but can't we pipe mail through someone like sparkpost or mailgun or sendgrid, etc.? When I get to the point where I try to implement SMTP email verification I want to use a transactional email infra as it helps me to further scry the legitimacy of new users.

Yah, got a little PTSD from spammers in the interwebs lolz.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Vger.Cloud - NOMAD Internetwork (21:2/104)

I'm doing that (using Exim4 on Debian 10 here) to get TLS working for my no-reply outlook.com BBS e-mail address (as Microsoft decided on some peculiarities during the SMTP handshake that Mystic currently does not adhere to).

Hi Zip! I started digging into Exim4 and I was completely overwhelmed in
about 10 minutes :) Seems like it's a pretty powerful tool. Would you mind sharing with me some tips on how you configured it to work for this purpose? (how to translate specific email addresses, set it up for local forwarding
only etc)? I have a feeling its probably only a few lines that need to be added/modified in the config file, but I'm drowning in complexity at the
moment :)

Thanks very much in advance.
Mike

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Stellar Darkness BBS, Toronto, Canada (21:4/162)

Hello lemonlime!

On 28 Nov 2019, lemonlime said the following...

mind sharing with me some tips on how you configured it to work for this purpose? (how to translate specific email addresses, set it up for local forwarding only etc)? I have a feeling its probably only a few lines

Sure!

For the smarthost stuff, please see: https://wiki.debian.org/Exim#Smarthost_with_Authentication

To make Exim trust your BBS user at all, allowing it to set the From: sysop@... address in the first place (so that there is something to replace), you could/should also create /etc/exim4/conf.d/main/00_local and make sure to
list the group your BBS user belongs to:

# CUSTOM: any process that is running in one of the listed groups, or which
has one of them as a supplementary group, is trusted
MAIN_TRUSTED_GROUPS = adm:bbs:ftn:www-data

In my case "bbs" is the group in question. There is some config directive for specifying specific users instead of groups, but I felt it was easier to add groups as I wanted to add "www-data" (for my web server) anyway.

For the From: address rewriting, I created /etc/exim4/conf.d/rewrite/99_local with the following:

.ifndef NO_EAA_REWRITE_REWRITE
# CUSTOM: Rewrite ALL envelope fields and headers (see /usr/local/etc/exim4/custom-email-addresses for more information)
*@* "${lookup{$1@$2}lsearch{/usr/local/etc/exim4/custom-email-addresses}\
{$value}fail}" Eh
.endif

...and /usr/local/etc/exim4/custom-email-addresses for the actual "config" of this feature:

# CUSTOM: Rewriting of sender addresses (see
/etc/exim4/conf.d/rewrite/99_local for more information)
#
# Format:
# <sender address>: <replacement sender address>

sysop@scbbs.nsupdate.info: scbbs-NO-REPLY@outlook.com

All this assumes that you have a "split" configuration (an /etc/exim4/conf.d directory with config snippets in it). If not, run 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config' and choose "Split configuration mail into small files? <Yes>".

After changing the config/adding config files, run:

update-exim4.conf
systemctl restart exim4

Hope this helps!

(I agree Exim config is often overwhelming... to say the least.)

Best regards
Zip

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)

Sure!

For the smarthost stuff, please see: https://wiki.debian.org/Exim#Smarthost_with_Authentication

Thanks very much, Zip! I did manage to get it working earlier today but don't feel 100% confident that I've got it configured optimally. I'll take a look at the options you outlined.

Much appreciated!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Stellar Darkness BBS, Toronto, Canada (21:4/162)

Hello lemonlime!

On 28 Nov 2019, lemonlime said the following...

Thanks very much, Zip! I did manage to get it working earlier today but

Sounds great! :)

Much appreciated!

You're very welcome!

Best regards
Zip

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Star Collision BBS, Uppsala, Sweden (21:1/202)