Here are a few options for constructing an SMTP request to the server on the necessary port:
smtp -s receiver.perplexing.space:2500 \
-F your-address@example.com \
hi@receiver.perplexing.space
I understand that not everyone is using OpenBSD, so there is also the following Python script that uses only the standard library:
import fileinput
import smtplib
smtp = smtplib.SMTP()
smtp.connect('receiver.perplexing.space', 2500)
smtp.sendmail(input('from: '),
'hi@receiver.perplexing.space',
''.join(
(line for line in fileinput.input())
).encode('utf8'))
smtp.quit()
Each of the above will read standard input for the message text so you can optionally pipe a file in, if you wanted to write inside of your favorite editor.
Try it out!
mail@perplexing.space 2020-11-10 19:02:04 UTC
---------------
I should also mention that this page is served as gemtext, so e-mails can be written in gemtext without any special handling and things are intended to "just work".
If you find this isn't the case, let me know. If you find a security problem, let me know.
mail@perplexing.space 2020-11-10 19:08:16 UTC
---------------
I'm thinking the mailto link on each entry might be confusing, especially with my "try it out" message. To be clear, the link is intended to be a kind of response mechanism. If you click one of them your message will not make it to the wall.
Apologies for the confusion. If you can post(!) leave a message with your thoughts.
mail@perplexing.space 2020-11-11 06:28:58 UTC
---------------
Have I successfully smtPOSTed?
##@localhost 2020-11-11 06:40:36 UTC
---------------
Have I successfully smtPOSTed?
##@localhost 2020-11-11 06:41:05 UTC
---------------
Have I successfully smtPOSTed?
You have! Welcome.
I haven't quite got things setup on the server so I'm hopeful that things remain up with the new activity. Specifically I'm hoping molly-brown doesn't crash, it isn't really critical if the SMTP server goes down for a while.
It'll be nice to get a real service file with automatic restarts, currently I'm running with "nohup ... &", which is comically ill-advised.
mail@perplexing.space 2020-11-11 07:12:47 UTC
---------------
From: tj@fxmanifold.com
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:24:29 -0800
Super interesting idea. I've been very confused on how people communicate over Gemini. There doesn't seem to be any clear way to have a discussion.
.
tj@fxmanifold.com 2020-11-12 08:24:33 UTC
---------------
I've been very confused on how people communicate over Gemini.
I think this is partly a result of the very nascent community around Gemini. There is a mailing list where discussion happens and announcements are made, or IRC where people chit-chat, but I think back-and-forth discussion is still being "figured out".
I know I often read something in gemini-space and then write an e-mail to the author, I've had people do the same with things that I have written. Less direct, it is popular to make a post/page/gemlog entry and simply title it "RE: <original title>", I've done that a number of times too. I think it works well when you are simply sharing your thoughts and less looking for feedback or to have a discussion with just one person.
I'm not unhappy with how easy this experiment has been, but I do wonder if it makes things dangerously close to the comments section on the broader internet.
mail@perplexing.space 2020-11-12 23:54:07 UTC
---------------
From: Alex Schroeder <alex@alexschroeder.ch>
To: hi@receiver.perplexing.space
Subject: Wow
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2020 22:13:36 +0100
Message-ID: <878sb5dkov.fsf@alexschroeder.ch>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Wow. Let's see how that is working...
alex@alexschroeder.ch 2020-11-13 21:13:50 UTC
---------------
From: mail <mail@perplexing.space>
To: hi@receiver.perplexing.space
Subject: Question
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2020 23:44:40 -0500
Message-ID: <87pn4fjkjr.fsf@perplexing.space>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
I'm kicking myself for not asking if people could include whichever mail setup they've configured and found working. I see a number of messages include traditional message headers, which look like they come from real clients.
If you feel like it, could you include any information on your mail setup? What's working for you?
For example, this message is composed in emacs with the following configuration:
(setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "receiver.perplexing.space") (require 'smtpmail) (setq smtpmail-smtp-service 2500) (setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it) (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
mail@perplexing.space 2020-11-15 04:44:40 UTC
---------------
Aha, it looks like my message sent directly from emacs worked!
At this point that gives 3 different means of posting to the wall:
- OpenBSD's `smtp` command
- Python, constructing an SMTP message with the standard library
- emacs, specifically with an update to `smtpmail-smtp-service`
If you know how to configure `mail` or anything similar, let me know! I'm curious to see what works and what doesn't, it is of course difficult to say what didn't work if you can't post at all though.
mail@perplexing.space 2020-11-15 04:50:33 UTC
---------------
I'm sending this from sdf.org using the msmtp command like this:
msmtp --tls=off --host=receiver.perplexing.space --port=2500 --from=mail@perplexing.space hi@receiver.perplexing.space
mail@perplexing.space 2020-11-28 01:16:48 UTC
---------------
This seems pretty dead. I think the mail server has been unable to receive mesages or something.
Let's see if this goes through!
mail@perplexing.space 2021-02-24 03:16:22 UTC
---------------
damn, sure enough it looks like there was an overly optimistic call to decode and it was barfing on non-ascii.
well, live and learn I suppose. Not sure how long I'll keep this server up. The public wall portion is easy enough, it's just a cgi script.
mail@perplexing.space 2021-02-24 03:19:30 UTC
---------------
Subject: Hello!
Hello! This is pretty cool. I don't remember the last time I sent an email using Telnet, but apparently I can still do it! :)
I hope you don't mind the spam, but yesterday I put live my own capsule:
See you around!
jjm@usebox.net 2021-02-28 07:26:34 UTC
---------------
I am seeing a number of failed receipts in the log file but I cannot
for the life of me figure out if they are valid attempts. Specifically
there's what looks like a non-ASCII character received in an SMTP
command line, which causes the whole thing to bail out.
If you are experiencing this feel free to reach out to me via e-mail
and let me know so I can track it down.