Author Topic: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel  (Read 9966 times)

Doug Clark

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PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« on: December 19, 2018, 06:32:41 am »
Comcast has closed their port for plain text authentication. I am trying to get PM Mail to use secure tunnel but I apparently do not have it set up right.

1) On the secure channel setup should the server port and local port be the same number?

2) Should the port number on the account setup be the same as the local port?

3) Has anyone successfully connect to COMCAST with PM Mail using secure channel?

David Graser

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2018, 06:44:38 am »
PMMail uses Stunnel.

Here is how I have mine setup thanks to help from Doug Bissett.

The ports are different.  I used Doug's suggested port numbers which worked for me also.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2018, 07:45:22 am by David Graser »

Doug Clark

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2018, 08:18:51 am »
Thanks Dave.

Your screen shots helped me correctly setup PM Mail.  I had version 3.06 which still would not work. But after upgrading to v 3.22 everything is working.

Thanks again.
Doug

Dariusz Piatkowski

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2018, 10:12:57 pm »
This of off-topic, but since the thread is about PMMail I thought I would at least use the opportunity to see if anyone is experiencing a little hicup I'm seeing.

Sometimes, and it's a hit'or'miss type of a thing here, when starting up PMMail the window frame will be drawn, or the status message box will be shown and then things completely HALT! As in, the WPS stops responding...hitting ESC-CTRL a few times and waiting usually recovers but most often PMMail dies anyways.

Here is what is consistently showing up in the trap log:

Code: [Select]
______________________________________________________________________

 Exception C0000005 - Access Violation
______________________________________________________________________

 Process:  G:\APPS\TCPIP\PMMAIL3\BIN\PMMAIL.EXE (11/23/2016 06:24:14 1,817,288)
 PID:      150 (336)
 TID:      0C (12)
 Slot:     EF (239)
 Priority: 200

 Module:   PMMAIL
 Filename: G:\APPS\TCPIP\PMMAIL3\BIN\PMMAIL.EXE (11/23/2016 06:24:14 1,817,288)
 Address:  005B:0006DAA7 (0001:0005DAA7)
 Cause:    Attempted to write to 00000008
           (not a valid address)

______________________________________________________________________

 Failing Instruction
______________________________________________________________________

 0006DA9A  MOV  EBX, [EBX+0x18]           (8b5b 18)
 0006DA9D  TEST EBX, EBX                  (85db)
 0006DA9F  JNZ  0x6da78                   (75 d7)
 0006DAA1  MOV  EBX, [EBP-0x90]           (8b9d 70ffffff)
 0006DAA7 >MOV  DWORD [EBX+0x8], 0x10     (c743 08 10000000)
 0006DAAE  MOV  DWORD [EBX+0xc], 0x6b8e1  (c743 0c e1b80600)
 0006DAB5  MOV  DWORD [EBX+0x4], 0x1a14   (c743 04 141a0000)
 0006DABC  MOV  DWORD [EBX+0x10], 0x68    (c743 10 68000000)

With the ' 0006DAA7 >MOV  DWORD [EBX+0x8], 0x10     (c743 08 10000000)' being the consistent failure point.

I am using v3.22.00.2301 (32534) - Nov 23 2016 11:22:43 +0000 (GMT) here. Been using this for a while now and this is the only issue I have seen re-occuring.

Is anyone else seeing this?

Doug Bissett

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2018, 10:47:22 pm »
Quote
Sometimes, and it's a hit'or'miss type of a thing here, when starting up PMMail the window frame will be drawn, or the status message box will be shown and then things completely HALT! As in, the WPS stops responding...hitting ESC-CTRL a few times and waiting usually recovers but most often PMMail dies anyways.

I haven't seen anything quite like that, but there is a good possibility that you are running out of lower shared memory space, and PMMail stops, waiting for memory to become available (it shouldn't block the WPS, but probably does). PMMail doesn't use much shared memory, but it does use some, to load DLLs. I have seen a couple of instances where PMMail will stop, wait for a while, and then continue, when something else stops running (presumably releasing memory). Unfortunately, not all programs check to see if they get memory, and simply assume they got it. That usually just causes the program to crash, when it tries to use it, but often kills other programs along the way. Eventually, enough bad things happen, that the system crashes. This is NOT a PMMail problem, it is a shared memory space management problem (assuming that that is what is really causing your problem).

You should open an incident in the PMMail MANTIS bug tracker, but there is no longer a programmer actively working on the project, so it probably won't get addressed (HELP WANTED). Be sure to include logs, and anything else that may be related.

Dariusz Piatkowski

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2018, 12:58:43 am »
Hi Doug,

...I haven't seen anything quite like that, but there is a good possibility that you are running out of lower shared memory space, and PMMail stops, waiting for memory to become available...

Yup, I agree since I occasionally (very rarely though) see this behaviour...my only difficulty with this being the root cause on my machine is that PMMail is the 1st real (big) app I start once the system boots. So for all intent pursposes it has nearly everything available to it. In situations where I encounter this behaviour usually by 2nd or sometimes the 3rd attempt PMMail will successfully start up and stays running.

...You should open an incident in the PMMail MANTIS bug tracker, but there is no longer a programmer actively working on the project, so it probably won't get addressed (HELP WANTED). Be sure to include logs, and anything else that may be related.

I wanted to check here first because as you said, the staff available to work these types of issues is really non-existent (not anyones fault, just that we are such a small community at this point in time), so I think of this as something I can deal-with instead.

I'm curious though, what's required to be able to actually take a stab at compiling something like PMMail? Is this a Watcom, GCC, VAC++ built software?

Dave Yeo

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2018, 01:45:52 am »
Hi Dariusz, when posting trp reports, you really should post a bit more, namely the call stack and the first few entries of the Labels on Stack, assuming you have an xqs or debug stuff installed with PMMail, which will show where it is crashing.
The failing instruction just shows using a bad pointer I believe.

Doug Bissett

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2018, 08:33:18 am »
Quote
So for all intent pursposes it has nearly everything available to it.

That may not be true, but I don't know enough about the internals to say, for sure, that it isn't.

Quote
I wanted to check here first because as you said, the staff available to work these types of issues is really non-existent (not anyones fault, just that we are such a small community at this point in time), so I think of this as something I can deal-with instead.

The only thing, that I can suggest, is to make sure that you have enough lower shared memory available. I find that I start to have problems when it drops below 100 MB (as shown by Above512, which isn't really a good way to measure the details, but it is easy to use), I load AOO high, and use the QuickStart thing to prevent unloading. Now the MozTurbo thing seems to keep Firefox under control, but there are other things that cause problems, after a while. Unfortunately, PMMail may still have some other flaws, that haven't been fixed.

Quote
I'm curious though, what's required to be able to actually take a stab at compiling something like PMMail? Is this a Watcom, GCC, VAC++ built software?

It is actually simple enough to build. SVN has most of what is required, excluding the GCC, and LIBC stuff. I can build the program, including the WarpIn installer, in about 10 minutes. It really needs to be updated to use the RPM/YUM stuff, but it isn't necessary currently, as long as you have what it needs separately. There is a build section, that uses Watcom, but I have never tried that. I think there were problems with it, that never got fixed. If you are interested in working with it, you need to contact Neil Waldhauer (look around, and you will find his contact information). He is the project manager, and can authorize access. He is pretty busy, so I will probably be the one who will help you get it to build, but the code is beyond my ability.

VOICE owns the rights to the OS/2 version, if you don't already know that.

roberto

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2018, 01:55:22 pm »
or the status message box will be shown and then things completely HALT! As in, the WPS stops responding...hitting ESC-CTRL a few times and waiting usually recovers but most often PMMail dies anyways.
HALT!
You can solve this problem by increasing the swapper. Modify your config.sys from this:
 REM SWAPPATH=L:\OS2\SYSTEM 2048 2048
to this:
 SWAPPATH=L:\OS2\SYSTEM 2048 36864
What works best for me is this:
SWAPPATH=L:\OS2\SYSTEM 2048 590304
with a ramdisk created. In this way the system is very solid, does not stop with anything, even with blocked applications, and some processor to 99.9%, the rest holds perfect.

Quote
Exception C0000005 - Access Violation
This is another problem.
Quote
Is anyone else seeing this?
Yes, I have a few errors like this in my popuplog.os2 But I do not use pmmail.

-Doug Bissett: Are you really sure that you do not have this error C000005, in your popuplog.os2?

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2018, 03:25:13 pm »
PMMail is a closed-source project. I can grant access to the source code to OS/2 developers subject to the licensing terms. No one is currently updating source code, but we have retained the ability to build the software.

The bare hooks are there for IMAP support -- it would be nice to have a volunteer add and support that feature.

The exceptq package is supported by PMMail. The TRP reports give useful information that can be used to track down the cause of some crashes.
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Doug Bissett

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2018, 09:05:27 pm »
Quote
You can solve this problem by increasing the swapper.

Highly unlikely. The swapper will expand itself, up to the limit of disk space minus the first number on the swap line, and it will shrink again, down to the defined size, but that causes a lot of overhead, which is why you want to define a larger minimum size. In my experience, the swapper will never be used, if you have 4 GB of memory, and it would be very rare if it ever gets used with more than 2 GB of memory. If you have a small memory system, increasing the swap size may help (but not likely with this problem).

On the other hand, changing VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT to, at least 2560, in CONFIG.SYS, will make more shared memory space available, but it only expands the upper shared memory space, so you need to use all methods available to use upper shared memory, rather than lower shared memory. Doing that moves some things out of low shared memory, leaving more room for those things that can't use upper shared memory (PMMail is one of them). The max for VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT is 3072, but some systems don't work with 3072, so I suggest using 2560. This is more of an art, than a science.

Quote
-Doug Bissett: Are you really sure that you do not have this error C000005, in your popuplog.os2?

It happens sometimes. PMMail even gets that sometimes (even when using EXCEPTQ, which prevents entries in POPUPLOG.OS2), but it is usually not the cause of a problem, it is a result. The information in a TRP file is more likely to give good information, if you know how to read it, and know what to do with the information. PMMail also has excellent logging, if the user enables it properly.

Quote
The bare hooks are there for IMAP support -- it would be nice to have a volunteer add and support that feature.

There was a volunteer, at the 2006 WarpStock, but he had to back out, and nobody else has stepped up to do it. I suspect that the current PMMail needs some serious updates, before IMAP will work effectively. Most of the really bad stuff has been fixed (we are not sure how the program ever worked, before VOICE took over development), and work arounds have been  developed to support modern mail servers (using STunnel for secure access), but the container (for display) is being pushed to the limit, so that whole thing needs to be reworked. It is also using an XML package, to support the indexing, and that has proven to be very slow (apparently by design). Something should be done about that. Unfortunately, going back to the old method of indexing, is not compatible with supporting languages other than English, so that isn't going to happen.

There was, at one time, some discussion about actually supporting HTML e-mail, and that could be done properly, if somebody can, and wants, to do it. Currently, PMMail simply hands the message to a browser, but responding with HTML is not easy.

It could be a lifetime project, for someone. It seems that SeaMonkey, and Thunderbird, are probably dead on OS/2 (following Firefox), so something needs to be done, if we are to have an e-mail program. PMMail, is the only other e-mail program that is still (almost) active, that I know about.

Valery Sedletski

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2019, 01:26:20 am »
So, it still doesn't support IMAP, and HTML and national codepages? If so, then it's a lot of work.
Who will do it? Moreover, it isn't open source. Who will work on a closed-source project, does this
work feasible? Personally, I'd not invest my time into a closed-source project :(

Why it uses stunnel? Why not use OpenSSL libs instead, so no dirty workarounds like manual
port mappings remote <-> local?

PS: I moved to Seamonkey mail/Thunderbird long time ago, because of lack of IMAP support
and codepages+HTML. Now a days, it's a real problem.

Doug Bissett

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2019, 07:54:23 am »
Quote
So, it still doesn't support IMAP, and HTML and national codepages? If so, then it's a lot of work.
Who will do it? Moreover, it isn't open source. Who will work on a closed-source project, does this
work feasible? Personally, I'd not invest my time into a closed-source project :(

National code pages are partly supported. That was the main reason to use XML for the indexes etc. HTML is handled by handing the message off to a browser. That seems to work okay. IMAP hasn't been done, simply because nobody has offered to do it. VOICE owns the source, for the OS/2 version. It is available for anyone who is qualified, and agrees to keep it confidential. PMMail is used, by VOICE, as a reward for supporting VOICE. VOICE supports many other OS/2 projects with the proceeds from their membership.

FWIW, One volunteer programmer did most of the changes that VOICE did. He just didn't have the time to do all of the things that needed to be done. A couple of others did make some contributions, but they were relatively small bits. A lot of work remains, to make PMMail a world class e-mail program, but it is still usable.

Quote
Why it uses stunnel? Why not use OpenSSL libs instead, so no dirty workarounds like manual
port mappings remote <-> local?

It uses STunnel, simply because nobody has programmed it to use OpenSSL (or something similar). There was a need to make security work, and STunnel was the quickest way to add the required support. It actually works very well.

Quote
PS: I moved to Seamonkey mail/Thunderbird long time ago, because of lack of IMAP support
and codepages+HTML. Now a days, it's a real problem.

If you need IMAP, you need to move on (or step up, and do the programming). Many people (including me), prefer the text only format, and it isn't all that difficult to work around the minor inconveniences of setting up STunnel (it is done in PMMail). Codepages are also partly supported, although PMMail is English only, so far (again, nobody has stepped up to make the changes).

For an ancient program, it still works well, even without modern things like IMAP.

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2019, 04:17:58 pm »
Moreover, it isn't open source. Who will work on a closed-source project, does this
work feasible? Personally, I'd not invest my time into a closed-source project :(

I'm willing to propose to the VOICE board making PMMail open-source if there is a programmer who will do what's needed to PMMail.

VOICE purchased the rights to PMMail for OS/2 only. I'm not sure what we have can be open-sourced, but I'm willing to try.
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Doug Bissett

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Re: PMMail - COMCAST - secure tunnel
« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2019, 06:44:53 pm »
Quote
VOICE purchased the rights to PMMail for OS/2 only. I'm not sure what we have can be open-sourced, but I'm willing to try.

I think you would need to hire a lawyer, to interpret the purchase agreement. I do know, that it is NOT permitted to port it to other platforms (especially windows). I am not sure who owns those rights, since the windows version has been abandoned (I think it was BluePrint Software Works, when VOICE bought the rights to the OS/2 version), I do know that it isn't VOICE. If it goes open source, the license would need to reflect that, and possibly other restrictions.

It seems to me, that going open source would be expensive (lawyers aren't cheap), and probably isn't going to change the development path anyway. Those who want to work with it can do so, by agreeing to the conditions to keep it private, and follow the purchase agreement. Those who want to obtain it need to join VOICE, and most of the nominal fee is put back into development for OS/2. Some is used to pay to operate VOICE. There is no profit allowed. AFAIK, all of the current contributors are members of VOICE, and non of them have received any compensation for doing the work, it is all done voluntarily.