Re: [fetchmail-users] fetchmail and socks5

[Rob M. <rob...@gm...>]

On 3/18/07, Matthias Andree <mat...@gm...> wrote:
>
> Well, this feature has been automatically enabled in fetchmail since at
> least 6.2.5, and I think we should keep breaking compatibility in this
> respect until the next minor or major release -- I'll certainly consider
> changing the default for fetchmail 6.4 or 7.0 or whatever version, and
> I'm very much inclined to choose defaults that do not surprise the user.
>
> I wonder if there is really a common expectation. Other users might
> expect that *if* they have a socks.conf, *then* socks-enabled
> applications should use it.
>
> This isn't clear to me, and it's a bet the maintainer will always lose -
> one group will be happy and quiet, and the other group will shout. :-)

As long as the default is clearly documented it shouldn't matter what
it is.  I think the real problem here has been the lack of clear
documentation.

I'd be tempted to go with your second paragraph - if fetchmail is
linked with the socks libraries *and* the required socks config file
is in place then, by default, use socks.  As long as there is a
command line argument to either disable socks or use an alternative
socks config file (which implicitly enables socks) then that should be
fine.

> Not my essay, and I'm not enthusiastic about several of the assumptions
> fetchmail makes, and I'm still pondering whether a complete redesign is
> more of an effort than rewriting existing code...

Which is more effort to maintain :)

> If fetchmail were actively enabling socks, then we might just log
> additional information to the connecting... ("via socks server XYZ port
> N") but this isn't the case. I haven't looked too deep into SOCKS yet
> and I'm short on time. I plan to do 6.3.8-rc2 this week and 6.3.8 this
> month, so that I can move on to actually opening the 6.4 branch.

It probably wouldn't hurt for the --configdump option to include the
fact that socks is compiled in - which, in theory, is little more
than:

#ifdef HAVE_SOCKS
    "'socks',"
#endif

after line 186 of conf.c

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Rob MacGregor
      Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he
        doesn't become a monster.                  Friedrich Nietzsche