Re: [PATCH] docs: git-send-email: difference between ssl and tls smtp-encryption

From: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.email>
Date: Oct 11, 2022, 14:06 UTC
Message-ID: <69ba0bb5-19c1-e54e-bc06-515a17380494@iee.email>
In-Reply-To: <Y0S2wyfUF1mZaryi@pug.qqx.org>

On 11/10/2022 01:20, Aaron Schrab wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> At 16:56 -0700 10 Oct 2022, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>        Specify how SMTP connection should be entered into encrypted
>>        mode.  The valid values are 'ssl' and 'tls'. Any other value
>>        reverts to plain (unencrypted) SMTP.  'ssl' refers to "implicit"
>>        encryption (sometimes calls SMTPS) that uses port 465 or 587 by
>>        default.
>
> There can be only one actual default port for each of the settings and
> here that is 465.
>
> Also, port 587 belongs with the 'tls' value. Perhaps saying something
> like:
>
>     uses port 25 by default, but port 587 is often used as well.
>
>>        'tls' refers to "explicit" encryption (often known as
>>        STARTTLS) that uses port 25 by default.  Despite their names, it
>>        is likely the user is using the newer TLS protocol, not the
>>        deprecated SSL, for the actual encryption protocol either way.

I support the feeling that the documentation needs a bit of updating.

I found that I just couldn't manage to set up a send-email configuration for one of my ISPs who was using non-default settings, and I never managed to work out what was required, or decode if the script was trying to enforce the default in some cases (i.e. it wasn't a 'default' that could be changed!).

That ISP has recently consolidated its options (it has many legacy UK email domains) to limit it's exposure to security holes, so I may retry at some point(not this month), but it can be frustrating trying to debug these failures in setups.

Philip