threads / discuss / 55633

git send-email says AUTH is unknown command?

Subject: git send-email says AUTH is unknown command?

## tl;dr

3 messages between May 6, 2021 and May 6, 2021.

replies: 2people: 3as markdown or json

Phillip Susi· May 6, 2021, 13:30 UTC · lore

git send-email prompts for my SMTP password then says: Command unknown: 'AUTH' at /usr/lib/git-core/git-send-email line 1573.

That line reads:

smtp_auth_maybe or die $smtp->message;

Why is it complaining that it does not know what AUTH means? It is connecting to port 25 and /should/ be using STARTTLS.

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason· May 6, 2021, 15:22 UTC · re: Phillip Susi · lore

Re: git send-email says AUTH is unknown command?

On Thu, May 06 2021, Phillip Susi wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> git send-email prompts for my SMTP password then says:
> Command unknown: 'AUTH' at /usr/lib/git-core/git-send-email line 1573.
>
> That line reads:
>
> smtp_auth_maybe or die $smtp->message;
>
> Why is it complaining that it does not know what AUTH means?  It is
> connecting to port 25 and /should/ be using STARTTLS.

This message is from your server indirectly, i.e. there is no AUTH verb supported by it.

I'm almost certain that you'll find that you cannot in fact auth on port 25 on this server, and must use another port to do SSL from the start, i.e. not STARTSSL[1].

We should probably intercept this in particular and emit a better error, patches welcome :)

1. https://metacpan.org/release/libnet/source/lib/Net/SMTP.pm#L169

Jeff King· May 6, 2021, 17:06 UTC · re: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason · lore

Re: git send-email says AUTH is unknown command?

On Thu, May 06, 2021 at 05:22:31PM +0200, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> 
> On Thu, May 06 2021, Phillip Susi wrote:
> 
> > git send-email prompts for my SMTP password then says:
> > Command unknown: 'AUTH' at /usr/lib/git-core/git-send-email line 1573.
> >
> > That line reads:
> >
> > smtp_auth_maybe or die $smtp->message;
> >
> > Why is it complaining that it does not know what AUTH means?  It is
> > connecting to port 25 and /should/ be using STARTTLS.
> 
> This message is from your server indirectly, i.e. there is no AUTH verb
> supported by it.
> 
> I'm almost certain that you'll find that you cannot in fact auth on port
> 25 on this server, and must use another port to do SSL from the start,
> i.e. not STARTSSL[1].

Alternatively, it may be that the server would prefer port 587 (with STARTTLS), which is typically used for "submission" (i.e., originating new messages from authenticated users, versus the normal port 25 for MTA's routing messages between them).

-Peff