[Oberon] email usage in Oberon systems. Was: Re: A2, targeting a Geode SC3200.

[peter at easthope.ca]

Chris,

From:	eas lab <lab.eas at gmail.com>
Date:	Thu, 29 Jan 2015 11:23:15 +0200
> Although I'm very happy with ETH-Linux-Oberon, I can't see how to use
> it to solve my painfull problem of needing to use the standard http
> interface for my gmail [alternatively to be always on-line].

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail#Security , mail 
can be retrieved by POP3 or IMAP, both under TLS.

The POP3 case is the simplest.  With UnixAos, getmail can retrieve 
messages and append to the Oberon MailMessages file, which is a 
variant of an mbox file.  Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox .  
MailMessages differs from mbox by ending each message with the 
three characters "." <CR> <LF>. getmail can invoke a trivial external 
filter to append these characters to a message.  The filter is easily 
made as a shell script or awk script or something else.  I've never 
used ETH-Linux-Oberon but getmail should work just as well there.

As far as I know, ETH-Linux-Oberon and UnixAos don't lock MailMessages. 
(A correction is welcome.) 
Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox#File_locking
If getmail changes MailMessages while Oberon Mail is active, there will 
be trouble.  Therefore getmail should be invoked just prior to starting 
Oberon and this can be automated using a script.  To update MailMessages, 
you will need to quit Oberon and start it again.

If another complication is added, new mail can be retrieved without quiting 
Oberon.  Have getmail retrieve to an mbox independent of MailMessages.  
Then have qpopper deliver mail to Oberon.  The POP3 server cited in Oberon.Text 
will be localhost.  With this arrangement, getmail can be activated manually. 
Also it can be scheduled by cron.  Also it can run just prior to Oberon 
starting, as in the preceeding paragraph.

With getmail and qpopper, you should have "good old Oberon mail behaviour" 
with the possible additional detail of starting getmail manually.  
Activation of getmail by incrond might even be possible.  I haven't tried it.

A2 has IMAP and not POP3.  But the A2 client can be configured to retrieve 
messages and delete from the server.  In other words, IMAP can similate 
POP3 behaviour as a special case.  But I suspect that you won't be happy with 
the windowing interface in A2 and in UnixAos.  If you use either, you will 
prefer to stay in the Oberon subsystem.  Therefore IMAP is really not a concern.

Regards,                   ... Peter E.





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