Transition Technology: Ticket #494: Email account for TRAC

hours, totalhours changed

chris — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:17:25 GMT

hours changed from 0.0 to 1.0
totalhours changed from 0.0 to 1.0

aptitude install fetchmail

Created /web/tech.transitionnetwork.org/.fetchmailrc containing:

poll mail.xssl.net with proto IMAP and options no dns
port 993
auth password
user 'trac@transitionnetwork.org' there with password 'XXX' is 'trac' here options ssl
sslproto tls
sslfingerprint '71:6F:22:AF:9B:AB:EC:7B:22:4A:F2:43:83:1B:2B:57'
mda "/usr/bin/email2trac"

And edited the following in /etc/email2trac.conf:

[DEFAULT]
project: /web/tech.transitionnetwork.org/trac
ticket_update: 1

And edited some settings in /web/tech.transitionnetwork.org/trac/conf/trac.ini however it seems that there is something wrong with the IMAP account settings -- I haven't been able to connect to it and have asked Ed to double check them.

chris — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:18:51 GMT

This is a test to see if outgoing trac email is working again.

chris — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:21:05 GMT

Another testing of outgoing email.

chris — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:23:41 GMT

I have hopefully changed trac back to using sendmail rather than SMTP for outgoing emails.

chris — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:38:11 GMT

This is another test of outgoing email.

chris — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:39:19 GMT

And another test...

chris — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:46:32 GMT

I think trac outgoing emails should start working again now...

chris — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:20:29 GMT

Ed could you let me know where the webmail interface is for the email account you set up for trac -- I simply want to use it to test that the username / password you have given me works as I can't get them to work using fetchmail or thunderbird.

ed — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 09:54:11 GMT

It's a faff, involving going through the United admin interface - which is why I was trying to get you into that. I think I've sent you the United logins and password?

hours, totalhours changed

chris — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:16:54 GMT

hours changed from 0.0 to 0.1
totalhours changed from 1.0 to 1.1

Replying to ed:

It's a faff, involving going through the United admin interface - which is why I was trying to get you into that. I think I've sent you the United logins and password?

Ah, OK, I thought there might be a stand alone email web interface.

I have the username but not the password, as far as I'm aware.

I still can't connect using fetchmail:

fetchmail: Authorization failure on trac@transitionnetwork.org@mail.xssl.net
fetchmail: Query status=3 (AUTHFAIL)

ed — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:19:52 GMT

emailed you the password for the united hosting interface

hours, totalhours changed

chris — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:50:54 GMT

hours changed from 0.0 to 0.55
totalhours changed from 1.1 to 1.65

Thanks, but I just can't get any IMAP client to connect to the xssl.net IMAP server, so I hope nobody minds but I have added a new MX record for tech.transitionnetwork.org and changed the trac email address to trac@… and set up the Webarchitects mail server to handle this domain -- this is simply a lot quicker to set up then a IMAP connection to xssl.net.

I'll now do some testing...

chris — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:52:42 GMT

This is a test of the email to trac setup...
If this appears as a comment here:
https://trac.transitionnetwork.org/trac/ticket/494#comment:13
Then it's working!

status changed; resolution set

chris — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:56:20 GMT

status changed from new to closed
resolution set to fixed

Replying to chris:

Then it's working!

That was so so easy using our mail servers... :-)

status changed; resolution deleted

tester@… — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:06:20 GMT

status changed from closed to reopened
resolution fixed deleted

This is a test from tester@example.com

hours, totalhours changed

chris — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 23:20:25 GMT

hours changed from 0.0 to 0.25
totalhours changed from 1.65 to 1.9

So, an email to the trac email address, which isn't a reply to an existing ticket, results in a new ticket and also any email address can create tickets and also comment on tickets and also since email is trivial to fake.... we are going to have to keep a close eye on this to make sure spam doesn't become an issue.

Does that sounds OK?

I'm sorry that I put the email address in a comment above, ticket:494#comment:12 there isn't much point in editing it out as all edits are versioned...

ed — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:55:08 GMT

I wonder what's up with United's mail servers. They've been a bit funny with IMAP for others. Something I wanted to discuss with Chris in Sheffield. For discussion on Tuesday.
On 26 Feb 2013, at 22:50, "Transiton Technology Trac" <trac@tech.transitionnetwork.org> wrote:
> #494: Email account for TRAC
> -------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
>           Reporter:  ed             |                      Owner:  chris
>               Type:  maintenance    |                     Status:  new
>           Priority:  major          |                  Milestone:
>          Component:  Email          |  Production
>           Keywords:                 |                 Resolution:
> Add Hours to Ticket:  0.55           |  Estimated Number of Hours:  0.0
>        Total Hours:  1.1            |                  Billable?:  1
> -------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
> Changes (by chris):
>
> * hours:  0.0 => 0.55
> * totalhours:  1.1 => 1.65
>
>
> Comment:
>
> Thanks, but I just can't get any IMAP client to connect to the xssl.net
> IMAP server, so I hope nobody minds but I have added a new MX record for
> tech.transitionnetwork.org and changed the trac email address to
> trac@tech.transitionnetwork.org and set up the Webarchitects mail server
> to handle this domain -- this is simply a lot quicker to set up then a
> IMAP connection to xssl.net.
>
> I'll now do some testing...
>
> --
> Ticket URL: <https://tech.transitionnetwork.org/trac/ticket/494#comment:12>
> Transition Technology <https://tech.transitionnetwork.org/trac>
> Support and issues tracking for the Transition Network Web Project.
~~~~
Ed Mitchell: Transition Network Web manager
web: http://transitionnetwork.org
project blog: http://transitionnetwork.org/blogs/ed-mitchell
mobile: +44 (0)7807 141 828
office hours: Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs
company no. 6135675  charity no. 1128675
Subscribe to Transition news: http://tinyurl.com/transitionregister
~~~~

hours, status, component, totalhours changed; resolution set

chris — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:11:48 GMT

hours changed from 0.0 to 0.4
resolution set to fixed
status changed from reopened to closed
component changed from Email to Trac
totalhours changed from 1.9 to 2.3

A new ticket created by email was being assigned to Jim and defaulting to the "Drupal modules & settings" component, not ideal...

So I have created a new "Unassigned" component that I'm the default owner of -- I'd also be happy for Ed to take ownership of this if he wishes, the owner is set here:

https://tech.transitionnetwork.org/trac/admin/ticket/components

This means that a new ticket created by email, or via the web interface will default to the "Unassigned" component and default to being owned by me -- I (or perhaps Ed...) can then assign them to another component and potentially to someone else.

I have also moved most the content from wiki:WikiStart#Trac to a new wiki:TransitionTrac page which also has a automatically generated list of current and close tickets, wiki:TransitionTrac#Tickets

I think this wraps up this ticket so I'm closing it again, I have also changed it's component from Email to Trac.

ed — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:31:48 GMT

Assigned to ed as default.

hours, totalhours changed

chris — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:54:03 GMT

hours changed from 0.0 to 0.1
totalhours changed from 2.3 to 2.4

Replying to ed:

Assigned to ed as default.

Cool, I have changed the owner of the default component to ed via this form:

https://tech.transitionnetwork.org/trac/admin/ticket/components/Unassigned

hours, totalhours changed

chris — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:49:09 GMT

hours changed from 0.0 to 0.25
totalhours changed from 2.4 to 2.65

The mail server cert was updated some weeks ago and this was causing fetchmail to fail:

fetchmail: mail.webarch.net fingerprints do not match!
24105:error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed:s3_clnt.c:985:
fetchmail: SSL connection failed.

So the new fingerprint was got from the server:

fetchmail -v -p imap -u trac.tech.transitionnetwork.org mail.webarch.net | grep -i fingerprint

And /var/mail/tracd/.fetchmailrc was updated -- there were 4 emails to trac that were collected, sorry about not noticing this sooner.

milestone changed

chris — Thu, 09 May 2013 11:35:05 GMT

milestone changed from Production to Maintenance

chris — Fri, 19 Dec 2014 10:55:42 GMT

Replying to chris:

So, an email to the trac email address, which isn't a reply to an existing ticket, results in a new ticket and also any email address can create tickets and also comment on tickets and also since email is trivial to fake.... we are going to have to keep a close eye on this to make sure spam doesn't become an issue.

The first spam email to exploit this, ticket:818 and counter measures are being looked at on ticket:819.