cygwin /usr/bin/email

[René Berber]

On 12/28/2024 5:57 PM, Paul McKinley via Cygwin wrote:

> I'm trying to set up cygwin /usr/bin/email to send the output of various 
> cron jobs to email.
> 
> I previously had this set up and working on Windows 10, and with another 
> hosting provider (WHM/Cpanel on CentOS with exim).  Now I am running 
> Windows 11 (24H2), with a fresh Cygwin install CYGWIN_NT-10.0-26100 
> 3.5.5-1.x86_64.  The SMTP server is with a new hosting provider - 
> InMotion Hosting, a vps running AlmaLinux v8.10.0 STANDARD virtuozzo 
> cpanel/whm 124.0.21 with exim email server.
> 
> I'm getting a timeout connecting to the smtp server using a test 
> command-line call to /usr/bin/email (names have been changed to protect 
> the guilty):
> 
[snip]
> USE_TLS = 'true'
> SMTP_AUTH = 'LOGIN'
> SMTP_AUTH_USER = 'myuser@mydomain.com'
> SMTP_AUTH_PASS = 'mypassword'
> 
> I've also tried using port 465, get
> 
> Init connection...
> email: FATAL: Smtp error: Timeout(10) while trying to read from SMTP server
> 
> The notes on /usr/bin/email mention the TLS is somewhat primitive, I'm 
> wondering if there's an issue with connecting to the later version of 
> exim?  Or maybe I'm missing - or messing - something in the 
> configuration either cygwin or server side?

Perhaps this is relevant (from Microsoft):

"Starting in Windows 11 Insider Preview builds for September 2023 and 
continuing in future Windows OS releases, TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will be 
disabled by default. This change increases the security posture of 
Windows customers and encourages modern protocol adoption. For 
organizations that need to use these versions, there's an option to 
re-enable TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1. For more information, see Resources for 
deprecated features."

and:

"If there are no alternatives available and TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1 is 
needed, the protocol versions can be re-enabled with a system registry 
setting. To override a system default and set a (D)TLS or SSL protocol 
version to the Enabled state:
...
TLS 1.1:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 
1.1\Client]
       "Enabled" = dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\TLS 
1.1\Server]
       "Enabled" = dword:00000001
... (disclaimer)
"

The other option is to change eMail to use a newer version (I vaguely 
recall helping with this on the git issues page, but I might be 
mistaken.  It was a trivial change in the code, can't remember if it was 
accepted and its already there with version:

$ email --version
email - By Dean Jones; Version 3.2.3-git

Anyway it is in my local install (I build it myself before it was a 
Cygwin package), and I'm pretty sure it doesn't work anymore, so more 
code changes are needed.

Hope this helps!
-- 
R.B.