Well, I don't know enough about Debian to make the correct decision. I know that the code in question belongs to Net::SMTP – and maybe Net::SMTP could use a suggestion or whatever it is. But all I know is that when I use Net::SMTP::SSL to send email via Gmail or some other mail server that requires authentication, then I will trigger code in Net::SMTP that will require Authen::SASL. I spent about three hours wondering what the hell was wrong with my setup on the Debian host while it was working happily on my Mac OSX system where I had installed things with CPAN. I had to actually go and read code in order to figure out what was missing. This can't be right.
So yes, the code in question is found in Net::SMTP, but I've yet to find a mail server that uses authentication without SSL – therefore I would not mind if Net::SMTP did not require the installation of Authen::SASL. But if you install Net::SMTP::SSL, you will require both Net::SMTP and Authen::SASL. A Recommends or Suggests could be the right thing – in my case I sent an email to the administrator, who just installs the package with the least amount of dependencies. Would a Recommends or Suggests have done the right thing? My gut feeling says that this situation warrants a dependency. A requirement. Regards Alex On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 17:10, gregor herrmann <gre...@debian.org> wrote: > On Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:26:42 +0200, Alex Schröder wrote: > >> libnet-smtp-ssl-perl should depend on libauthen-sasl-perl. I wanted to >> use Net::SMTP::SSL to send mail; I think the most common reason is >> that the mail server requires authentication. Thus you will be using >> the auth method. If you check it out, you'll find the following: >> >> sub auth { >> my ($self, $username, $password) = @_; >> >> eval { >> require MIME::Base64; >> require Authen::SASL; >> } or $self->set_status(500, ["Need MIME::Base64 and Authen::SASL >> todo auth"]), return 0; >> >> There is therefore a dependency on Authen::SASL. If you don't have >> that module, sending your email will fail in a non-obvious way: > > Ehrm, no, this code is from Net::SMTP, Net::SMTP::SSL just uses > Net::SMTP and IO::Socket::SSL and doesn't mention/require/use > Authen::SASL anywhere. > > But I can imagine that a Recommends or Suggests on > libauthen-sasl-perl might be helpful. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org