If it's SMTP AUTH it looks like you might be out of luck, unless you feel like adding this functionality yourself (which actually doesn't look that difficult).

If they only used POP-before-SMTP! Alas, it is SMTP AUTH. If anyone has battled with this before and already solved this problem, could they please post any relevant code? Otherwise, I'll take a look at tackling it myself. Thanks!

MY ANSWER IS BELOW. THIS WORKS.
===============================


use Net::SMTP;
use MIME::Base64;

$user = encode_base64($username);
$pass = encode_base64($password);
chomp($user);
chomp($pass);

$smtp->command('AUTH LOGIN');
$smtp->command("$user");
$smtp->command("$pass");

I was struggling with the same thing and have tried your code. I am getting strange results: sometimes I am getting encouraging codes back such as 250 ("ok") and 354 ("go ahead") but often I get 502 ("unimplemented (#5.5.1)"). There seems to be no pattern in a series of 10 emails sent out through the same connection - codes seem random and some of the email is delivered, while most is not. Any ideas? thanks. (See below for the Debug output result after sending 2 messages -both undelivered)

Net::SMTP: Net::SMTP(2.13) Net::SMTP: Net::Cmd(2.12) Net::SMTP: Export
+er(5.562) Net::SMTP: IO::Socket::INET(1.25) Net::SMTP: IO::Socket(1.2
+6) Net::SMTP: IO::Handle(1.21) Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 220 www.my
+isp.com 
ESMTP Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> EHLO www2.myisp.net 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 250-www.myisp.com 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 250-PIPELINING 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 250 8BITMIME 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> AUTH LOGIN 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> ZGVsZWdhXzE= 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> am93b2JvMTI= 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> MAIL FROM: 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 502 unimplemented (#5.5.1) 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> RCPT TO: 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 354 go ahead 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> DATA 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 250 ok 1019918963 qp 4227 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> To: myself@hotmail.com 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> From: theprogram@mydomain.com
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> Subject: first test
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> testing...
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> . 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 502 unimplemented (#5.5.1) 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> AUTH LOGIN 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> ZGVsZMdhXzE= 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> am93b3JvMTI= 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> MAIL FROM: 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 502 unimplemented (#5.5.1) 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> RCPT TO: 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 502 unimplemented (#5.5.1) 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> DATA 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 502 unimplemented (#5.5.1) 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> To: myself@hotmail.com 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> From: theprogram@mydomain.com
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> Subject: second test
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> Hi, this is another test
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> . 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 250 ok 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)>>> QUIT 
Net::SMTP=GLOB(0x104834)<<< 250 ok
[download]

I think I have the solution for you. I found out that SMTP AUTH isn't as secure as people would like you to believe. Check out my page to see my code and you can also check to see if it works with your server before downloading.

http://www.krkeegan.com/smtp_auth

Kevin Robert Keegan

I'm not sure I follow, but if you want to send mail, just use Mail::Sendmail, which, in spite of the misleading name, does not require sendmail(1) and is pure Perl to boot.

From TFM:

SYNOPSIS
       use Mail::Sendmail;

       %mail = ( To      => 'you@there.com',
                 From    => 'me@here.com',
                 Message => "This is a very short message"
                );

       sendmail(%mail) or die $Mail::Sendmail::error;

       print "OK. Log says:\n", $Mail::Sendmail::log;
[download]

It's pretty slick and has worked very well for me; some of my scripts periodically poll different services on my OpenBSD boxes and kick out a report to me (using Mail::Mailer) if there is something I should know about.

Interestingly, if Mail::Mailer can't detect Sendmail, mail, Mail, or mailx on your system, it will use the aforementioned Net::SMTP module to deliver your message. ;-)

I wish that they were on some flavor of Unix...would make my life much easier. They are on Windows 2000 and I am probably going to have resort to using Blat or trying to add authentication to Net::SMTP. Thanks for the advice, though, will have remember that module.

Just for reference. Mail::Sender supports these authentication protocols

• LOGIN
• PLAIN
• CRAM-MD5
• NTLM

If you want to find out what protocols are supported by the mail server you may use this:

 use Mail::Sender;
 my $sender = new Mail::Sender {smtp => 'localhost'};
 die "Error: $Mail::Sender::Error\n" unless ref $sender;
 print join(', ', $sender->QueryAuthProtocols()),"\n";
[download]

Jenda
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
   -- Rick Osborne

Edit by castaway: Closed small tag in signature

Yeah, that means that the way that ISP is doing authentication is through a process called: POP-before-SMTP. There is another form of authentication called SMTP AUTH that won't work with this... Hopefully, this info will help someone else, though. Thanks!

If your ISP is using POP-before-SMTP as a way of closing their SMTP servers to unauthorized relaying, you may have a slight latency problem if the POP server isn't on the same box as the SMPT server. My ISP (pair.com) usually takes 2-3 seconds, but sometimes takes upwards of 10 seconds to relay the right message from their POP to their SMPT server.

It takes all of one line of script to work around this. The annoyance was mostly in discovering this behavior.