Freechains: Using an E-Mail Client

It's possible to use an e-mail client, such as Thunderbird, to interface with Freechains.

We expect that all content sent to chain /mail uses these instructions.

You will need the following set of tools:

• Thunderbird: to read & write e-mails
• send.py: an SMTP server to intercept sends and redirect to a chain
• recv.py: a script to read a chain to a mailbox.

Disclaimer: This tool is mostly a hack to show a proof of concept of how a rich UI could be available in Freechains with support for threaded view, text formatting, inlined images, and file attachments.

Setup

• Thunderbird:

  • open Thunderbird
  • cancel account creation initial popup
  • click on Set up an account: -> Movemail
    • Identity
      • Your Name: name
      • Email Address: name@localhost
      • the name you choose is irrelevant
    • Outgoing Serter: localhost
    • Account Name: Freechains
  • right click on Freechains account
    • Settings -> Outgoing Server (SMTP) -> Default -> Edit
      • Port: 2525
  • configure Inbox to threaded display mode

• Local mailbox:

$ sudo touch /var/mail/<username>
$ sudo chown <username> /var/mail/<username>
$ sudo chmod 600 /var/mail/<username>

• recv.py:
  • edit the file and set variable USER to the same as <username> above

Usage

First, start the SMTP server:

$ ./send.py
Type your private key to sign all messages: <...>

To receive e-mails, execute recv.py periodically:

$ ./recv

To send e-mails, always set To as /mail@localhost.