OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

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Weboh
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OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by Weboh » 2020-11-19, 16:24

I have to quit using Thunderbird 52.9.1 because one of my email providers dropped support for any login method besides a version of OAuth2 that Thunderbird doesn't support. I don't want to use a UXPocalypse version of Thunderbird.

I was hoping Interlink could be a replacement, but it doesn't seem to support modern versions of OAuth2 either. Do you have plans to add support for modern version of OAuth 2 to Interlink?

Thanks for all the hard work you do on your projects. I know it can be a thankless job and people only come to the forums when they have a complaint. I appreciate all you do, though! I know I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of programming these things to work, but I do want it work like it always did. I'm glad you're willing to do it.

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-11-19, 21:02

What is this "Modern version" of Oauth2. Last I checked Oauth2 is Oauth2. For that matter what is a "UXPocalypse version of Thunderbird"?

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by Weboh » 2020-11-20, 00:51

What is this "Modern version" of Oauth2.
I think it's something like v 2.0 instead of 1.2. All I know is Yahoo mail doesn't work with Thunderbird any more, even though Thunderbird technically supports OAuth2. I followed the steps in this support article, but it didn't work. Apparently, the version of OAuth2 that Yahoo uses is unique, and didn't work with Thunderbird until v60.
For that matter what is a "UXPocalypse version of Thunderbird"?
I'd like to stick with Thunderbird 52.9.1 or Interlink because of compatibility with older extensions—Mozilla started killing off XUL/UXP support in v60, like they did with newer versions of Firefox. I heard that terminology somewhere; I thought it was on the Pale Moon forum. Oh well.

Is it possible to patch Interlink so that it works with Yahoo's version of OAuth2? I tried it, but found it no better on this issue than Thunderbird 52. I understand this is a rather specific issue, but I'm sure some other people that use Interlink have the same problem. If you have extra time, could you try using Interlink with a Yahoo Mail account? You'd probably get the same error message.
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(The username and password are correct, as are all the other settings. It just can't verify they are because it won't work with this version of OAuth2.)

Thanks again!

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-11-20, 01:49

Please search the forum before you make new fuckin topics dude.

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by Bilbo47 » 2020-11-22, 05:24

TL;DR: My testing says Yahoo does not support OAuth at this time.
--
Since the Yahoo cutover, I also have not been able to get Yahoo mail working with OAuth in Interlink 7606, even though IL totally supports current versions of OAuth2 - at least with GMail. With other mail servers that kinda *implyyy* they support OAuth, including Yahoo, they <actually?|also?> support application-specific passwords. Whatcha do is use their web interface to generate the password for an app like IL, then paste the password into the app's password field for that mail account. GMail was the first provider to come up with this approach. But now that OAuth is much more widespread, that kludge is supposed to go away, and apps are supposed to use straight OAuth instead. Of course this requires the servers to *also* support real OAuth. But if an email provider still support 'app passwords' then I betcha they don't reeeally support OAuth.

Switching GMail accounts to use OAuth in IL was super-easy. But this same maneuver on a Yahoo mail account gives "The IMAP server imap.mail.yahoo.com does not support the selected authentication method." Using another client NOT Thunderbird, (re-)authorizing OAuth was also pretty easy, and this test was against a Yahoo mail account. Except: Hmm. My Yahoo account shows app passwords for both IL and this other client, but the access log says the other client used the IL-specific password for this test. Again, it's totally not clear whether Yahoo actually supports real OAuth. As such, I don't expect current Yahoo mail to accept OAuth connections from any client, let alone from IL or TB.

The screenshot you pasted shows the manual account creation dialog box. I can't access that dialog to see whether it is trying to use 'Normal' authentication rather than OAuth (IL shows me only the Account Wizard dialogs). When creating a new account in my other client, it's annoying because the OAuth controls are invisible at first.

In the past, to get a server to accept OAuth, you had to first log in using a browser. Apps without native browser capability would open a window using the system default browser like Internet Explorer. Nowadays, IL has browsing built in, so it can connect with OAuth all by itself (at least to GMail or other services that don't use app-specific passwords). This other client has a browsing window, but if that doesn't work right it also has an "Alternative" button to call the default browser, which then returns using a special URL protocol in the registry like .Program://auth/?code=[Password-likeString]&state=yahoo

Regardless, for any email host that provides a webmail interface, browse in to its control panels and locate any switches allowing access via POP/IMAP/OAuth, and make sure they are on the setting you expect.

BTW Yahoo can auto-forward messages to another address. I use that service for fetching email from a fast IMAP server, because Yahoo's servers are too slow, and their web interface is cancer. Well now in 40 days they are making that a paid feature instead of free.

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-11-22, 05:29

They do support it but I am in the process of getting a key for all Verizon's mail services.

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by moonbat » 2020-11-22, 08:34

Both Yahoo and Google support separate app passwords for 'older' mail clients so there is no need to dick around with OAuth in the first place. I have both configured and working great in Interlink.
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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-11-22, 10:40

Yeah and? What does this have to do with the fact that OAuth2 support still needs to be expanded because users are demanding it and mail services are still going to continue pushing them.

Also, OP please tell me where that screenshot came from.

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by Moonchild » 2020-11-22, 10:43

I think that screenshot is Thunderbird's babymode setup screen.
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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by Pallid Planetoid » 2020-12-06, 01:10

moonbat wrote:
2020-11-22, 08:34
Both Yahoo and Google support separate app passwords for 'older' mail clients so there is no need to dick around with OAuth in the first place. I have both configured and working great in Interlink.
@moonbat - in my case I was unable to get one specific Yahoo account (even though several other Yahoo accounts had no issues or any other accounts for that matter) to accept a valid PWD in Interlink (that successfully logged into the same account on the web using the same PWD) - so I resorted to the same thing - that is using an app password for that account to fix the problem with that specific problematic Yahoo account in Interlink. (what is interesting is I had to do the same thing for that same account in WLM as well. And what is also interesting is that this same issue existed for that same Yahoo account on both my Win10 laptop and Win7 Desktop. Obviously the issue existing accross apps and platforms would be because the issue is specific to that one specific Yahoo account - why just the one specific Yahoo account and not any other accounts, who knows. :think:)
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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by Bilbo47 » 2020-12-07, 04:47

@Pallid: Yahoo has contracts with other places to provide branded email services. Some contracts have interoperability, where Yahoo provides the email, but the other place handles the logging in / authentication / authorization.

This man-in-the-middle monkeywrench could possibly make the usual app-specific password kludge not work properly. You know, the part about "we need to seem more secure, but we don't actually provide true OAuth ... and our partnered cross-services scheme involves more than one bohemoth bureaucracy, so nothing gets done quickly, especially public-facing technical stuff." My testing of this scenario is stale at this point, and I had the password wrong back then anyway.

How can you tell if your Yahoo account has that kind of offsite authentication? One clue is, when you're in Yahoo webmail, and you go to change the account password or other security stuff, you get navigated to web pages that are hosted by the partnering place, instead of the standard Yahoo pages for those operations.

BTW - IMAP access to Yahoo is too damn slow, and they are paywalling their auto-forward feature in a few weeks. You can bet the starting carrot of $1 per month will get steadily more costly. Thus, I plan to abandon Yahoo mail. Come to think of it, that was the last of their services I was still using. Can't think of how Yahoo is useful at all anymore.

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by Pallid Planetoid » 2020-12-07, 13:43

Thanks Bilbo47 - for the detailed feedback and great insight. :thumbup:

As I mentioned - I did change my login security to using app password using Yahoo webmail (on the web) and the process was confined to Yahoo (not redirected outside of Yahoo). This was the case as well when I changed the accounts normal login password to see if that might help before ultimately taking the app password approach. So it would appear the problematic account did not use any "offsite authentication" steps because of the fact in each case I changed the security settings (either normal password or app password) the process remained confined to "standard Yahoo pages".

I would agree that IMAP for Yahoo is not that much of a benefit -- one reason is due to the fact Yahoo inexplicably does not support IDLE/Push (the only major email Provider Service that I'm aware of that does not). A big reason to use IMAP is to have the ability to use IDLE/Push, so it makes using IMAP for Yahoo accounts in many ways superfluous.

That said, I've had Yahoo email accounts going back over 20+ years (actually Yahoo email happens to be my second account, first was "Excite") - so I'll probably continue to use Yahoo (along with other providers) - you never know when at some point they might improve their service. I can recall when MSN (Hotmail) went through a bad patch for some time and eventually got back on track again. It's always good to retain alternatives for when one email service or another goes astray for a period of time (it appears it is Yahoo's turn now, especially since Verizon took over). Verizon is a solid company actually, so I don't rule out Yahoo getting back on track (getting there can take some time in many cases however).
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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2020-12-14, 20:59

As an update, I have just signed the agreement with Verizon Media and sent it off to them.. So the ball is in their court for final approval.

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by Weboh » 2021-01-29, 18:47

New Tobin Paradigm wrote:
2020-12-14, 20:59
As an update, I have just signed the agreement with Verizon Media and sent it off to them.. So the ball is in their court for final approval.
What became of this? Did they deny your request? Are you still waiting for a reply? Thanks.

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Re: OAuth2 Support for Interlink?

Unread post by New Tobin Paradigm » 2021-01-29, 18:58

I did get approved for Verizon Media but I haven't had time to sort it out yet. Haven't been as lucky on even finding out how to on Microsoft and Google's panel is being a bitch to navigate as well.

Several things need to happen like getting their stuff to generate the proper tokens and research into how to add them into the current setup (this part shouldn't be too hard).

I also need to change things so that I can keep my keys in with my application and not stored in MailNews Core so that the MSFN criminals don't just steal them by default like they have done from Thunderbird as well as they tried to do with another token for GeoIP in my navigator for which they were called out on before I was silenced by their co-conspirators in the MSFN Administration.

Likely will just use a build flag to tell the build system to use a local copy of the JSM when offical branding else use what came with MailNews Core. Does mean I will have to find a way to do it so the tokens and secrets aren't subject to the MPL. Maybe get it to consume and build the data structures from a JSON file or use preferences. Preprocessing isn't enough to hold up to scrutiny in this case.

I am also unsure what will happen when I get the Google one as it may cause headaches for existing accounts. Then again, Google OAuth2 is ALREADY a bunch of bullshit to deal with. Just see the FAQ on the Support page or just use it..

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