Trying to send authenticated email using Net::SMTP::SSL - perl

Question

I'm attempting to send an authenticated email with the Net::SMTP::SSL module to a comcast email server. I'm using the following code.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use Net::SMTP::SSL;
use MIME::Base64;
$smtp = Net::SMTP::SSL->new
(
"smtp.comcast.net",
Hello => "host.comcast.net",
Port => 465,
Timeout => 30,
Debug => 1,
);
$smtp->datasend("AUTH LOGIN\n");
$smtp->response();
# Mailbox info
$smtp->datasend(encode_base64('username')); # username
$smtp->response();
$smtp->datasend(encode_base64('password')); # password
$smtp->response();
# Email from
$smtp->mail('user\#comcast.net');
# Email to
$smtp->to('user\#host.com');
$smtp->data();
$smtp->datasend("To: user\#host.com\n");
$smtp->datasend("From: user\#comcast.net\n");
$smtp->datasend("Subject: Test");
# Line break to separate headers from body
$smtp->datasend("\n");
$smtp->datasend("Blah\n");
$smtp->dataend();
$smtp->quit();
exit;
I'm basically following the code from here for comcast.
I've ran telnet and can connect to the smtp server on the port and I can issue the AUTH LOGIN and successfully login, but issuing the
$smtp->datasend("AUTH LOGIN\n");
always results in:
Can't call method "datasend" on an undefined value
I've also tried executing the auth method to login and that fails as well.
What am I missing here? I know it's something simple I'm overlooking.

Answer 1

Pretty much all of the Net::SMTP methods optionally set error codes, so I suspect that Net::SMTP::SSL does the same. Try the following for your constructor:
use Net::SMTP::SSL;
use MIME::Base64;
use strict;
use warnings;
my $smtp = Net::SMTP::SSL->new(
"smtp.comcast.net",
Hello => "host.comcast.net",
Port => 465,
Timeout => 30,
Debug => 1,
) or die "Failed to connect to mail server: $!";
Also, the fact that your smtp server is different than your Hello is a little suspect to me.

Answer 2

For email services that use STARTTLS, it's best to use the newer NET::SMTPS module. Try the following code:
my $msg = MIME::Lite ->new (
From => 'from#bellsouth.net',
To => 'to#bellsouth.net',
Subject => 'Test Message',
Data => 'This is a test',
Type => 'text/html'
);
my $USERNAME = 'from#bellsouth.net';
my $PASSWORD = 'abc123';
my $smtps = Net::SMTPS->new("smtp.mail.att.net", Port => 587, doSSL => 'starttls', SSL_version=>'TLSv1');
$smtps->auth ( $USERNAME, $PASSWORD ) or die("Could not authenticate with bellsouth.\n");
$smtps ->mail('from#bellsouth.net');
$smtps->to('to#bellsouth.net');
$smtps->data();
$smtps->datasend( $msg->as_string() );
$smtps->dataend();
$smtps->quit;
Originally from http://www.skipser.com/p/2/p/send-email-using-perl-via-live.com.html

Answer 3

Try this:
Email from
Change
$smtp->mail('user\#comcast.net'); to $smtp->mail('user#comcast.net'); without '\'
Email to
Change
$smtp->to('user\#host.com'); to $smtp->to('user#host.com'); without '\'