bug: `passwordCommand` is not used in the same way by mbsync and imapnotify

[fuzy112]

Are you following the right branch?

• [X] My Nixpkgs and Home Manager versions are in sync

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the existing issues

Issue description

I need to set my passwordCommand to something like ${pkgs.coreutils}/bin/cat \${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}/agenix/mailpassword.

However, I cannot find a way to let both mbsync and imapnotify works, because the value is in different ways:

mbsync just concatenates the strings together and it works well with the command above,

while imapnotify escapes the strings and as a result the environment variable is not evaluated.

Maintainer CC

@NickHu @KarlJoad

System information

- system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 5.15.133.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2, NixOS, 24.05 (Uakari), 24.05.20240309.3030f18`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.18.1`
 - channels(root): `"nixos-23.11, nixos-wsl"`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/store/nra828scc8qs92b9pxra5csqzffb6hpl-source`

[KarlJoad]

I think I understand what you are saying, but could you provide the generated outputs for both mbsync and imapnotify, please? That way we can compare both output strings.

[KarlJoad]

Relevant lines:

• imapnotify: https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/blob/017b12de5b899ef9b64e2c035ce257bfe95b8ae2/modules/services/imapnotify.nix#L77
• mbsync: https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/blob/017b12de5b899ef9b64e2c035ce257bfe95b8ae2/modules/programs/mbsync.nix#L87

[fuzy112]

Karl H @.***> writes:

I think I understand what you are saying, but could you provide the generated outputs for both mbsync and imapnotify, please? That way we can compare both output strings.

Sure.

I set my passwordCommand to cat ${config.age.secrets."mailpassword".path} and enabled mbsync and imapnotify. The outputs are as follows.

Resulted .mbsyncrc:

PassCmd "cat $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/agenix/mailpassword"

Resulted imapnotify-*-config.json:

 {
  "passwordCmd": "'cat' '$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/agenix/mailpassword'",
  "port": 993,
  "tls": true,
  "tlsOptions": {
    "starttls": false
  },
}

Unrelated parts are omitted from the output.

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[fuzy112]

I set my passwordCommand to cat ${config.age.secrets."mailpassword".path} and enabled mbsync and imapnotify. The outputs are as follows.

A possible workaround is to write command to a file:

passwordCommand =
  let
    passScript = pkgs.writeText "pass-script.sh" ''
      ${pkgs.coreutils}/bin/cat "${config.age.secrets."mailpassword".path}"
    '';
  in
    "${pkgs.runtimeShell} ${passScript}";

[KarlJoad]

 {
  "passwordCmd": "'cat' '$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/agenix/mailpassword'",
  "port": 993,
  "tls": true,
  "tlsOptions": {
    "starttls": false
  },
}

This seems like imapnotify expecting something different than mbsync. To be fair, I think imapnotify may have different goals than mbsync.

When I re-wrote the mbsync module, I was attempting to get it into a state usable for myself. I upstreamed it because it seemed useful (and closed an open issue about mbsync). I'm not 100% sure which style should be preferred (spaces enclosed in quotes, so a single string is a whole command) or if imapnotify's method is preferable. I would appreciate people who use/wrote imapnotify to weigh in and see which method is preferable.

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