This particular section explains only how to send email using HCoop's mail server with Emacs. Browsing email with most Emacs mail packages is not covered here, and should be less difficult. Please read the Sending email section of the MemberManual/Email page before doing what is described here.
To send mail through HCoop using Emacs's smtpmail you can use the following configuration.
(require 'smtpmail)
(setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
smtpmail-smtp-server "mail.hcoop.net"
smtpmail-smtp-service 25
smtpmail-starttls-credentials '(("mail.hcoop.net" 25 nil nil))
smtpmail-debug-info t ; optional, but handy in case something goes wrong
smtpmail-auth-supported '(plain))Put your authentication information into ~/.authinfo which is in the netrc(5) format (make sure to supply port 25 or else smtpmail won't read the entry), and ensure that it is readable only by your user. An example of a netrc line follows. Replace $YOURNAME with your HCoop login name, $YOURPASSWORD with your password.
machine mail.hcoop.net login $YOURNAME password $YOURPASSWORD port 25
If you are using a vmail account, then use the form "yourname@domain.tld" for $YOURNAME in the above.
This will work for any mail client that uses message-mode for editing and sending mail (e.g. Gnus).