Apple Mail SMTP Auth problems. help?

[motobrandt]

After my recent switch to Direct Admin from the outmoted Cobalt Raq4 I have been extremely happy with the product. The problem that I have is with customers that use Apples. I have a few design firms that use solely OSX and Apple Mail for communication. I need them to use my smtp server because some of the attachments are beyond the limits of their ISP's allowed attachment size. But these customers are getting rejected by the smtp_authorization. Arghhhh

Has anyone else had this problem or does anyone know how to fix it? I've tried every auth setting I can find in apple mail.

Oh yeah I'm using FreeBSD 4.8 if it makes a difference.

TIA
Brandt

[DirectAdmin Support]

Hello,

So smtp authentication isn't working? (or is non-existant).. in that case, the da-popb4smtp *should* pick up the slack... just turn off all authentication on their end for smtp, but leave it on for pop. When then "pop" in to check their email, they'll be logged in the /var/log/maillog file. The da-popb4smtp will then notice a change in that file, check for successful authentications, and then just add any IP's to the /etc/virtual/pophosts file. So.. check to see if they're being added to the file (they'll be removed 30 minutes after their last sucessful login to pop).

So.. make sure that da-popb4smtp is working correctly.

John

[motobrandt]

I know it's been covered elsewhere and I'll try to find it in a second but. If it is an easy answer please tell me how to check to see if da_popb4smtp is working.

Thanks
Brandt

[DirectAdmin Support]

ps -ax |grep da-popb4smtp

John

[existenz]

Just so you know I use Apple Mail as well as many of our employees on a FreeBSD 4.9 box with no issues...

You must be having a problem with popb4smtp. Are they POP/IMAP from that box? If they have a static ip you could add that to the mailserver or the dynamic block?

[motobrandt]

Here's what I get. It appears to be running. Any config ideas?

[root@lucie ~]# ps ax |grep popb4
651 ?? Ss 0:40.28 /usr/local/directadmin/da-popb4smtp
[root@lucie ~]#

[existenz]

Are they get the mail from that server?

[gerhard]

I have a similar problem on my reseller account. Maybe I have configured something wrong, but none of my customers can connect to the POP3 accounts. Webmail is the only option so far and it gets so frustrating after a while.

PLEASE HELP! It's very important that I find the solution to this problem ASAP.

Cheers, Gerhard.

[ProWebUK]

Originally posted by gerhard
Re: Mail (Mac OS X) and Outlook (Win) auth problems (Mail and SMTP)

For outlook do this and see if it makes any difference:

- Tools
- Accounts
- (select account)
- Properties
- 'servers' tab
- Tick the box 'my server requires authentication'
- click settings to the right of the above option
- tick the box 'use same settings as my incoming mail server'

That *should* work for sending mail...

Chris

[existenz]

The most common error when someone says that to use they are not using user@domain.com.

In Mail

->Mail
->Preferences
-> Accounts
Under Account Type:
Incoming Mail Server: your.server.com
User Name: user@domain.com
Password: pwd

Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): Drop down should be your.server.com.

You don't need Authentication but under the Server Settings... Button you can authenticate if you need to for some reason.

[gerhard]

You are great! It works! The problem was that I wasn't using the domain name in the user field...

I have been waiting for a couple of days now (at least 5) to get support from the company I am hosting with, but they simply cannot be bothered... Thanks for your help :D. If I will want my enquiries answered soon and fully, this is the place I am going to come ;) .

Cheers, Gerhard. :D

[jamesthoms]

Just wondering if anyone has found a work around for apple's
mail.app(the default mail client) problem.
Seems like it doesn't do authentication properly.

I get 004-05-31 20:25:09 plain authenticator failed 535 Incorrect
authentication data.

Information regarding this authentication bug is listed here. There seems to be a lot of references to the problem but no fix.

http://www.talkaboutmac.com/group/comp.sys.mac.comm/messages/333971.html

Is there anyway to force this client to use AUTH LOGIN instead of AUTH PLAIN?

Does anyone know of a fix to this problem. Granted the percentage of OSX users out there is pretty small but I'm thinking there must be a fix to something as serious as this.

TWO QUESTIONS:

1) Can I remove the AUTH PLAIN authenticator in order to force AUTH LOGIN ?

OR

2) Does anyone know how to set up exim/direct admin to use CRAM_MD5 ?

I found this online but I know it's not going to work on my system.

cram_md5_login:
driver = cram_md5
public_name = CRAM-MD5
server_advertise_condition = ${if eq{$tls_cipher}{}{no}{yes}}
server_secret = ${lookup{$1}lsearch{/etc/exim/domains/smtp-auth.pwd}{$value}fail}
server_set_id = $1

Thanks,

James

[gerhard]

Hi jamesthoms,

I am not a Mac expert, but I know a couple of sites that might have an answer for you: http://www.macworld.com/, http://www.spymac.com/ and http://maccentral.macworld.com/index.php?redirect=1086023843000.

Have a good one, Gerhard.;)

[gerhard]

...and not to forget about http://www.macfixit.com/index.php ;)

[jamesthoms]

Thanks for the site references... I've been searching all day and it seems like the only solution is to either :

a) not use mail.app and switch to outlook or eudroa.
b) get a a .mac account for which the authentication works fine...
c) use cram-md5 auth instead of LOGIN or PLAIN

There is an option in mail.app to use md5 authentication so I'm hoping that'll be the solution... Now if I could only figure out how to get that set up with direct admin and exim, I'd be set.

Thanks,

-James

[gerhard]

Mail was one of the reasons for which I switched to Mac :).

Everyone I know doesn't bother about encrypting the POP3 login details. They just go with plain password auth.

At the end of the day, there are other, more important things to focus on ;).

p.s.: http://www.newstoday.com/ is an extremely vibrant community, so if your problem is common, they will have an answer - guaranteed.

[jamesthoms]

I've been trying to get Cram-md5 authentication working using DA and exim...

I'm wondered if anyone know what exactly smtpauth was doing?

I thought maybe smtpauth was a perl script exim was passing the user/pass to but I was unable to locate it anywhere.

Anyone have any luck with this?

cram:
driver = cram_md5
public_name = CRAM-MD5
server_secret = ${perl{smtpauth}}{$value}fail}
server_set_id = $1

-James

[DirectAdmin Support]

/etc/exim.pl :)

John

[jamesthoms]

Do we need to have both plain and login authenticators.
I'm still trying to work out this mail.app problem with authentication...

I commented out plain and I was still able to connect. I'm wondering if anything else might break because if it ?

plain:
driver = plaintext
public_name = PLAIN
server_condition = "${perl{smtpauth}}"
server_set_id = $2

login:
driver = plaintext
public_name = LOGIN
server_prompts = "Username:: : Password::"
server_condition = "${perl{smtpauth}}"
server_set_id = $1

[DirectAdmin Support]

I'm not too sure. All the tutorials I've seen all have both of them.

John

[jamesthoms]

I've removed the PLAIN authenticator.
Now mail.app users are able to connect and send email just fine.

It doesn't seem to have affected Outlook, or Outlook Express users either...
They use the LOGIN method.

Eudora is still up in the air.. I'm not sure if anyone's using it so I haven't had a chance to test.

Thanks,

James

[techmonkey]

Originally posted by jamesthoms
I've removed the PLAIN authenticator.
Now mail.app users are able to connect and send email just fine.


I am having the same problem. Can you explain what this plain authenticator is and how I remove it?

I have used this mail client on Cpanel, Plesk, and Ensim and this is the first time I have had this problem.

[jamesthoms]

It's easy to remove:
Just go to your exim.conf file.
Usually /etc/exim.conf

And comment out plain.
Since I've done this mail.app works...
I haven't received any complaints from anyone else so I guess it was never really needed in the first place.


begin authenticators

login:
driver = plaintext
public_name = LOGIN
server_prompts = "Username:: : Password::"
server_condition = "${perl{smtpauth}}"
server_set_id = $1


#plain:
# driver = plaintext
# public_name = PLAIN
# server_condition = "${perl{smtpauth}}"
# server_set_id = $2

[techmonkey]

That did the trick. Thanks!

[Yikes2000]

Originally posted by jamesthoms
I've been trying to get Cram-md5 authentication working using DA and exim...

FYI, DA doesn't store plain passwords, so Exim's CRAM-MD5 authentication is out of the question for SMTP (server). From Exim documentation:


server_secret: When the server receives the client's response, the user name is placed in the expansion variable $1, and server_secret is expanded to obtain the password for that user. The server then computes the CRAM-MD5 digest that the client should have sent, and checks that it received the correct string. If the expansion of server_secret is forced to fail, authentication fails. If the expansion fails for some other reason, a temporary error code is returned to the client.

lookup_cram:
driver = cram_md5
public_name = CRAM-MD5
server_secret = ${lookup{$1}lsearch{/etc/authpwd}{$value}fail}
server_set_id = $1


Luckily STARTTLS is available with Exim. You can also use Stunnel with SMTP (along with POP3 and IMAP) which wraps SSL around these services.