Set up your mail server for sending
Contents
Overview
You have set up a mail server and do not want anyone to use it as spam-catapult. So you need sender verification in your postfix service. Only people who know their username and password shall be allowed to send mail.
Configure it
Authentication is done by saslauthd. So install saslauthd, in this case for SUSE Linux:
yast -i cyrus-sasl-saslauthd
Start the service:
/etc/init.d/saslauthd start
Make sure your authentication service is running:
/etc/init.d/saslauthd status
has to deliver
running
Make sure the service starts on boot
chkconfig saslauthd on
In /etc/postfix/main.cf, set
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
In /etc/postfix/main.cf, add permit_sasl_authenticated to smtpd_recipient_restrictions. The resulting line may look like this:
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks,
permit_sasl_authenticated,
reject_unauth_destination,
check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:60000
Restart Postfix
/etc/init.d/postfix restart
Test it
Start kmail, setup localhost as incoming and outgoing mail server. In kmail, change the sending account's authentication method to "LOGIN". Send a mail to testuser@localhost.
TroubleShooting
Authentication not enabled
- Symptom
You get
Sending failed: Your SMTP server does not support authentication. The server responded: "5.5.1 Error: authentication not enabled"
- Solution
You will need to modify /etc/postfix/main.cf, set
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
and restart postfix:
/etc/init.d/postfix restart
generic failure
- Symptom
You get
Sending failed. Most likely the password is wrong. The server responded: "5.7.8 Error: authentication failed: generic failure"
- Solution
You need to make sure your authentication service has been started:
/etc/init.d/saslauthd status
has to deliver
running
no authentication mechanism available
- Symptom
You get
Sending failed: Your SMTP server does not support The server responded: "5.7.8 Error: authentication failed: no mechanism available"
- Reson
You may have
- plain
- digest-md5
- cram-md5
as authentication method in kmail.
- Solution
Change this to Login.
no worthy mechanisms found
- Symptom
You get
Sending failed: An error occurred during authentication: SASL(-4):no mechanism available: No worthy mechs found
- Reason
You may have
- GSSAPI
as authentication method in kmail.
- Solution
Change this to Login.
no mail is sent
- Symptom
Nothing happens and no mail is sent
- Reason
You may have
- NTLM
as authentication method in kmail.
- Solution
Change this to Login.
