Set up your mail server for sending
Contents
Overview
When you have set up a mail server you can by default send mails within your own domain (e.g. linuxintro.org) but not to the outside. What you probably want is that internet users can connect via a mail client, e.g. Thunderbird to your mail server. If they know a valid username and password, they are allowed to read and send mails.
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.
