Authentication using Sendmail... I'm lost...

jtelep · 05-29-2004, 11:30 PM

I gave up trying to use Exim and decided to use Sendmail hoping that it would be easier doing what I wanted to do (simple user authentication prior to being able to use the server for relaying mail) but I was wrong. I did some homework and found that it wasn't as easy as I thought. I learned that I needed to audit my "sendmail.mc" file with specific lines, that I had to edit a couple of other files but still, when I telneted to port 25 on the localhost and performed the standard "ehlo localhost" command, I never saw the authentication line I was searching for. I then found out that I needed to install and configure SASL so, again, after some searching, found the package SASL2-BIN, installed it (which it installed a bunch of other stuff). It then complained about some encryption config files not being present yet (duh, because I just installed it) then bombed out and that was the end of it. Now I know I probably still need to do some configuring with SASL and then, somehow, convince the server that I've jumped through all of the necessary hoops in order to get it to actually "send" the mail but it was at this point that I got lost.

I'm hoping someone else who uses Debian could give me some idea as to what I'm supposed to do next regarding both SASL and the way it and Sendmail interact. If anyone knows, please help.

Thanks,

Jon

llamakc · 05-31-2004, 08:50 AM

I don't know about your SASL issue; however, if you want to allow certain users to relay, why not use Postfix and pop-before-smtp? Those packages already exist in Debian and are known to work very well together.

Code:

llamakc:/home/ken# apt-cache search pop | grep smtp
drac - Dynamic Relay Authorization Control (pop-before-smtp)
pop-before-smtp - watch log for pop/imap auth, notify Postfix to allow relay
llamakc:/home/ken# apt-cache show pop-before-smtp
Package: pop-before-smtp
Priority: extra
Section: mail
Installed-Size: 164
Maintainer: Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk>
Architecture: all
Version: 1.31-2
Depends: postfix | postfix-tls, libfile-tail-perl, libtime-hires-perl, libnet-netmask-perl, libtimedate-perl, libappconfig-perl, libberkeleydb-perl, perl
Suggests: imap-server, pop3-server
Filename: pool/main/p/pop-before-smtp/pop-before-smtp_1.31-2_all.deb
Size: 33522
MD5sum: 0f47725f7cf074ab93bcfd32f8634345
Description: watch log for pop/imap auth, notify Postfix to allow relay
Spam prevention requires preventing open relaying through email
servers. However, legitimate users want to be able to relay. If
legitimate users always stayed in one spot, they'd be easy to describe
to the daemon. However, what with roving laptops, logins from home,
etc., legitimate users refuse to stay in one spot.
.
pop-before-smtp watches the mail log, looking for successful
pop/imap logins, and posts the originating IP address into a
database which can be checked by Postfix, to allow relaying for
people who have recently downloaded their email.
.
Contrary to other similar tools pop-before-smtp needs no hacking
in the mail daemons. On the other hand it requires the pop3/imap
daemons to run on the same machine as pop-before-smtp and postfix.

DavidPhillips · 05-31-2004, 10:24 AM

Sendmail should be ok with what your doing. It is somewhat complicated to get it all configured as you know, but the instructions should get you there if followed closely. You need to create certificates. When you attempt to restart sendmail the log files should guide you to the problem.

As an alternative you might want to check this out..

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ticle&artid=50

You should also look at this for some updated info..

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=95326

Especially this post...

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...501#post926501