dovecot - Dec 2006 - Dovecot SASL vs. Micro$oft Outlook and Outlook Express

Hi,
I have just started using Dovecot (1.0.10) SASL behind my Postfix (2.3.3).
Everything works fine, as long as I send the SMTP AUTH command manually.
When using M$ Outlook (2000 and 2003) and Outlook Express 6,
authentification always fails. Turning on the Dovecot auth debug on reveals
the reason:
Dovecot SASL expects, in accordance with the standards, the following format
of the SMTP AUTH command (using the PLAIN auth mechanism):

	AUTH PLAIN base64_encode("username\0username\0password")

whereas the M$ clients send as the second argument only
base64_encode("username\0password"), which naturally leads to
authentification failure. Postfix apparently does not play any role in this
game, as it simply passes the received command arguments to dovecot.

Before I start hacking the source myself, I just wanted to ask if somebody
has a patch for this M$ shortcoming - as the damned M$ clients are very much
spread, I would assume this should be the case...


Thanx,
	--- Tom

Tom Kovar wrote:
> Hi,
> I have just started using Dovecot (1.0.10) SASL behind my Postfix (2.3.3).
Before you started hacking the source, it would probably be a good idea 
to at least try the latest version first.

I think Timo is preparing to release rc16, but rc15 is the latest...

-- 

Best regards,

Charles

> Before I start hacking the source myself, I just wanted to ask if somebody
> has a patch for this M$ shortcoming - as the damned M$ clients are very
> much spread, I would assume this should be the case...
I don't know about a patch per se but I am using rc15 and postfix 2.3.5 w/ 
dovecot sasl enabled in postfix. I had to add "login" mechanism to 
dovecot.conf in order for outlook variants to work.

auth default {

  mechanisms = plain login

 .
 .
 .
}


Jim