Pkg exim4 users - Sep 2010 - test Fri, 17 Sep 2010 02:44:14 +1000

Attention List Moderator

Hello,

I sent a message on 15/09/2010 to the list but as I was using webmail, the
sender was robstone at pacific.net.au instead of robstone at mira.net, which is
my
registered e-mail address.
These e-mail addresses are identical.
Please pass my original e-mail onto somebody who is able to help.

This message was sent using swaks. It seems to be able to send successfully
whilst Evolution can''t.
See test message header below.


X-Apparently-To:   	 	 help66less at yahoo.com.au via 98.136.167.83; Thu, 16 Sep
2010 09:14:57 -0700
Return-Path: 		<robstone at mira.net>
Received-SPF: 		none (mta1267.mail.mud.yahoo.com: domain of robstone at mira.net
does not designate permitted sender hosts)
X-YMailISG: 		KrmYz1kcZApmVOBzZQEyIHMZQr3Ow6_kAEgJpffXARSDGINA
5n8LJ58awq6TX4SbU3vUoeZh_YGSXXQj.Jdl7OKB.tUF0ZqBfEBhJPNQGLH_
kvDJzJ.5Gej.CHSvIA1mO.pquSy3q6jhYFuRXGLG00ySXHrxP_uxBeSMLfCo
0ovzfSc2J7MqjR8pLEUVnzZ8gzDapGv3W.FzJ0xI0Y0oQ.0.sCvaxTIY6iA1
Ck1d2Qpiygxt1.3JNzezLm1NsFR0JjKpIo_fPg.7_3CwZs7MZfHFBZj7N.el
K4jSCBidVS3_CFOxUstP.TEA7lHae5ZFhixVO_rc7HNNNbD_WfEnk1RX0jb0
QWNYWrRiB7t7zeUk9nycYt3C7gnY4.aodfbpBZwM7dvFPpqGUwbXQACHJxF6
WU7L_53X1Hs2vF37MZAKLntL5AXaDGn23RhIrJdy52cURWFm5cAy5BdMrJaD
BGC4FOd38AvA6NOx33fwAE2HFvozBLrOtyyw5UDEiBg21xTNJ3zgWXrscpE7
yDv24pnuFQq_XjJm9RasR4Wi.YMEki2g2aDwkjURn2J1rZETN_.M.emSUbya Iwf7_w--
X-Originating-IP: 		[125.255.80.131]
Authentication-Results: 		mta1267.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=mira.net;
domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=mira.net; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: 		from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO mailout1.pacific.net.au) (125.255.80.131) by
mta1267.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:14:56 -0700
Received: 		from localhost (201-24-68-174.fnsce701.dsl.brasiltelecom.net.br
[201.24.68.174]) by mailout1.pacific.net.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id C36F55DABA6
for <help66less at yahoo.com.au>; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 01:54:55 +1000 (EST)
Date: 		Fri, 17 Sep 2010 01:54:31 +1000
To: 		help66less at yahoo.com.au
From: robstone at mira.net
Subject: 		A swaks test
X-Mailer: 		swaks v20100211.0 jetmore.org/john/code/swaks/
Message-Id: 		<20100916155458.C36F55DABA6 at mailout1.pacific.net.au>
Content-Length: 		82



I have "AUTH_CLIENT_ALLOW_NOTLS_PASSWORDS = true" in my macro config
and
this appears in config.autogenerated.

Evolution is unable to authenticate when it trys to connect to the server
smtproam.pacific.net.au whereas swaks doesn''t have the problem.


Why did Evolution stop functioning when exim4 heavy was removed and replaced
with exim4 light??


Regards,
Rob Stone

Hello,

robstone at mira.net wrote:

<snip>
> I have "AUTH_CLIENT_ALLOW_NOTLS_PASSWORDS = true" in my macro
config and
> this appears in config.autogenerated.
This macro only instructs Exim not to require an encrypted (using STARTTLS) 
connection when authenticating itself to a smarthost.
> Evolution is unable to authenticate when it trys to connect to the server
> smtproam.pacific.net.au whereas swaks doesn''t have the problem.
I don''t see Exim in the picture here.
> Why did Evolution stop functioning when exim4 heavy was removed and
> replaced with exim4 light??
Please describe your setup in more detail. Are you trying to set up a path 
like this:  Evolution -> Exim host -> smtproam.pacific.net.au ?

Cheers,
Antonio

Hello Robert,

first of all, please keep the list CCed on every email. The point of this is 
to serve as a reference for future users facing the same issues as you.

robstone at ... wrote:
> Hello Antonio,
> 
> Everything worked fine on my laptop until Synaptic Package Manager decided
> all by itself to replace exim4 heavy with exim4 light. Evolution was
> upgraded also to version 2.30-2. After that, Evolution couldn''t
connect to
> the POP mail server. The exim4 log showed the connection being rejected.
Exim has nothing to do with POP3 (or IMAP4 for that matter); it can only 
speak the SMTP protocol.
> So, I tried using swaks to test out my mail connection, etc. and it worked
> fine. I could connect and send a message to another e-mail address that I
> have. So, if swaks can do plain authentication to my ISP, why
can''t exim??
> 
> I just don''t know whether the problem is within exim4 or
Evolution. When
> Evolution starts it connects to the mail server. It asks me to enter my
> password, so I assume it is responding to a request for a password from
> the mail server.
Evolution is not connecting to the Exim server at that point, unless
it''s
trying to send some email that was left undelivered in its outbound email 
queue.
> I.e., it is half way through the authentication process.
> It must have sent at least a ehlo and received a response. After I enter
> my password there is a smidgin of traffic and then it says "Unable to
> authenticate to SMTP server. Bad authentication response from server".
The
> dialog box stays open for the entry of my password.
Please see RFC4954 for more details on SMTP authentication with SASL. 
Generally, it goes like this:

S> 220 mail.example.com ESMTP Exim 4.71 Sat, 25 Sep 2010 06:53:54 +0300
C> EHLO adsl-234-123-234-123.isp.com
S> 250-mail.example.com Hello adsl-234-123-234-123.isp.com
   [234.123.234.123]
S> 250-SIZE 52428800
S> 250-PIPELINING
S> 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
S> 250-STARTTLS
S> 250 HELP
C> AUTH <method> ...
S> 334 ...
C> ...

...and so on.
> I''m thinking of replacing exim4 light with exim4 heavy, but
can''t see that
> as being the solution.
Something else is probably happening whenever you reinstall Exim, regardless 
of the version. Both Exim versions can do inbound and outbound SMTP 
authentication, either with SASL, or by using certificates.
> Any suggestions you have will be welcome.
Generally speaking, when it comes to email, there are two kinds of protocols 
used: SMTP, which is used when a MUA (such as Evolution) or an MTA (such as 
Exim/Postfix/etc.) tries to *send* an email *to another MTA*, and POP3/IMAP4 
which is used by an MUA when trying to retrieve emails that are already 
stored on another server. As I mentioned earlier, Exim cannot speak 
POP3/IMAP4, that is a job for programs like Dovecot/Courier/Cyrus.

I need some more details on your setup before I''m able to further
assist
you, like:

- What are you trying to achieve by using Exim? Assuming this is a single 
user setup, the simplest thing to do would be configuring Evolution to speak 
to your ISP''s SMTP and POP3 servers directly.
- Which servers is Evolution configured to speak to at the moment.

As you can see, we''re shooting at the dark without this information.
> Regards,
> Robert
Cheers,
Antonio

PS: Sorry for my English, it should be apparent by now that it isn''t my
mother tongue.