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Accepted
Dale C. Anderson
Asked: 2013-01-08 12:51:04 +0800 CST

Postfix "AUTH-LOGIN" no longer being offered for smtp auth after upgrade from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04.1

  • 772

After doing a major Ubuntu dist upgrade from 10.04 to 12.04, my virtual-user postfix / dovecot installation only offers "PLAIN" SMTP Authentication mechanism.

It used to offer PLAIN + LOGIN mechanisms, and I have tried everything under the sun to get the the LOGIN one back again, but it just won't do it.

Without the "LOGIN" version, a lot of MS-based clients (windows live, outlook express) can no longer send mail using SMTP Auth. I've had to put their IP addresses in to my 'mynetworks' list.

I even tried setting up a from-scratch postfix+dovecot+virtual users smtp server with 12.04.1, thinking that it had to be something to do with the upgrade, but can't get anything more than AUTH PLAIN to be offered on the new system either.

Has anyone successfully set up a working postfix + dovecot + virtual users mail server on 12.04 that properly does SMTP Auth?

My current dovecot config: http://pastie.org/5651874

and current postfix config: http://pastie.org/5651882

.

FYI here are the excerpts of configurations I've tried:

(A):

/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-auth.conf:

auth_mechanisms = plain login

/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-master.conf: 

service auth {
  unix_listener auth-userdb {
  }
  inet_listener {
    port = 12345
  }
}

/etc/postfix/main.cf

smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_sasl_exceptions_networks = $mynetworks
smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot
smtpd_sasl_path = inet:127.0.0.1:12345

Results in 

... warning: SASL: Connect to inet:127.0.0.1:12345 failed: Connection refused
... fatal: no SASL authentication mechanisms

from my logs.

.

.

And (B):

/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-auth.conf:

auth_mechanisms = plain login

/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-master.conf: 

service auth {
  unix_listener auth-userdb {
  }
  unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth {
    mode = 0666
    user = postfix
    group = postfix
  }
}

/etc/postfix/main.cf

smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_sasl_exceptions_networks = $mynetworks
smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot
smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth

Results in only the PLAIN mechanism being offered.

.

The documentation that adaptr referenced in his answer doesn't have any example of the UNIX socket style config for Dovecot 2, so I'm hoping that someone with more experience can guide me here.

postfix

3 Answers

  1. As documented, dovecot must advertise the appropriate mechanisms.

    • 3
  2. Best Answer

    Well, from what I see in your posted configuration you never set Dovecot's auth_mechanisms = plain login, thus the default of auth_mechanisms = plain is used. Try updating that setting and restarting Dovecot, afterwards re-check the output of doveconf -n.

    Your auth socket settings seem correct to me, Postfix should be able to do SASL authentication against Dovecot.

    • 3

  3. I was having this same problem on CentOS 6 and the cause of my problem was different:

    Having the setting:

    smtpd_tls_security_level = encrypt

    in main.cf stripped

    250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN

    from EHLO output during a telnet session. Putting it in master.cf restored the output and intended behavior:

    submission inet n - n - - smtpd
-o smtpd_tls_security_level=encrypt

    I felt it was worth sharing this solution since at least three tutorials I found online suggested that it was okay to include this setting in main.cf.

    • -2