[tlug] 'Postfix' as SMTP AUTH Client

[Dennis McMurchy <denismcm@example.com>]

  Hi all,

  I think I've done my homework here, but I'm at my wits' end and need
some help.

  I've just recently upgraded to RedHat9, and 
  I'm trying to use the 'postfix' MTA as a client for SMTP AUTH.

  According to /usr/share/doc/postfix-1.1.11/README-Postifx-SASL-RedHat.txt
(sic) "Red Hat's Postfix RPMs include support for both SASL and TSL".

  There's a recipe at the end of that file that describes how to set up
Postfix as a client for SMTP AUTH.  I've followed the recipe and tried
ever so many variations without any luck.

  I can 'telnet' to the mailserver and authenticate successfully by
opting for  AUTH PLAIN and handing it a base64 encoded form of
'username\0username\0password', but I'm damned if I can get 'postfix' to
do the same thing.

  Here's what I've tried so far:

I've added these lines to the /etc/postfix/main.cf file:

smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/saslpass

and then created /etc/postfix/saslpass with this content:

mail.gol.com    denismcm@example.com:PASSWORD
 
  I'm then using '/usr/sbin/postmap saslpass' to generate the 'saslpass.db'
file that 'postfix' seems to expect.

  Our failure looks like this in /var/log/maillog:

Jun  5 06:30:46 localhost postfix/smtp[5589]: ABEAE9F955: to=<*w@*********k***.d
emon.co.uk>, relay=mail.gol.com[203.216.5.132], delay=843, status=deferred (Auth
entication failed: cannot SASL authenticate to server mail.gol.com[203.216.5.132
]: no mechanism available)

  This made me think that perhaps the PLAIN and LOGIN mechanisms that
GOL is offering were explicitly disallowed in ..postfix/main.cf, but this
isn't the case.

  Geez!  It's after 0700 here, and I've been at this all night long!
So close and yet so far.  Hope someone has the answer.  (I'm not hung
up on 'postfix' either, if someone has a detailed recipe for doing this
with 'sendmail').  I just want to get it working.  Sending direct isn't
great over this dialup connection of mine (but sure beats having no
outgoing mail at all!).

  Cheers, Dennis
-- 
Dennis McMurchy, 
Sointula, B.C. / Tojinmachi, Fukuoka
Canada           Japan