Re: smtp authentication (sendmail relay)

[Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann)]

On 17 Dec 2000, Harry Putnam wrote:

> However as is ofter the case, I'm looking for a more optimal
> solution, that could be used by simply overwriting sendmail.cf and
> restarting sendmail.

To find out what the newsguy.com smtp server wants, it might be
easiest to talk to it directly:

    telnet smtp.newsguy.com 25

Make liberal use of the HELP command...  Without authentication, the
typical command sequence is this:

/----
| HELO lucy.cs.uni-dortmund.de
| MAIL FROM: <Kai.Grossjohann@cs.uni-dortmund.de>
| RCPT TO: <reader@newsguy.com>
| DATA
| From: Kai Grossjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@cs.uni-dortmund.de>
| To: Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>
| Subject: test
| 
| testing the test
| .
\----

HELO tells the other smtp server who my machine is.  MAIL FROM and
RCPT TO (including the colon and the angle brackets) give the envelope
sender and recipient, DATA indicates that the mail itself follows
(terminated by a line which contains only a dot).  The message itself
also contains From and To, but these are the headers, not the
envelope.  If the envelope says the message goes to John, and the
header says Paul, then the message will go to John.

You might wish to compare with what you see.

>  > I think there are also schemes for doing authentication within
>  > SMTP, but I think they are rarely used.  They are also
>  > non-standard, I think.
> 
> Is this last `within' scheme what I am describing above?

Could be.  This depends on whether the SMTP server asks you for
authentication. 


>  "Robin S. Socha" <robin@socha.net> writes:

>  > You are now reader@socha.net, PWD [...]
>  > To login, use reader@socha.net, to relay over this machine, get
>  > POP3
>  > first (smtp after pop). https://socha.net:666/webmail/ is also
>  > there,
>  > altough the account settings are slightly broken ;-)
> 
> Thanks Robin.. same as above solution `smtp after pop'.
> 
> Due to your characteristic breivity... Its not clear if there would
> be a way to do what I've described above on that smtp server.
> Please set -v to the next higher level....  : )

You need to tell Gnus to get mail from machine socha.net, logging in
with given login and password.  (It's not clear to me whether the
login name should be "reader" or "reader@socha.net".)  And then you
put socha.net as smarthost into sendmail.cf, and for a couple of
minutes after getting mail, you can do "sendmail -q" and the mail will
be relayed.

For the above scheme, it's not important that you actually HAVE mail
at that machine.  It's sufficient for you to CONTACT the machine, then
the SMTP-after-POP will work.

kai
-- 
A large number of young women don't trust men with beards.  (BFBS Radio)