Subj : SMTP auth woes.
To   : Ibanez
From : Digital Man
Date : Tue May 31 2005 08:06 pm

  Re: SMTP auth woes.
  By: Ibanez to All on Tue May 31 2005 11:06 pm

 > Hey all,
 > 
 > I need a little help with the sychronet mail server - specifically in relati
 > to relaying through an smtp server (my ISPs in this case) that uses SMTPAUTH
 > 
 > Now, configuring my mail client was never a problem. I put in my user & pass
 > and Thunderbird sends outgoing mail with no probs. However, getting the BBS 
 > send mail has not worked since I switched to Earthlink, because I couldn't
 > figure out what the problem was. That and I didn't have time to investigate.
 > 
 > So, today I ran ethereal while running thunderbird to see the conversation
 > between my mail client and the smtp server to see how it works correctly. Th
 > I ran ethereal while sending a "netmail" from my account on my BBS to anothe
 > email address I have. Very different results in the capture log!
 > 
 > First, the error message I was getting from Earthlink's server:
 > 
 > 503 AUTH command used when not advertised.
 > 
 > OK well I was scratching my head since I didn't know what was going on behin
 > the scenes. What I learned after using ethereal was very interesting.
 > Thunderbird greets Earthlink's SMTP server with EHLO, while synchronet's mai
 > server sends HELO. Earthlink's mail server does NOT advertise the AUTH comma
 > when you send a HELO (confirmed by telnetting to port 25 on Earthlink's serv
 > and trying it by hand). When you send EHLO, it DOES advertise the AUTH comma
 > 
 > What gives? I don't know what difference EHLO vs HELO makes. I'm not an SMTP
 > guru. I can tell you that Earthlink is using Exim ESMTP mail server if that
 > helps.
 > 
 > Anyhow, is there a way to get synchronet's mail server to send EHLO instead?
 > Then it wouldn't be a problem when it sends the AUTH CRAM-MD5 command since 
 > will have been advertised.
 > 
 > Again, I don't know a great deal about the inner workings of SMTP so be gent
 >  ;)

You found a bug. It'll be fixed for the next release (v3.12b) out soon.

For future reference, you can just use the mail server "debug" log options to
log the sessions between your mail server and others (you don't have to use
Etherreal).

Thanks for the helpful bug report!

                                                  digital man

Snapple "Real Fact" #132:
A crocodile cannot move its tongue. 

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