[Dovecot] Dovecot SASL vs. Micro$oft Outlook and Outlook Express

Tom Kovar dovecot_list at kovarovi.org
Sat Dec 30 20:51:49 UTC 2006


Hi,
I have just started using Dovecot (1.0.10) SASL behind my Postfix (2.3.3).
Everything works fine, as long as I send the SMTP AUTH command manually.
When using M$ Outlook (2000 and 2003) and Outlook Express 6,
authentification always fails. Turning on the Dovecot auth debug on reveals
the reason:
Dovecot SASL expects, in accordance with the standards, the following format
of the SMTP AUTH command (using the PLAIN auth mechanism):

	AUTH PLAIN base64_encode("username\0username\0password")

whereas the M$ clients send as the second argument only
base64_encode("username\0password"), which naturally leads to
authentification failure. Postfix apparently does not play any role in this
game, as it simply passes the received command arguments to dovecot.

Before I start hacking the source myself, I just wanted to ask if somebody
has a patch for this M$ shortcoming - as the damned M$ clients are very much
spread, I would assume this should be the case...


Thanx,
	--- Tom



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