Re: SMTP smart host authentication fails

[Haines Brown <brownh@hartford-hwp.com>]

Doug, thanks for your comments. 

To access my ISP's new SSL smtp server, I was given a new server name:
smtp.hartford-hwp.com. But I find out this is only a shortcut to the
actual server, which I'm told is mymail.myregisteredsite.com. I
dutifully changed to that address, but when I try to send messages, I
get:

  host mymail.myregisteredsite.com [209.237.134.152]:
  553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)
 
Tech support insists this error message means I'm not authenticating
with the server, but that's not what it sounds like.

To authenticate with the SMTP server, there seem to be four issues:

1. In /etc/exim4/passwd.client I inserted this line (where "<PW>" is
   my plain test password):

    mymail.myregisteredsite.com:hartford-hwp.com:<PW>

2. In exim4 configuration, I have to specify the smtp server. In
   /etc/exim4/update.exim.conf.conf I have the line:

    dc_smarthost='mymail.myregisteredsite.com'

3. I have not specified the authentication method. After speaking with
   my tech support supervisor's supervisor, all I could get was that
   the authentication method is "basic", "ordinary". Only later one
   person suggested that "basic" is really plain
   authentication. Assuming this is correct, I did not make any
   changes to the /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template file, which
   apparently defaults to the plain text authentication method. I have
   no trouble accessing the POP server.

4. I was told to open the port 587 for SMTP instead of 25 (no port
   change was needed to access the POP server). So in /etc/inetd.conf
   I tried both of these lines without success, and also commented the
   line (reverted to port 25):

    ssmtp		587/tcp		smtps		# SMTP over SSL
    smtp		587/tcp		smtps		# SMTP over SSL
 
   Which of these two lines has the right syntax?

I know that whenever I make changes to exim configuration or to the
inetd.conf file, I must restart. Will both of these commands do it
(I'm using debian Etch)? That is, does reconfiguring Exim also restart
inetd, and does restarting inetd also rescan Exim4 configuration? 

  # dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config
  # /usr/sbin/initd restart
   
--
        Haines Brown, KB1GRM