Cannot check email with email client, but telnet to 110 works

Question

I installed postfix and dovecot on Ubuntu 10.04 using pdm-ubuntu-10-04-x86-v1.4.3. It set up a MySQL database for my domain and user data. I used it's ./manage to create a user. When I created an account in my outlook express (on my windows computer) It acts like I am putting in a bad password. I know it's connecting enough to try because the server name is like mail.domain.com and if I change that to cname.domain.com I get "the host ... could not be found", so I changed it back.

If I telnet from my linux shell, I can access dovecot and even read mail that I sent to myself from my yahoo account. If I telnet from my windows cmd, I get "-ERR Plaintext authentication disallowed on non-secure (SSL/TLS) connections."

I thought that might be a clue, so I went back to Outlook Express and turned on "Log on using secure password authentication" but then I get an error from OE

"Unable to logon to the server using Secure Password Authentication. Account: 'TecBrat', Server: 'mail.domain.com', Protocol: POP3, Server Response: '.', Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800CCC18"

What should I try next?

(I'm pretty new at this, so if you ask me to show a log or config file, please show me the expected path to find it.)

Answer 1

Secure password authentication in outlook express uses Windows NTLM/Kerberos auth.

Is in not simple SSL/TLS.

Do not enable it on linux unless you have GSSAPI/Kerberos configured.

Error 0x800CCC18 => http://support.microsoft.com/kb/202061

Reason is simple, you can not use secured login on unsecured connection.

Turn off "Log on using secure password authentication"

and change port settings accordingly to use POP over SSL (POPS = 995)

You must have dovecot configured to use SSL/TLS.

More info about standard mail service ports here :

http://www.emailaddressmanager.com/tips/mail-servers.html

Note that SSL/TLS enabled service can not be tested with telnet, you must use openssl.

More info here :

http://blog.yimingliu.com/2009/01/23/testing-a-pop3-server-via-telnet-or-openssl/

or here:

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/7296/1

Answer 2

Reason is you can not use secured login on a unsecured connection.

ie, turn on the login for "less secure app" in the mail settings (gmail).

or Turn off "Log on using secure password authentication"

Answer 3

The solution I found is to add this line to /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf:

disable_plaintext_auth=no

(or replace the existing disable_plaintext_auth=yes if it's already there)

Then restart dovecot:

# /etc/init.d/dovecot restart