From: Carl W. S. <ch...@re...> - 2006-07-11 13:18:30
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On 07/11 08:17 , ken wrote: > I use qmail on fedora. I would like to be able to use a username/password > to send mail and I cannot find where you would enter the password in > backuppc, or if it is possible. Any ideas? AFAICT, you're misunderstanding how mail works on Unix. Backuppc calls some executable program (the Mail Transport Agent, or MTA) and hands it a big chunk of text (your message). No authentication is necessary for this step, since it's on the local box. The MTA then tries to deliver that message to the next machine in the SMTP chain. This may be the destination machine (where the intended recipient's mailbox is hosted). If that is the case, there's still no authentication needed, since that's not part of communication between SMTP servers on the Internet (this is why you can't easily stop spammers from bombarding you). On the other hand, if all the machines on your network go through another mail server (a 'smarthost'); that machine *may* have SMTP Auth turned on. In that case, you'd need to configure your MTA (qmail in this case) to send the username/password combination to authenticate to that server so it can send mail. Usually tho, the smarthost is just set up to accept mail from the client's IP address (since it's not likely to change, and if the machine is compromised then the username & password are available to the attacker anyway so it really doesn't do any good). Does this make things a bit more clear? Considering that qmail hasn't been updated since 1997 last I knew; it may not be possible to set up SMTP Auth on it. (Unless someone wrote a patch). SMTP Auth is really intended for roaming users who are trying to relay mail through your mailserver remotely. Not for machines on your local network. Without SMTP Auth; no password is needed to send mail. (Remember that this was all designed back in the day when you could personally *know* all the admins on the Internet; so they didn't think you needed authentication). -- Carl Soderstrom Systems Administrator Real-Time Enterprises www.real-time.com |