#5178 Failed to save SMTP authentication and encryption : Invalid SMTP password

[Rich Painter]

Webmin 1.890 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64bit
Postfix 3.1.0-3ubuntu0.3 amd64
Using Postfix Mail Server->SMTP Authentication And Encryption->SMTP login to outgoing mail host
with Password field:

If I enter the gmail password I use every day for the gmail user I am configuring this for I get the following error after selecting Save and Apply:
Failed to save SMTP authentication and encryption : Invalid SMTP password

I am entering it exactly as it is entered into the gmail.com password field. I do have a variety of legal gmail password characters, such as lower and upper case, numbers, special characters (not control chars) and is 24 chars long.

Is there a workaround?
Do special chars have to be escaped in some way?
Which ones?

thanks

[Jamie Cameron]

Make sure the password doesn't contain any spaces or the : character. These aren't compatible with the Postfix config file format.

[Rich Painter]

thanks for the reply
actually the colon is OK to use.... I have not tested the space

I manually edited the password map file and my line looks something like
this:
[smtp.gmail.com]:587 painterengr@gmail.com:*hJ:(2,"j!~`..and..so..on

gmail can take up to 60 chars

notice that the embedded colon works fine. I have no spaces so I dont know
about how that acts.

So, the specials I used at least (I used a bunch) are working if I manually
edit into the file.

So I would say that you should at least allow the colon at this time.

If you want me to hand test all the specials allowed by gmail I will do
this... it just takes a little time.

I suppose if there are some specials or even a space if it is allowed by
gmail then I should post a bug against postfix to alter how the password
field following the colon is processed to allow all the possible chars....
there is no reason it cant take "everything after the colon following the
username up to the EOL.

thanks
rich

On Wed, Aug 15, 2018 at 12:26 AM, Jamie Cameron jcameron@users.sourceforge.net wrote:

Make sure the password doesn't contain any spaces or the : character.
These aren't compatible with the Postfix config file format.

---

• [bugs:#5178] https://sourceforge.net/p/webadmin/bugs/5178/ Failed to
  save SMTP authentication and encryption : Invalid SMTP password*

Status: open
Group: 1.890
Labels: Postfix Configuration
Created: Wed Aug 15, 2018 05:48 AM UTC by Rich Painter
Last Updated: Wed Aug 15, 2018 05:48 AM UTC
Owner: nobody

Webmin 1.890 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64bit
Postfix 3.1.0-3ubuntu0.3 amd64
Using Postfix Mail Server->SMTP Authentication And Encryption->SMTP login
to outgoing mail host
with Password field:

If I enter the gmail password I use every day for the gmail user I am
configuring this for I get the following error after selecting Save and
Apply:
Failed to save SMTP authentication and encryption : Invalid SMTP password

I am entering it exactly as it is entered into the gmail.com password
field. I do have a variety of legal gmail password characters, such as
lower and upper case, numbers, special characters (not control chars) and
is 24 chars long.

Is there a workaround?
Do special chars have to be escaped in some way?
Which ones?

thanks

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Richard A. Painter, P.E.

[Jamie Cameron]

Thanks, I will allow colons in the next release of Webmin.

[Rich Painter]

Thanks Jamie. Here is my analysis of how postfix handles the storing and retreiving of the passwords used for smtp sasl. For example the contents of a test file for input to postmap:
[smtp.gmail.com]:587 someone@gmail.com: !"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[]^_`{|}~

The first char following the e.mail name is the delimiter of a colon. In this test case the next char (the first of the password) is a space. The remaining chars are the printable special chars in ASCII numerical order (4 blocks, 32d-47d, 58d-64d, 91d-96d, 123d-126d).

running:
postmap test # creates the hashed data base file
postmap -q "[smtp.gmail.com]:587" test # queries the hashed data base file
someone@gmail.com: !"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[]^_`{|}~

So it stores and retreives all of these special characters.

Other tests tell us:

1. embedded white space (space and tab) in the password is retained.
2. all trailing white space (space and tab) is eliminated and not stored.
3. UTF-8 character support is enabled by default.

So, at a minimum the webmin sasl password field should allow entry of these special chars and embedded white space in addition to the numerals, lower and upper case letters and UTF-8 chars.

thanks
rich

PS sorry for the formatting. I couldnt figure out how to remove the automatic formatting.

[Jamie Cameron]

Interesting .. thanks for the info!