smtp and authentication

QNX Newsgroups (Archives) qdn.public.qnx4
1

We have some equipment in the field in Alaska. Internet connectivity is via
the Starband vsat system (www.starband.com), but we have a problem wih
email. Our system generates automatic outbound email, sent to the external
smtp server using qnx’s sendmail. However, the Starband smtp host requires
“authentication” (I guess this is some sort of username/password
combination)and I don’t know what that is. Outlook can be made to work by
configuring it (ie checking a box) autheticate, but there is no explaination
to exactly what extra is being done.

So does anyone

a) know what this authentication mechanism might be

and

b) can sendmail be configured/extended to do this.

thanks

Julian Thornhill

2

We have had similar (I think) problems with the sendmail shipped
with 4.25. Some recipients do a DNS lookup on the "From: " and
reject mail that fails the lookup.

One fix is called masquerading, but I was not able to get this
working with ver 8.8 (I compiled 8.9 which has the advantage of
being immune to relaying).

Another possibility is for /etc/hosts to lie about it’s identity.
That may well work as long as no one wishes to send send mail to
or contact the real holder of the name from that machine.

And then, of course, you could register a domain name.

If you do decide to mess with masquerading,

  1. get the bat book (“Sendmail” by Bryan Costales pub. O’Reilly)
  2. Download a sendmail tarball and print the included READMEs

There are some other mailers out there - I don’t remember names
now - someone should pipe in here.

Richard

Julian Thornhill wrote:

We have some equipment in the field in Alaska. Internet connectivity is via
the Starband vsat system (> www.starband.com> ), but we have a problem wih
email. Our system generates automatic outbound email, sent to the external
smtp server using qnx’s sendmail. However, the Starband smtp host requires
“authentication” (I guess this is some sort of username/password
combination)and I don’t know what that is. Outlook can be made to work by
configuring it (ie checking a box) autheticate, but there is no explaination
to exactly what extra is being done.

So does anyone

a) know what this authentication mechanism might be

and

b) can sendmail be configured/extended to do this.

thanks

Julian Thornhill