-----Original Message----- From: IMail_Forum-owner@list.ipswitch.com [mailto:IMail_Forum-owner@list.ipswitch.com]On Behalf Of Len Conrad Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 10:08 AM To: IMail_Forum@list.ipswitch.com Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] SMTP Authentication Problem

>Maybe the key to solving this problem is the interesting fact that there >seems to be a pattern in that most of us who are having issues have problems >some amount of time AFTER installing patch, server, etc. Like below, the >problem occurred after 30 hours. Perhaps this could be helpful in solving >this issue, since it seems to be the only common element.

Wouldn't that be great? a time bomb? :)))

I really can't imagine, with all the diverse situations where SMTP AUTH fails (and works!), that a time bomb is at work.

I think there will a quite a few more David Macho's if Ipswitch doesn't, finally, fix the unreliability of SMTP AUTH.

We are looking at doing SMTP AUTH with IMGate, because I've never heard of any unreliability with postfix's SMTP AUTH, and it is used frequently.

1. If the Imail user base was in ODBC/SQL, then Imail and IMGate would both access the common username/password table. The problem is, it's not too common to connect *nix to SQL Server.

2. If the Imail user base was Imail/registry, that's not served to the external world, so it would require exporting the Imail user base to IMGate and keeping the two in sync, at some sufficiently short, but not too short of an interval.

So while IMGate could do SMTP AUTH, there are technical complications to gettting it implemented, so I don't want to get your hopes up.

The advantages of IMGate going SMTP AUTH are:

a) it would work reliably :))

b) users send their outgoing mail through IMGate, so Imail is totally out of that loop, freeing Imail for user/mailbox services (POP3 and webmail).

c) this means there would be no requirement for access to Imail's port 25, so IMGate becomes the single "choke point" for SMTP.

e) IMGate could totally block harvesting at IMGate, hermetic protetion for Imail, since IMGate would be able reject all mail to unknown users, without having to ask (DoS) Imail if an account exists.

As always with IMGate, there would probably be other advantages we'd discover in practice.

Len

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