20

I try to setup postfix with smtp authentication. I want to use /etc/shadow as my realm

Unfortunately I get a "generic error" when i try to authenticate

# nc localhost 25
220 mail.foo ESMTP Postfix
AUTH PLAIN _base_64_encoded_user_name_and_password_
535 5.7.8 Error: authentication failed: generic failure

In the mail.warn logfile i get the following entry

Oct  8 10:43:40 mail postfix/smtpd[1060]: warning: SASL authentication failure: cannot connect to saslauthd server: No such file or directory
Oct  8 10:43:40 mail postfix/smtpd[1060]: warning: SASL authentication failure: Password verification failed
Oct  8 10:43:40 mail postfix/smtpd[1060]: warning: _ip_: SASL PLAIN authentication failed: generic failure

However the sasl setup seems to be fine

$ testsaslauthd -u _user_ -p _pass_
0: OK "Success."

i added smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes to the main.cf

This is my smtpd.conf

$ cat /etc/postfix/sasl/smtpd.conf 
pwcheck_method: saslauthd
mech_list: PLAIN LOGIN
saslauthd_path: /var/run/saslauthd/mux
autotransition:true

I tried this conf with the last two commands and without.

I'm running debian stable.

How can postfix find and connect to the saslauthd server?

Edit:

I'm not sure whether postfix runs in a chroot The master.cf looks like this: http://pastebin.com/Fz38TcUP

saslauth is located in the sbin

$ which saslauthd
/usr/sbin/saslauthd

The EHLO has this response

EHLO _server_name_
250-_server_name_
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10240000
250-VRFY
250-ETRN
250-STARTTLS
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8BITMIME
250 DSN

2 Answers2

11

Are you perhaps missing the symlink from /var/run/saslauthd to /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd?

From my working system:

root@mail:/etc/postfix/sasl# ls -la /var/run/saslauthd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Dec 31  2010 /var/run/saslauthd -> /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd
Paul Gear
  • 4,686
0

I just had this happen to me following an update and reboot, so it's still an issue (Oct 2023 Debian 11) and @paul-gear's instructions here fixed the underlying issue by restoring the symlink (thanks), but my fail2ban had decided in the meantime that my and my clients' IP's should be banned so our mail clients still couldn't connect. I removed and then re-added the postfix-sasl jail and all was well... i think/hope!

jonnybradley
  • 101