Leopard Mail server relay authentication disappears

[jpaquin]

I have many clients who do not have their own internal mail servers, do not use a mail service that does not require authentication, and/or do not have an smtp server available to them for sending mail through their ISP. So, I am unable to set up email alerts for apps like XSan Admin, Final Cut Server, and Server Monitor.

In a recent training class for Final Cut Server our instructor told us to resolve this is as simple as turning on the mail service on your server, enabling smtp to relay outgoing mail through another host, and putting your correct smtp server with authentication in there. Then, just point all of the apps I listed above to send mail through localhost.

This all sounds great and easy, but I unfortunately have never gotten it to work consistently. At my most recent site the issue is that I enabled smtp, put in a host to relay through, and put in the authentication information for that host, but the authentication information disappears. The authentication information (username and password) are shown correctly in the /etc/postfix/sasl/passwd file. And, in the /etc/postfix/main.cf file everything looks correct at the end to me:

readme_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix
mydomain_fallback = localhost
message_size_limit = 10485760
myhostname = xserve.example.lan
mailbox_transport = cyrus
mydomain = example.lan
inet_interfaces = all
enable_server_options = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl/passwd
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
relayhost = mysmtp.emailserver.com

So, the relayhost and smtp_sasl_password_maps are correct. (Some naming information is modified above for confidentiality purposes).

I get the following in the smtp logs:

Oct 6 14:06:15 xserve postfix/qmgr[13596]: A61F212A8DA: from=, size=928, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Oct 6 14:06:15 xserve postfix/smtp[96856]: warning: database /etc/postfix/sasl/passwd.db is older than source file /etc/postfix/sasl/passwd
Oct 6 14:01:15 xserve postfix/smtp[96801]: warning: SASL authentication failure: No worthy mechs found
Oct 6 14:01:15 xserve postfix/smtp[96801]: 4D3FB12A80D: to=, relay=mysmtp.emailserver.com[xx.xx.xx.xxx]:25, delay=412144, delays=412144/0.04/0.14/0, dsn=4.7.0, status=deferred (SASL authentication failed; cannot authenticate to server mysmtp.emailserver.com[xx.xx.xx.xxx]: no mechanism available)

The 2nd log entry confuses me, in that it says the passwd.db file is older than the source file.

This is a 10.5.5 server, I have been having the issue with 10.5 in general at other clients at well. When I first set it up it worked fine for about an hour, and then stopped. If I go into serveradmin mail settings and put the authentication back in then it doesn’t even ask me to save the changes, as if I put in something it already new. But, once I quit server admin and go back in it is lost again.

Anyone have any clues, or have at least done this ‘trick’ before to get around the lack of being able to put in authentication credentials in apps like server monitor and xsan admin for notification emails?

Thanks to all for any help you can provide.

– Jason

[Author]

Posts