[ SDF Public Access UNIX System .. Est. 1987 ]

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POP3, IMAP and SMTP AUTH for Popular Mail Clients

Introduction

SDF uses SMTP Authentication to allow remote network clients such as desktop, tablet and phone mail applications to use its SMTP server for the purpose of sending (relaying) e-mail messages. SDF users with the VPM, VHOST and MetaARPA memberships have access to the SMTP server.

Quick Starter Notes

Receiving Email

SDF's POP3 server address is mx.sdf.org port 110
SDF's IMAP server address is mx.sdf.org port 143 (993 for TLS/SSL)

Sending Email

SDF's SMTP server is mx.sdf.org
SDF's SMTP server listens on port 25 as well as ports 23, 53, 587 and 8080. Some ISPs throttle or block activity on port 25.
Set your SMTP AUTH secret with mkvpm set secret at the shell. The auth secret is not your SDF password; plese do not set secret to your SDF password.
Your SMTP AUTH username is your domain name@sdf.org (ex. alan8r.sdf.org@sdf.org)
SMTP via STARTTLS is recommended. Some email clients may refer to STARTTLS as TLS. TLS/SSL is not STARTTLS.

Please note: the SMTP AUTH secret is set on the command line via mkvpm. The command history of the shell may keep the secret in the history file.

The Mail Client Configurations

Emacs (SMTPmail, Rmail, Gnus)

K-9 Mail for Android

Outlook Express under Windows

Mail.App under MacOS X

Mozilla Thunderbird under Windows

Heirloom Mailx under Linux/BSD

Postfix MTA on NetBSD 6.x

iPhone Mail Application

Please note that BlueMail on Android does not support the correct password encryption algorithm, and therefore you cannot set up your SDF email account under BlueMail. The devs have been notified of this bug; if they do fix it, the instructions here will be updated.

Emacs (SMTPmail, Rmail, Gnus)

The GNU Emacs editor includes several subsystems for handling email, including:

SMTPmail for sending email,
Rmail for reading email,
Gnus, a news reader that can also be used for reading email.

(Normally, you would choose to read email in Emacs with either Rmail or Gnus and would only configure the email reader of your choice.)

Configuration for these subsystems varies depending on whether you are running Emacs locally on the SDF system that hosts your email spool or remotely on another system like your home PC.

In either case, configuration mainly takes the form of Emacs Lisp expressions added to the startup file (usually ‘~/.emacs’) on the system where you will run Emacs. Optionally, the file ‘~/.gnus’ can be used for Gnus configuration to reduce clutter in your main startup file.

Common Configuration

Set the following variables regardless of which email subsystems you will you and whether you will be accessing email locally or remotely.

(setq
   user-full-name "<your full name>"
   user-mail-address "<your email address>")

Local Configuration

WARNING: If you use either Rmail or Gnus to read email locally on your SDF email host system, all messages in your email spool at the time you start Rmail or Gnus will be removed from the spool and transfered to the email reader's inbox. Make a backup of your email spool (‘/sdf/mail/<username>’) beforehand unless you are committed to handling your email with Rmail or Gnus.

;; For SMTPmail ...

(setq send-mail-function 'sendmail-send-it)

;; For Rmail, no configuration is necessary for local access.

;; For Gnus ...

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nnml "")))

Remote Configuration

;; For SMTPmail ...

(setq
   send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
   smtpmail-default-smtp-server "mx.sdf.org"
   smtpmail-local-domain "sdf.org"
   smtpmail-smtp-service 587
   smtpmail-stream-type 'starttls)
(load-library "smtpmail")

;; For Rmail ...

(setq
   rmail-primary-inbox-list '("imaps://<username>:<password>@mx.sdf.org")
   rmail-preserve-inbox t)     ; (If you want to keep your mail in your SDF IMAP inbox.)

;; For Gnus ...

(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
  '(nnimap "mx.sdf.org"
    (nnimap-address "mx.sdf.org")
    (nnimap-server-port 143)
    (nnimap-stream starttls)))

Additionally, for remote access place the following lines in the file ‘~/.authinfo’ (or ‘~/.authinfo.gpg’ for encryption):

machine mx.sdf.org port 587 login <mkvpm domain>@sdf.org password <mkvpm secret>
machine mx.sdf.org port 143 login <username> password <password>

Email Commands

After you have completed the configuration, start or restart Emacs and use the following commands to access your email:

SMTPmail	C-x m
Rmail	M-x rmail
Gnus	M-x gnus

K-9 Mail for Android

To retrieve mail via IMAP

imap server	`mx.sdf.org`
Security	`SSL/TLS`
Port	`993`
Username	sdf user name (eg, alan8r)
Authentication	`Normal password`
Password	password associated with sdf user above

To send mail, set up SMTP with

SMTP server	`mx.sdf.org`
Security	`STARTTLS`
Port	`587`
Username	Your domain name*
Authentication	`Encrypted password`
Password	string set via `mkvpm set YOUR_PASSWORD_HERE`

* If you are a Meta-ARPA member and not a VHOST member, this is whatever web domain you've chosen (frequently username.sdf.org@sdf.org). If you're a VHOST member, it's your VHOST domain.

Outlook Express under Windows

Open Outlook Express

Tool -> Accounts

Click Add -> Mail to start the Account Wizard

Display name: Your Name

E-Mail address: Your email address (ex. bill@microsoft.com)

Select POP3

Incoming Mail server: mx.sdf.org

Outgoing mail (SMTP) server: mx.sdf.org

Account name: Your email address (full email address for VPM and VHOST members, just username for MetaARPA)

The wizard will now save, double click on the new configuration under the Mail tab to continue

Select the Advanced tab

Outgoing mail (SMTP) change from 25 to 587 (not completely necessary, but recommended)

Select the Servers tab

Check the box 'My server requires authentication, then click Settings

Select Log on using:

Account name: YOUR DOMAIN NAME (ex. alan8r.sdf.org, traumhost.com)

Password: What you set with the mkvpm set secret command at the shell

Click 'Apply'

Mail.App under Macos X

Open Mail.app

In the Mail menu, select Preferences

Click the Accounts tab

Select the account on the left you wish to edit

On the Account Information tab, find "Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP):"

Click the arrows for the dropdown menu, and select Edit Server List...

Make sure the server you wish to use is selected in the list, and click on the Advanced tab

In the Authentication dropdown, select "MD5 Challenge-Response"

Type in your SDF username in User Name field

Type in your password in Password field

Click ok, and close the Preferences window.

Mozilla Thunderbird

This instructions should work for any recent Thunderbird (version 68 and up)

Tools -> Account Settings -> Add Mail Account

Your name: Your Name (ex. Bill Gates)

Email address: your email address (ex. amrowsell@sdf.org)

Password: your normal shell login password

Click Continue and then click Manual Config

Incoming IMAP

Incoming Server Hostname: mx.sdf.org

Security: STARTTLS

Port: 143

Authentication: Normal password

Outgoing SMTP (only works if you are MetaARPA or pay for dialup)

Outgoing Server Hostname: mx.sdf.org

Port 587

Security: STARTTLS

Authentication: Encrypted password

Username: Your domain name, @sdf.org ... for example, amrowsell.sdf.org@sdf.org

Click Re-Test and Create Account

You will be prompted for your SMTP password the first time you go to send mail. This is the password generated by mkvpm on the command line.

Heirloom Mailx under Linux/BSD

Add the following to ~homeuser/.nailrc to set the default SMTP relay:


# Remote SDF SMTP relaying (use SDF 'mkvpm' tool to set auth user:pw):
set ssl-verify="ignore"
set smtp-use-starttls
set smtp=mx.sdf.org:587
set smtp-auth=cram-md5
set smtp-auth-user="sdf_user.sdf.org@sdf.org"
set smtp-auth-password="my_password"

The SDF CA is self-signed but can still be used if desired. Retrieve and store
somewhere (ie. under ~/.openssl/) as pem file, then edit ~homeuser/.nailrc like so:


set ssl-ca-file="/home/home_user/.openssl/sdf_self-signed_ca.pem"
set ssl-verify="warn"  # will issue "self-signed CA" warning
...

Account-specific smtp settings are possible; see the Heirloom Mailx documentation.

Postfix MTA using libsaslc(3) on NetBSD 6.x:

first, verify that postfix(1) knows about libsaslc :


% sudo postconf -A
saslc

create (as superuser) the following postfix config files:

/etc/postfix/main.cf


  myhostname = mypc.my.box
  mydomain = my.box
  mynetworks_style = host
  alias_maps = hash:/etc/mail/aliases
  # SMTP client settings: 
  relayhost = [mx.sdf.org]:submission
  smtp_generic_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/generic
  smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
  smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
  smtp_sasl_security_options = noplaintext, noanonymous
  smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = noanonymous
  ## explicitly allow/prohibit certain SSL protocols:
  #smtp_tls_mandatory_protocols = !SSLv2, !SSLv3, TLSv1
  ## use of "may" option allows fallback to cleartext
  #smtp_tls_security_level = may
  smtp_tls_security_level = encrypt
  smtp_sasl_type = saslc

/etc/postfix/generic


  # applies to msgs to be delivered off-site
  me@mypc.my.box  sdf_login@sdf.org

/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
(for security set ownership to root:wheel, permissions to 600)


  [mx.sdf.org]:submission  sdf_login.sdf.org:smtp_passwd

hash /etc/postfix/{generic,sasl_passwd}, then check and reload configs:


% cd /etc/postfix/
% sudo postmap generic sasl_passwd  # creates generic.db & sasl_passwd.db
% sudo postfix check                # no output unless errors
% sudo /etc/rc.d/postfix reload

test to verify everything is working correctly:


% mailx sdf_login@sdf.org
  Subject: test
  123
  .
  EOT

% sudo tail -n10 /var/log/maillog | grep smtp        
  Apr 27 08:53:42 mypc postfix/smtp[13387]: A61631F1FDC: to=<sdf_login@sdf.org>, \  
  relay=mx.sdf.org[192.94.73.24]:587, delay=3.9, delays=0.02/0/3.7/0.11, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent \
  (250 2.0.0 s3RFrfvZ010436 Message accepted for delivery)

You should now be set up to use SDF's SMTP server. Enjoy!

iPhone Mail Application

This tutorial was written on iOS version 13.3. The exact prompts on other versions may vary.

In Settings, scroll to Passwords & Accounts. Tap Add Account
On the next screen, select Other, then Add Mail Account
Fill in the details (examples below), then tap Next
1. Name Joe Bleaux
2. Email jbleaux@sdf.org
3. Password your SDF password
4. Description SDF Mail for Joe Bleaux (or whatever floats your boat)
You will need to fill in pretty much all the details by hand.
1. For Incoming Mail Server section:
  1. Hostname mx.sdf.org
  2. Username jbleaux
  3. Password your SDF password
2. For Outgoing Mail Server (MetaARPA Users Only!)
  1. Hostname mx.sdf.org
  2. Username jbleaux.sdf.org@sdf.orgThis will be the URL you have set up if you have a custom one. If not, then model it after this example.
  3. Password your SDF password
Click Save on the next screen.
Select the account from the Passwords & Accounts screen. On the next screen, Tap Account (which will show your username (jbleaux@sdf.org)
Scroll down and click Advanced.
Under Incoming Settings, tap to enable Use SSL, and for Server Port, put 993.
Tap SMTP (Under Outgoing Mail Server), to view outgoing mail options, then tap the Primary Server (should be mx.sdf.org. Change Authentication to MD5 Challenge-Response. Click Done at the top.
Tap <Account at the top to go back, then tap Done.

You should be sending and receiving your SDF mail on your iPhone!

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