Smpt stopped working--SASL error

Virtualmin
1
SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version Debian 13
Webmin version 2.610
Virtualmin version 7.0.gpl-4
Webserver version Apache 4
Related packages saslauthd, dovecot

In the log setting “SASL disconnect from unknown” when trying to send an email.

In the file /etc/sasl2/smtpd.conf I found

mech_list: PLAIN LOGIN

I don’t know what the mechanisms should be but the following, found on a Plesk forum, fixed it:
mech_list: DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 PLAIN LOGIN
I do not know whether both DIGEST-MD5 and CRAM-MD5 are needed?

Arguably not a Virtualmin issue: I don’t know how that setting got changed.

2

Maybe this might help, maybe not…

3

a mixture of out of date and really new systems :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
are we ok on Debian 13 yet :confused:

4

I am updating with apt-get. This is the version provided by the official repo https://download.webmin.com/download/newkey/repository/dists/stable

How is that confuising? How else are Debian users meant to upgrade Virtualmin?

Incidentally the Virtualmin dashboards reports my OS as Debian as 12. But that is wrong.

5

all my Debian OS systems currently report as “Debian 12” and do not seem to want to upgrade to “Debian 13” through apt-get - I thought Debian 13 still had issues with fail2ban and possibly others

6

PLAIN , LOGIN methods should work fine, with virtualmin defaults.

you’re using an outdated virtualmin version, you should fix your virtualmin debian repos..
look around this forum for instructions, or virtualmin-install project.

7

Thanks for the tip! I got in a muddle as a result of moving to Debian 13 without checking that the Webmin repos were ready.

I initially had huge problems with Dovecot, Postfix, and saslauthd not starting.

Suddently today password-autenticated SMTP connections on 456 and 587 were rejected. Changing the auth methds appeared to fix it but maybe it was restarting saslauthd which fixed it.

8

Not only are they not needed, they can’t work with system users.

9

LOGIN is not needed either.