Postfix (MySQL): Encrypted passwords does not work

Question

Update: I've tried to insert the password in plain text in the DB. That works, and I'm now able to send mail as well. I tried setting up the whole thing (using the guide mentioned) again, but with the same result. Any ideas?

Original question: Just set up a Postfix / Courier bundle following this tutorial. I've used this tutorial with luck before, but this time I am having problems sending email. My main problem is that I don't really know where to look for clues on what's causing this error. Mail.log only gives me the following lines,

Apr 21 17:38:50 gordon postfix/smtpd[5059]: connect from xxx.xx-xxx-xx.my.isp.carrier[xx.xxx.xx.xxx]
Apr 21 17:38:51 gordon imapd: LOGIN, [email protected], ip=[::ffff:xx.xxx.xx.xxx], port=[57701], protocol=IMAP
Apr 21 17:38:51 gordon postfix/smtpd[5059]: warning: xxx.xx-xxx-xx.my.isp.carrier[xx.xxx.xx.xxx]: SASL LOGIN authentication failed: authentication failure

When searching it appears "authentication failure" is a very generic error message and may be caused by a number of different errors - which makes it all the more diffifcult for a newbie like myself to locate the problem.

System

• Ubuntu 12.04
• Postfix
• Courier
• SASL with SSL and TLS
• SpamAssassin
• ClamAV
• Amavis

Answer 1

In the tutorial linked above, the author using CRYPT hash algorithm. This fact can be looked in SQL query:

INSERT INTO `user` (`email`, `password`, `name`) VALUES ("[email protected]", ENCRYPT("adminpassword"), "Administrator");

Saslauthd using pam-mysql to authenticate user, so we need to configure pam-mysql to use same hash algorithm. The configuration file is defined in /etc/pam.d/smtp

auth    required   pam_mysql.so user=mail passwd=mailpassword host=127.0.0.1 db=mail table=user usercolumn=email passwdcolumn=password crypt=1
account sufficient pam_mysql.so user=mail passwd=mailpassword host=127.0.0.1 db=mail table=user usercolumn=email passwdcolumn=password crypt=1

The important parameter is crypt because it specifies the method to encrypt the user's password

• 0 (or "plain") = No encryption. Passwords stored in plaintext. HIGHLY DISCOURAGED.
• 1 (or "Y") = Use crypt(3) function
• 2 (or "mysql") = Use MySQL PASSWORD() function. It is possible that the encryption function used by pam-mysql is different from that of the MySQL server, as pam-mysql uses the function defined in MySQL's C-client API instead of using PASSWORD() SQL function in the query.
• 3 (or "md5") = Use MySQL MD5() function

So, if you need use encrypted password for authentication then set crypt parameter so it match with your original query.

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Another important parameter is verbose. You can set it as 1 so you can know what the pam-mysql was doing.

Further info: PAM-MySQL Package README readme.php