What is Plain authentication?

What is Plain authentication?

Plain-text authentication assumes that the user name and password are submitted to the server in clear text. Since the password is sent in clear text, any intermediate router on the Internet can potentially see it. Therefore, this authentication method is only considered secure when using an encrypted connection.

Do I need Dovecot with postfix?

Postfix handles the sending and receiving of mail. Dovecot is what users, or rather their mail client of choice, connect to when they want to read the mail. Dovecot is the most standard compliant IMAP server and it just works. Postfix will handle all authentication via Dovecot.

Do you need a password to use Dovecot?

Now comes the “trick” to making the combination of password and certificate authentication work. Because Dovecot’s EXTERNAL authentication mechanism attempts to authenticate with the empty string as password, we need to have a password database that permits that.

Do you need to enable plaintext authentication in Dovecot?

It is very easy to enable the plaintext authentication in Dovecot, only if required. We do not recommend using Plaintext authentication because all the data transfer through the server is done without any encryption. So, let’s get started with the actual tutorial.

How to add external Auth mechanism in Dovecot?

In /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-auth.conf add EXTERNAL as an authentication mechanism: # Use the username taken from the client certificate auth_ssl_username_from_cert = yes # Add ‘external’ to auth_mechanisms.

Why do I need an empty string for Dovecot?

Because Dovecot’s EXTERNAL authentication mechanism attempts to authenticate with the empty string as password, we need to have a password database that permits that. At the same time though, we want to prevent regular logins, with password, to succeed when specifying the empty string as password.