Submission service to send formal emails

[Ariel Anthieni]

I am needing to see how I can send email from my osgeo inbox because I am having formal conversations with people from UN, World Bank and IDB for possible alliances. Best Regards

[strk]

You need a MSA service (Submission service), see ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_submission_agent

I would postpone this to after #2823 is done, but in any case I suggest we do setup Dovecot to deal with authenticating the users. Postfix is able to use Dovecot authentication DB to provide MSA service.

[strk]

I've found a precedent ticket asking for this: #2132

The ticket was referenced by a git commit on the mail server which enabled the submissions service. The commit was by Juergen, which I'm adding in Cc. Chances are we are already all setup for this.

[strk]

I've just restored MSA service, it somehow broke at some point and nobody complained but now it is working again.

Ariel: the setting for your MUA should be:

• Outgoing server: smtps://lists.osgeo.org
• Username: aanthieni
• Password: your OSGeo UserID credentials

I *think* we need to explicitly enable your username to be able to use the service. Juergen could know more about how to do that as he was the one setting up the SASL configuration in 2016

[Ariel Anthieni]

Hi STRK, with this SMTP server it doesn't work for me, it gives me a DNS error, with lists.osgeo.org it tells me to check the port, it could be a url or port error. Also the options with TSL or SSL, I don't know what the server configuration is. Could you specify these data for me?

Thank you

[jsanz]

Hi Ariel,

Using the terminology from the Thunderbird email client, these settings are working for me (tested on various devices and clients):

• Server Name: lists.osgeo.org
• Port: 465
• User Name: jsanz (my OSGeo id)
• Authentication method: Normal password
• Connection security: SSL/TLS

BTW, I promised publicly I'll write a wiki page to document this better 😅

[Ariel Anthieni]

I tried with this data but it tells me that the user is not correct "An authentication error occurred. Check the username and password." I don't know if I need to enable something else for my user, it's aanthieni

Thank you

[jsanz]

Ariel, did you manage to configure your client?

I've created a wiki page for the MSA service description.

​https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:Message_Submission_Agent

[jsanz]

@strk a follow up

I just met with Ariel and we checked together than everything on his end seems to be OK. He showed me how the GMail alternate SMTP account fails to authenticate his user.

Just to be sure, I set also up on my Google Mail settings for an alternate account with the OSGeo SMTP settings successfully.

So it seems the issue has to be with Ariel's LDAP user settings.

Can you please take a look? Thanks!

[strk]

Can Ariel log into other OSGeo services just fine ? I think it's easier if you debug Ariel's problem next time you meet, given you could make your GMail setting work...

[strk]

I'll actually close this ticket as completed and please file separate tickets for problems that might arise. The fact that it works for jsanz confirms it works

[jsanz]

Can Ariel log into other OSGeo services just fine ? I think it's easier if you debug Ariel's problem next time you meet, given you could make your GMail setting work...

He can. I actually met with him, and we checked together his settings were OK.

@strk, do you mind adding to the ​wiki page some guidelines for admins? Ariel can't send emails (I think) because there is some missing configuration, but I don't know what to check or how 😞

[strk]

Jurgen: I believe you made the MSA configuration long ago, can you help here ? Is MSA only enabled for OSGeo users in a given group ? Shell group maybe ?

[Ariel Anthieni]

Good morning, did you have any update on this, does my user have to be added to any group that the Jsanz user has that permission? Thank you very much as I need to continue with the dialogues with possible MoUs and other actions. ?

[cvvergara]

Maybe this ​procedure from your kan.ar service provider is needed

[Ariel Anthieni]

Dear @strk @jurgen @jsanz, perform the tests from the client that I use @jsanz, simulating the same situation, he can and I can't, it is clearly an authentication problem, since the error is:

Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: <aanthieni@…>: Relay access denied. Please check the message recipient "aanthieni@…" and try again.

He considered that it would be adding me to one of the groups that the LDAP MUA has configured or if it is with everyone who has access to the Server it will be on that side, it all depends on how the MuA is configured.

I was looking at the LDAP groups with this tutorial ​https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:LDAP, but I don't have access to that or I'm not doing it right.

My email provider @cvvergara does not intervene with this test.

Thank you very much in advance and I am waiting if you can help me.

[jsanz]

Thanks Ariel for the pointer to the LDAP documentation.

I added Ariel to the shell group as per the ​wiki documentation and we confirmed Ariel can finally send emails with his OSGeo alias 🎉

I will update the ​wiki page with this missing info.

[strk]

Thank you jsanz !