Install and configure Exim4

Documentation Server Guide
1

Note:
This documentation has moved to a new home! Please update your bookmarks to the new URL for the up-to-date version of this page.

1 Like
2

@powersj
Trying to get Exim4 to send email to my ISP mail server (smtp.frontiernet.net) after those dipshits @ Yahoo (who frontier outsourced their email accounts to) changed something requiring SSL/TLS, I carefully followed your instructions from “SMTP Authentication” to the end. When I executed the step “sudo update-exim4.conf” I received the following error:

2022-07-14 15:27:26 Exim configuration error:
there are two authenticators called “cram_md5”
Invalid new configfile /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp, not installing
/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated.tmp to /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated

Examination of the config.autogenerated.tmp file shows that everything from “cram_md5:” to the end of the file (sections cram_md5:, plain:, and login:) have been duplicated exactly.

Any ideas?

uname -a
Linux linux1 4.15.0-189-generic #200-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 22 19:53:37 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

exim4 --version
Exim version 4.90_1 #4 built 30-Apr-2021 14:15:04
Copyright (c) University of Cambridge, 1995 - 2017
(c) The Exim Maintainers and contributors in ACKNOWLEDGMENTS file, 2007 - 2017
Berkeley DB: Berkeley DB 5.3.28: (September 9, 2013)
Support for: crypteq iconv() IPv6 GnuTLS move_frozen_messages DKIM DNSSEC Event OCSP PRDR SOCKS TCP_Fast_Open
Lookups (built-in): lsearch wildlsearch nwildlsearch iplsearch cdb dbm dbmjz dbmnz dnsdb dsearch nis nis0 passwd
Authenticators: cram_md5 plaintext
Routers: accept dnslookup ipliteral manualroute queryprogram redirect
Transports: appendfile/maildir/mailstore autoreply lmtp pipe smtp
Fixed never_users: 0
Configure owner: 0:0
Size of off_t: 8
Configuration file is /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated

3

Exim4, I have been using this for many years running under Ubuntu version:
Linux version 5.15.0-79-generic (buildd@lcy02-amd64-011) (gcc (Ubuntu 11.3.0-1ubuntu1~22.04.1) 11.3.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Ubuntu) 2.38) #86-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jul 10 16:07:21 UTC 2023
I now want to use it as mt smart host on my mobile so I tried to install authorize TLS version.
I followed Install and configure Exim4 to the letter but I still get “Couldn’t verify account - Server does not support authentication” on my Samsung android phone.
can anyone point me diagnostic information.

4

It might be helpful to add Dovecot SASL to the Exim SMTP authentication documentation. It would be especially useful for people with Dovecot installed already, negating the need for saslauthd to be installed and configured.

The default Exim configuration already has commented lines for it:

# dovecot_plain_server:
#   driver = dovecot
#   public_name = PLAIN
#   server_socket = /var/spool/exim4/dovecot.auth-client
#   server_set_id = $auth1
#   .ifndef AUTH_SERVER_ALLOW_NOTLS_PASSWORDS
#   server_advertise_condition = ${if eq{$tls_in_cipher}{}{}{*}}
#   .endif