[wplug] IMAP revisited... to send mail?

[Jonathan S. Billings]

On Nov 20, 2004, at 3:08 AM, Brandon Kuczenski wrote:

> ... Maybe I'm just missing something incredibly obvious, but how does 
> one
> configure an IMAP server for *sending* mail?  None of the docs seem to
> talk about this.  It seems to me that the IMAP server wouldn't have
> anything to do with *sending* mail, anyway -- but now that I have the
> *checking* mail part working just fine, I'm realizing that the other 
> half
> of the equation isn't there.

For the most part, an IMAP server is simply a place to read your mail.  
You need to set up an SMTP server to send mail, which would be handled 
by the MTA.  It's possible to set up Cyrus IMAPd to send mail, but 
that's complex and really an exception to the rule.

> Is this an issue that I have to solve by configuring the MTA? (which is
> postfix, in this case)

If you've already got mail arriving to go into the IMAP server, then 
you're nearly done, because you've already set up your MTA to act as an 
SMTP server.

> Or what?  Is that what this mysterious "SASL" is
> about?  And how is that different from "SSL"?

SASL is the Simple Authentication and Security Layer.  It is used 
mainly to provide a mechanism for authenticating services.  SSL is the 
Secure Sockets Layer, for the most part it is simply used to encrypt 
traffic and not authenticate services.

Jonathan S. Billings <billings at negate.org>