556750 - [Advocacy] smtp.free.fr is only accessible on ISP network

Status: REOPENED

(Webtools :: ISPDB Database Entries, defect)

Description

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

See bug 556267

Comment 1

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Contacted Free. They're working on an authenticated SMTP server, but are not done yet.
There's no plan for SSL servers, but they're testing hardware for it.

I asked to be notified of these changes, but he refused and refered me to proxad.free.services.messagerie . I can't continuously read an ISP support newsgroup, though. _Tsk_, could you watch this, maybe, depending on whether you have technically access to it and time?

Comment 2

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Posted a message on proxad.free.services.messagerie as it's the closest way of contacting technical people that I've found.

Comment 3

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Contacted Free. They're working on an authenticated SMTP server, but are not
> done yet.
> There's no plan for SSL servers, but they're testing hardware for it.
> 
> I asked to be notified of these changes, but he refused and refered me to
> proxad.free.services.messagerie . I can't continuously read an ISP support
> newsgroup, though. _Tsk_, could you watch this, maybe, depending on whether you
> have technically access to it and time?

as said I just posted a thread on the subject there. Let's see what comes out of it. Will try to monitor but I'm not promising it :-)

Comment 4

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Aurélien Beaujean <[e-mail]> wrote on NNTP
proxad.free.annonces and proxad.free.services.messagerie:

Bonjour,

Nous vennons de mettre en place du SMTP authentifié sur smtp.free.fr
(port 587). Pour pouvoir activer cette fonctionnalité, vous pouvez vous
rendre dans la console de gestion de votre boite email @free.fr.

C'est en beta tests dans le sens où 100% des clients mail/mobiles n'ont
pas été testés. Donc vos retours sont les bienvenus à la suite de ce
post dans proxad.free.services.messagerie.

Pour info, les protocols supportés sont: NTLM PLAIN LOGIN DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5

-- Auré

Comment 5

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

he also wrote:

Le jeudi 15 juil. 2010 à 18:12, Alain Guérin écrivait:
> Est-ce qu'il est envisagé de chiffrer la transmission ?
Oui, il est envisagé de proposer petit à petit du POPS/IMAPS/SMTPS.

Comment 6

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Translation:
The server smtp.free.fr now allows SMTP authentication, on port 587.
To activate this functionality, you need to go to the admin console of your account. (meh!)
This is in beta, and not all clients have been 100% tested yet. Please watch for updates.
The following authentication methods are supported: NTLM PLAIN LOGIN DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 (i.e. encrypted passwords are on)

As for transmission encryption, it's envisioned to offer POPS/IMAPS/SMTPS little by little.

Comment 7

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Attachment: upgrade SMTP to port 587, auth, encrypted passwords, v1

Comment 8

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

meh, it still doesn't answer from outside.

Comment 9

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> meh, it still doesn't answer from outside.

mailed Aurélien Beaujean  about that.

Comment 10

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Comment on attachment 469454 [details] [diff] [review]
upgrade SMTP to port 587, auth, encrypted passwords, v1

Got response from free.fr, the blocking was on my side (Orange), not theirs. smtp.free.fr is indeed accessible from outside, tested from the USA and it works.

Comment 11

[Andrei Hajdukewycz [:sancus]]

r73698

Comment 12

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Ben just tested that from the free network and the only combination that worked was to revert back to port 25.

Comment 13

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> Ben just tested...

Ludo, you mean "Ben, I just tested..."?
                   ^^^

I just tested as well. Indeed, the port 587 is open, but login fails now, auth failure.

I had talked with the SMTP and he said he didn't want customers directly connected to their network to use port 587, only those outside, because the password authentication is too expensive CPU-wise.
I replied that this defies the purpose and causes big troubles to customers, and explained him how he can configure Postfix (they use Postfix) to first check the IP address, and only if that doesn't match check the password. So, the CPU-usage argument is solved. He didn't reply to that. I'll check with him again, explaining that having 2 different setups and forcing users to switch between them defies the whole purpose of this exercise.

Comment 14

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Reverted the change, back to port 25 with <restriction>, because port 587 simply doesn't work and there are over thousand users every day fetching this config.
Revision 74312

Will change back to 587 when Free has fixed this.

Comment 15

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

and r74313

Comment 16

[Vincent (caméléon)]

To clarify, from what I understand, Free offer secure SMTP but ONLY if the user check an option in its preferences. So most of them simply don't do that, that is why we cannot activate it by default in the autoconfiguration file.

See official support from Free about secure SMTP: http://www.free.fr/assistance/2407-interet-et-fonctionnement.html

Comment 17

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> To clarify, from what I understand, Free offer secure SMTP but ONLY if the user check an > option in its preferences.

Have you actually tried that? (Don't trust what they *say*, it's often wrong.)

Comment 18

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

I tried, and indeed, smtp.free.fr:587 fails (I didn't enable SMTP auth in their admin pages). This is really really bad.

Comment 19

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

(In fact, it fails with "password wrong", which is highly misleading.)

Comment 20

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

According to https://www.free.fr/assistance/2406.html#step-2407 It should workd with SSL/TLS on 465, config manager test says these settings are fine (in TB)