If you get "no authenticators available" with mutt

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

If you are trying to use mutt with the default Fedora-26 template and
can't figure out why authenticated smtp sending is giving you a "No
Authenticators Available" error, you need to install cyrus-sasl-plain.

Drove me half-mad before I figured that out. Hopefully it saves you a
bunch of clicks (and hair).

-K

[awokd]

Did you use https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/mutt/ to set it up? Apart from
yum vs. dnf and what you mentioned, were there any other changes needed
for R4.0?

[Tim W]

thank you that saved me the time of doing a bunch of searching and forum reading.

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

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On Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at 01:33:53PM -0000, 'awokd' via qubes-users wrote:
> On Fri, February 9, 2018 5:32 pm, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> > If you are trying to use mutt with the default Fedora-26 template and
> > can't figure out why authenticated smtp sending is giving you a "No
> > Authenticators Available" error, you need to install cyrus-sasl-plain.
> >
> >
> > Drove me half-mad before I figured that out. Hopefully it saves you a
> > bunch of clicks (and hair).

Thank you, saved some time on this end too...

> Did you use https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/mutt/ to set it up? Apart from
> yum vs. dnf and what you mentioned, were there any other changes needed
> for R4.0?

Just updated to mention the package.

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
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[showpo...@gmail.com]

On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 12:32:21 PM UTC-5, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:

Thanks a lot bro. Save me a bunch!!!

[leoe...@gmail.com]

Thaaaaaank you so much, I have been looking for a answer to this error for a long time, finally I found it. I am on Void Linux and that package doesn't exists, so I've installed the 'cyrus-sasl' package.

[w70...@gmail.com]

Thank you.
It worked.

[rbhl...@gmail.com]

THanks man! saved a lot of time!

[rbhl...@gmail.com]

On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 11:02:21 PM UTC+5:30, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:

Any reason as to why installing this package worked?

[unman]

SASL is a protocol that provides an authentication framework. (Simple
Authentication and Security Layer)
It's commonly used in email protocols, SMTP, IMAP, POP etc.
The cyrus-sasl-plain package provides a library which implements that
protocol.

If you are trying to use authenticated smtp, you must have some way of
providing that authentication - sending your username/password to
the SMTP server. cyrus-sasl gives you a framework that lets you do
it.
Why cyrus? It was developed for cyrus IMAP server
-https://www.cyrusimap.org

Why plain? Because it doesn't provide a secure method of authentication.
It's meant to be used where something else is encrypting the traffic.

Why isn't it included with mutt? My guess is that it's because until
quite recently mutt couldn't send mail. It handed off sending to a MTA,
so didn't need to bother about the mechanism of how mail would be sent.

unman