alert_actions.conf for Exchange, no encrypted authentication

[ericp56]

Hello,

I have been provided an Exchange account, which I configured in alert_actions.conf (via web console).
No ssl, no tls.

I can send an email with sendemail.

However, when I a scheduled alert tries to send an email, I find this in the python log file:
"ERROR No suitable authentication method found. while sending mail to:..."

Can Splunk alerts authenticate an SMTP account without encryption?

Seeing that sendemail worked, I tried removing the username and password from alert_actions but still, the same error message...

Also, I did perform a packet capture. There is communication between Exchange and Splunk. There is the initial SMTP message, Splunk says ehlo, SMPT server returns capabilities, and then Splunk reports the error.

Update. More details.

Packet capture for no encryption, with Username and Password:

<220 xchange2010.xxx.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service ready at Fri, 18 Apr 2014 11:45:23 -0500
>ehlo xxx.xxx.com
<250-xchange2010.xxx.com Hello [192.168.1.48]
<250-SIZE 30720000
<250-PIPELINING
<250-DSN
<250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
<250-X-ANONYMOUSTLS
<250-AUTH
<250-X-EXPS GSSAPI NTLM
<250-8BITMIME
<250-BINARYMIME
<250-CHUNKING
<250-XEXCH50
<250-XRDST
<250 XSHADOW

And the "No suitable authentication" error is logged at this point.

If I provide no username and password:

<220 xchange2010.xxx.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service ready at Fri, 18 Apr 2014 11:44:23 -0500
>ehlo xxx.xxx.com
<250-xchange2010.xxx.com Hello [192.168.1.48]
<250-SIZE 30720000
<250-PIPELINING
<250-DSN
<250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
<250-X-ANONYMOUSTLS
<250-AUTH
<250-X-EXPS GSSAPI NTLM
<250-8BITMIME
<250-BINARYMIME
<250-CHUNKING
<250-XEXCH50
<250-XRDST
<250 XSHADOW
>mail FROM:<xxx@aaa.com> size=749
<250 2.1.0 Sender OK
>rcpt TO:<ericp@yyy.com>
<250 2.1.5 Recipient OK
data
<354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>

and the message is completed.

[ericp56 · Accepted solution]

It seems that, indeed, for "250-AUTH" with no login options, you should not set the username and password. Otherwise, Splunk figures it MUST use the credentials, but CAN NOT use the current SMTP server, because there are no AUTH options.

[ericp56]

no, but I just provided feedback for the documentation.

[w531t4]

did you file a feature request for this?