sasl-xoauth2

Disclaimer

This is not an officially supported Google product.

Background

sasl-xoauth2 is a SASL plugin that enables client-side use of OAuth 2.0. Among other things it enables the use of Gmail or Outlook/Office 365 SMTP relays from Postfix.

Building from Source

Fetch the sources, then:

$ mkdir build && cd build && cmake ..
# To install with a system-packaged postfix, under /usr, use:
# cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_INSTALL_SYSCONFDIR=/etc
$ make
$ sudo make install
# Need msal for sasl-xoauth2-tool:
$ sudo pip3 install msal

Pre-Built Packages for Ubuntu

Add the sasl-xoauth2 PPA:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sasl-xoauth2/stable
$ sudo apt-get update

Install the plugin:

$ sudo apt-get install sasl-xoauth2

Pre-Built Packages for RHEL/EPEL/Fedora

The package is now available in latest Fedora and EPEL8/9. You can see how to enable epel here:

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/epel/

After that just install the plugin as any other package:

$ sudo dnf install sasl-xoauth2

(Thank you @augustus-p for confirming that this works!)

For older Fedora versions, you can use the sasl-xoauth2 Copr repository:

$ sudo dnf copr enable jjelen/sasl-xoauth2

A Note on SELinux

If SELinux is enabled, you may find that authentication is failing. This is likely because the sasl-xoauth2 plugin, running within the Postfix smtp process, is unable to read, write, or create a new token file. If in doubt, check your SELinux audit logs.

Configuration

Configure Mail Agent

This plugin has only been tested with Postfix. First, configure Postfix to use SASL, and specifically the XOAUTH2 method. In /etc/postfix/main.cf:

smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options =
smtp_sasl_mechanism_filter = xoauth2

Alternatively, you could specify multiple mechanisms, i.e.

smtp_sasl_mechanism_filter = xoauth2,login

The above used to cause problems, because both "xoauth2" and the "login" plug-in (as is used for many older, not-yet-OAuth2 providers) had the same "SSF" setting of "0". This made SASL's automatic detection of which plug-in to use non-deterministic. Now, with the higher SSF of "60" for "xoauth2", providers offering OAUTH2 will be handled via the xoauth2 plug-in.

You can check the effective value by calling pluginviewer -c (on Debian/Ubuntu it’s installed as /usr/sbin/saslpluginviewer in the sasl2-bin package); look for the "SSF" value:

Plugin "sasl-xoauth2" [loaded],         API version: 4
        SASL mechanism: XOAUTH2, best SSF: 60
        security flags: NO_ANONYMOUS|PASS_CREDENTIALS
        features: WANT_CLIENT_FIRST|PROXY_AUTHENTICATION
Plugin "login" [loaded],        API version: 4
        SASL mechanism: LOGIN, best SSF: 0
        security flags: NO_ANONYMOUS|PASS_CREDENTIALS
        features: SERVER_FIRST

See https://www.cyrusimap.org/sasl/sasl/authentication_mechanisms.html#authentication-mechanisms for details on the fields.

While you're at it, enable TLS:

smtp_tls_security_level = encrypt
smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache

And then set the outbound relay to Gmail's SMTP server:

relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587

(For Outlook, use [smtp.office365.com]:587 instead.)

Next, add client account details to the SASL password database in /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd:

[smtp.gmail.com]:587 [email protected]:/etc/tokens/[email protected]

(For Outlook, replace [smtp.gmail.com]:587 with [smtp.office365.com]:587.)

The path specified above tells sasl-xoauth2 where to find tokens for the account "[email protected]" (but see A Note on chroot below).

Finally, regenerate the SASL password database:

$ sudo postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

A Note on chroot

Check if chroot is enabled:

$ grep -E '^(smtp|.*chroot)' /etc/postfix/master.cf
# service type  private unpriv  chroot  wakeup  maxproc command + args
smtp      inet  n       -       y       -       -       smtpd
smtp      unix  -       -       y       -       -       smtp

In this example master.cf, chroot is in fact enabled for the Postfix smtp process. As a result, the token path specified above will be interpreted at runtime relative to the Postfix root (/var/spool/postfix, usually).

This means that even though the path in /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd is (and should be) /etc/tokens/[email protected], at runtime Postfix will attempt to read from /var/spool/postfix/etc/tokens/[email protected].

SSL/TLS Certificates

If you see an error message similar to the following, you may need to copy over root CA certificates for the TLS handshake to work within sasl-xoauth2:

TokenStore::Refresh: http error: error setting certificate verify locations: ...

To copy certificates manually, assuming the Postfix root is /var/spool/postfix:

$ sudo mkdir -p /var/spool/postfix/etc/ssl/certs
$ sudo cp /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt /var/spool/postfix/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

The Debian and Ubuntu packages install a script that is automatically run by update-ca-certificates to ensure the certificates are copied whenever the system certificates are updated: /etc/ca-certificates/update.d/postfix-sasl-xoauth2-update-ca-certs. It is also run when the package is installed.

sasl-xoauth2 also provides two configuration variables, ca_bundle_file and ca_certs_dir, that may be used to manually configure where the SSL/TLS libraries will look for a CA certificate bundle (for ca_bundle_file) or a set of CA certificates (for ca_certs_dir). Specify one or the other, but not both.

A Note on postmulti

@jamenlang has provided a very helpful tutorial on setting up postmulti with sasl-xoauth2.

Gmail Configuration

From a new account, Google requires several steps to enable access. Once you are logged into your Gmail account in the browser, all these steps happen at the Google Cloud Platform console.

Basic Account Setup

• Select an existing project, or add a Project if you don't have one yet (it can be any name)

• Set up "OAuth Consent Screen" for the project

  • If this is an "External" app, make sure the "Publishing status" of the app is set to "In production" (as opposed to "Testing"), otherwise the token will be revoked after 7 days.
    • You can ignore any requests to "verify" your app. The warnings shown in the console are misleading. You don't actually need to go through verification.

Client Credentials

From the Google Cloud Platform console,

• Credentials: Create Credentials: OAuth client ID

  • Application type: Desktop app

  • Choose a memorable name

Store the client ID and secret in /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf:

{
  "client_id": "client ID goes here",
  "client_secret": "client secret goes here"
}

We'll also need these credentials in the next step.

Initial Access Token

The sasl-xoauth2 package includes a script that can assist in the generation of Gmail OAuth tokens. Run the script as follows:

$ sasl-xoauth2-tool get-token gmail \
    PATH_TO_TOKENS_FILE \
    --client-id=CLIENT_ID_FROM_SASL_XOAUTH2_CONF \
    --client-secret=CLIENT_SECRET_FROM_SASL_XOAUTH2_CONF \
    --scope="https://mail.google.com/"

Please open this URL in a browser ON THIS HOST:

https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?client_id=&scope=&response_type=code&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2F127.0.0.1%3A12345%2Foauth2_result

(This script must run on the same host that is opening the URL -- it's not possible to copy the URL and paste it into a browser on another computer. This is because recent changes to the OAuth2 authorization flow require that the browser pass the resulting authorization code directly to the requesting application. If the Postfix installation is running on a headless host, simply run the script on a host with a usable browser then copy the resulting token file over to the headless host.)

Opening the URL and authorizing the application should result in a new token in PATH_TO_TOKENS_FILE, which should be the file specified in /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd. In our example that file will be either /etc/tokens/[email protected] or /var/spool/postfix/etc/tokens/[email protected] (see A Note on chroot):

{
  "access_token" : "access token goes here",
  "expiry" : "0",
  "refresh_token" : "refresh token goes here"
}

In my configuration, chroot is enabled and so even though /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd specifies /etc/tokens/[email protected], my token file is /var/spool/postfix/etc/tokens/[email protected].

It may be necessary to adjust permissions on the token file so that Postfix (or, more accurately, sasl-xoauth2 running as the Postfix user) can update it:

$ sudo chown -R postfix:postfix /etc/tokens

or:

$ sudo chown -R postfix:postfix /var/spool/postfix/etc/tokens

Skip to restart Postfix below.

Outlook/Office 365 Configuration (Device Flow)

As of sasl-xoauth2-0.23, this is the preferred method to authenticate with Outlook/Office, but the fallback legacy client approach does still work (... for now).

Client Credentials

Follow Microsoft's instructions to register an application, with some notes:

• Use any name you like (it doesn't have to be "sasl-xoauth2").
• Do not add any redirect URIs or set up any platform configurations.
• You must toggle "Allow public client flows" to "yes".

Then, add API permissions for SMTP.Send:

1. From the app registration "API permissions" page, click "add a permission".
2. Click "Microsoft Graph".
3. Enter "SMTP.Send" in the search box.
4. Expand the SMTP permission, then check the SMTP.Send checkbox.

Store the "application (client) ID" (which you'll find in the "Overview" page for the application you registered with Azure) in /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf. Leave client_secret blank. Additionally, explicitly set the token endpoint (sasl-xoauth2 points to Gmail's token endpoint by default):

{
  "client_id": "client ID goes here",
  "client_secret": "",
  "token_endpoint": "https://login.microsoftonline.com/consumers/oauth2/v2.0/token"
}

We'll also need these credentials in the next step.

A Note on Token Endpoints

The endpoint above (https://login.microsoftonline.com/consumers/oauth2/v2.0/token) is suitable for use with consumer Outlook accounts. For other types of accounts it may be necessary to replace consumers with common, organizations, or a specific tenant ID. See Microsoft's OAuth protocol documentation for more on this.

Initial Access Token

The sasl-xoauth2 package includes a script that can assist in the generation of Microsoft OAuth tokens. Run the script as follows:

$ sasl-xoauth2-tool get-token outlook \
    PATH_TO_TOKENS_FILE \
    --client-id=CLIENT_ID_FROM_SASL_XOAUTH2_CONF \
    --use-device-flow
To sign in, use a web browser to open the page https://www.microsoft.com/link and enter the code REDACTED to authenticate.

If using a tenant other than consumers, pass --tenant=common, --tenant=organizations, or --tenant=TENANT_ID. The client ID will be the same one written to /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf. And PATH_TO_TOKENS_FILE will be the file specified in /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd. In our example that file will be either /etc/tokens/[email protected] or /var/spool/postfix/etc/tokens/[email protected] (see A Note on chroot).

Visit the link in a browser, enter the code, then accept the various prompts. After authorizing the application, the tool will write a token to the path specified.

To sign in, use a web browser to open the page https://www.microsoft.com/link and enter the code REDACTED to authenticate.
Acquired token.

It may be necessary to adjust permissions on the resulting token file so that Postfix (or, more accurately, sasl-xoauth2 running as the Postfix user) can update it:

$ sudo chown -R postfix:postfix /etc/tokens

or:

$ sudo chown -R postfix:postfix /var/spool/postfix/etc/tokens

Outlook/Office 365 Configuration (Legacy Client) (Deprecated)

Client Credentials

Follow Microsoft's instructions to register an application. Use any name you like (it doesn't have to be "sasl-xoauth2"). Under "Platform configurations", add a native-client redirect URI for mobile/desktop applications: https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/nativeclient. Then, add API permissions for SMTP.Send: from the app registration "API permissions" page, click "add a permission", then "Microsoft Graph", and from there enter "SMTP.Send" in the search box. Expand the SMTP permission, then check the SMTP.Send checkbox.

Store the "application (client) ID" (which you'll find in the "Overview" page for the application you registered with Azure) in /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf. Leave client_secret blank (but see A Note on Client Secrets below for non-personal-Outlook-account situations). Additionally, explicitly set the token endpoint (sasl-xoauth2 points to Gmail's token endpoint by default):

{
  "client_id": "client ID goes here",
  "client_secret": "",
  "token_endpoint": "https://login.microsoftonline.com/consumers/oauth2/v2.0/token"
}

We'll also need these credentials in the next step.

A Note on Token Endpoints

The endpoint above (https://login.microsoftonline.com/consumers/oauth2/v2.0/token) is suitable for use with consumer Outlook accounts. For other types of accounts it may be necessary to replace consumers with common, organizations, or a specific tenant ID. See Microsoft's OAuth protocol documentation for more on this.

Initial Access Token

The sasl-xoauth2 package includes a script that can assist in the generation of Microsoft OAuth tokens. Run the script as follows:

$ sasl-xoauth2-tool get-token outlook \
    PATH_TO_TOKENS_FILE \
    --client-id=CLIENT_ID_FROM_SASL_XOAUTH2_CONF

Please visit the following link in a web browser, then paste the resulting URL:

https://login.microsoftonline.com/consumers/oauth2/v2.0/authorize?client_id=REDACTED&response_type=code&redirect_uri=https%3A//login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/nativeclient&response_mode=query&scope=openid%20offline_access%20https%3A//outlook.office.com/SMTP.Send

Resulting URL: 

If using a tenant other than consumers, pass --tenant=common, --tenant=organizations, or --tenant=TENANT_ID (and see A Note on Client Secrets, which may be relevant). The client ID will be the same one written to /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf. And PATH_TO_TOKENS_FILE will be the file specified in /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd. In our example that file will be either /etc/tokens/[email protected] or /var/spool/postfix/etc/tokens/[email protected] (see A Note on chroot).

Visit the link in a browser and accept the various prompts. After authorizing the application you will be redirected to a blank page. This is expected--copy the URL of the blank page back into the terminal where you're running the script, and the script will extract the URL components needed to obtain initial tokens:

Resulting URL: https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/nativeclient?code=REDACTED
Tokens written to PATH_TO_TOKENS_FILE.

It may be necessary to adjust permissions on the resulting token file so that Postfix (or, more accurately, sasl-xoauth2 running as the Postfix user) can update it:

$ sudo chown -R postfix:postfix /etc/tokens

or:

$ sudo chown -R postfix:postfix /var/spool/postfix/etc/tokens

A Note on Client Secrets

Some users have reported needing to specify client secrets when requesting access and refresh tokens for Outlook. This would seem to be the case when registering an application that has access to "accounts in any organizational directory" (i.e., non-personal Microsoft accounts). If this applies to you, please specify the client secret in /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf and on the command line when using sasl-xoauth2-tool.

Further Reading

The following references were useful while developing, testing, and debugging Outlook support:

• Authenticate an IMAP, POP or SMTP connection using OAuth
• Microsoft identity platform and OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow
• Microsoft identity platform and OAuth 2.0 Resource Owner Password Credentials

Proxy Support

In case the system is behind a corporate web proxy you can configure a proxy that is used by the curl library when refreshing the token.

{
  "client_id": "client ID goes here",
  "client_secret": "client secret goes here",
  "token_endpoint": "token endpoint goes here",
  "proxy" : "http://proxy:8080"
}

For supported proxy schemes please refer to the curl library documentation

Testing Your Configuration

sasl-xoauth2 provides a tool, sasl-xoauth2-tool, that allows the semi-interative testing of configuration and token files (which is a lot more useful than parsing log files when trying to figure out why Postfix isn't delivering mail correctly).

First, test your configuration file:

$ sasl-xoauth2-tool test-config --config-file ./bad-config.conf
sasl-xoauth2: Missing required value: client_secret
Config check failed.
$ sasl-xoauth2-tool test-config --config-file ./good-config.conf
Config check passed.
$ sasl-xoauth2-tool test-config --config-file /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf
Config check passed.

(Specifying the path is only required if your configuration file isn't located in the system-default path.)

Next, test your token file:

$ sasl-xoauth2-tool test-token-refresh ./bad-token.json
Config check passed.
2022-09-10 09:18:59: TokenStore::Read: file=./bad-token.json
2022-09-10 09:18:59: TokenStore::Read: refresh=REDACTED
2022-09-10 09:18:59: TokenStore::Refresh: attempt 1
2022-09-10 09:18:59: TokenStore::Refresh: token_endpoint: https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token
2022-09-10 09:18:59: TokenStore::Refresh: request: client_id=REDACTED&client_secret=REDACTED&grant_type=refresh_token&refresh_token=REDACTED
2022-09-10 09:19:00: TokenStore::Refresh: code=400, response={
  "error": "invalid_grant",
  "error_description": "Bad Request"
}
2022-09-10 09:19:00: TokenStore::Refresh: request failed
Token refresh failed.
$ sasl-xoauth2-tool test-token-refresh ./good-token.json
Config check passed.
Token refresh succeeded.

(Again, you'll have to specify your configuration file with --config-file <config file> if it isn't located at the system-default path.)

Restart Postfix

$ service postfix restart

Using Multiple Mail Providers or Users Simultaneously

One instance of sasl-xoauth2 may provide tokens for different mail providers and/or users. Each provider will require its own client ID, client secret, and token endpoint. Each user may require a username to be specified, if the username automatically obtained from postfix is not correct. In this case, each of these may be set in the token file rather than in /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf. Set them when setting the initial access token:

{
  "access_token" : "access token goes here",
  "client_id": "client ID goes here",
  "client_secret": "client secret goes here, if required",
  "token_endpoint": "token endpoint goes here, for non-Gmail",
  "expiry" : "0",
  "refresh_token" : "refresh token goes here",
  "user" : "username goes here"
}

sasl-xoauth2-tool has an argument --overwrite-existing-token to preserve the content of these additional fields when manually updating an expired or invalidated token.

Debugging

Increasing Verbosity

By default, sasl-xoauth2 will write to syslog if authentication fails. To disable this, set log_to_syslog_on_failure to no in /etc/sasl-xoauth2.conf:

{
  "client_id": "client ID goes here",
  "client_secret": "client secret goes here",
  "log_to_syslog_on_failure": "no"
}

Conversely, to get more verbose logging when authentication fails, set log_full_trace_on_failure to yes.

To get even more logging, set always_log_to_syslog to yes to have sasl-xoauth2 immediately and unconditionally write logs to syslog .

Postfix Logging

It can be useful (thanks @kpedro88!) to increase Postfix's logging level, following the instructions here.

SASL Mechanisms

If Postfix complains about not finding a SASL mechanism (along the lines of warning: SASL authentication failure: No worthy mechs found), it's possible that either make install or the pre-built package put libsasl-xoauth2.so in the wrong directory.

Building

sasl-xoauth2 uses git-buildpackage for Debian and Ubuntu builds. The following is mostly intended as a cheat-sheet.

Creating a New Distribution Branch for an Existing Release

$ TARGET_DIST=dist-name # debian, ubuntu, etc.
$ TARGET_DIST_RELEASE=release-name # focal, jammy, etc.
$ RELEASE=0.NN
$ RELEASE_VERSION="$RELEASE-1ubuntu1~${TARGET_DIST_RELEASE}1~ppa1"
$ git clone --no-checkout -o upstream [email protected]:tarickb/sasl-xoauth2.git
$ cd sasl-xoauth2
$ git checkout -b "$TARGET_DIST/$TARGET_DIST_RELEASE" "release-$RELEASE"
$ git checkout "upstream/packaging/$TARGET_DIST" debian/
$ dch --create --package "sasl-xoauth2" --newversion "$RELEASE_VERSION" \
    --distribution "$TARGET_DIST_RELEASE"
$ git add debian/
$ git commit -m \
    "Initial packaging commit for $TARGET_DIST/$TARGET_DIST_RELEASE." debian/

Updating an Existing Release Branch for a New Release

$ TARGET_DIST=dist-name # debian, ubuntu, etc.
$ TARGET_DIST_RELEASE=release-name # focal, jammy, etc.
$ RELEASE=0.NN
$ RELEASE_VERSION="$RELEASE-1ubuntu1~${TARGET_DIST_RELEASE}1~ppa1"
$ git fetch upstream
$ git checkout "$TARGET_DIST/$TARGET_DIST_RELEASE"
$ git merge "release-$RELEASE"
$ gbp dch --release --auto --debian-branch="$TARGET_DIST/$TARGET_DIST_RELEASE" \
    -N "$RELEASE_VERSION" --distribution="$TARGET_DIST_RELEASE"
$ git commit -m "Release $RELEASE_VERSION" debian/changelog

Building and Uploading a Release

$ TARGET_DIST=dist-name # debian, ubuntu, etc.
$ TARGET_DIST_RELEASE=release-name # focal, jammy, etc.
$ gbp buildpackage --git-debian-branch="$TARGET_DIST/$TARGET_DIST_RELEASE" \
    -S --git-tag
$ dput ppa:sasl-xoauth2/stable build/*.changes