Connect to my 10.6 mail server from an android tablet

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Connect to my 10.6 mail server from an android tablet

I have an Samsumg Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (Android 4.0.1) tablet and I need to set up my email for my business on it. I have it set up fine on my iPhone and iPad and desktop (Mac and Windows both), but when I try to set it up on my Android tablet it either says the username or password is incorrect (I am positive it is not) or it cannot contact the server. I've about pulled my hair out trying to figure out which setting is messing things up, but on the tablet the choices are few, so I'm about at a loss. The only thing I can think of is that there is no option on the Android to use MD5 challenge/response for authentication. If that were it, why would it say "Incorrect username or password"?

I know this isn't an Android forum, but it IS an Apple email server. Any peculiarities I might be overlooking might be the problem, so that is why I ask here.

Posted on Dec 7, 2012 5:40 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 7, 2012 8:36 AM in response to Rob Roye

There is nothing unique, special or weird going on here, there is only the usual slog of figuring out what an individual mail client requires and offers, and what the mail server provides and can offer, and aligning the two within your local expectations and needs.

OS X Server uses standard Unix mail server tools. Postfix and Dovecot. And again, there is nothing special, weird, or unique here.

Check your mail server logs for details around the connection failure. Assuming you see the connection error arriving, of course, and that's a clue in itself. You'll want and need to look at both the IMAP or POP logs, and the SMTP logs.

The usual triggers are the firewall settings, the particular required ports for your mail server configuration, whether SSL is used or not, and possibly the encoding of the credentials.

Check with the Android client settings, with the Android documentation, and possibly then with an Android forum around what your particular client requires, when connecting with Postfix and Dovecot tools. (These are standard Unix tools, so I'd expect there are Android-specific discussions around the network. Here's one discussion, though the trigger for what that Android user encountered is probably a firewall block against outbound TCP port 25 connections from random boxes — boxes that are not known mail servers — that is increasingly implemented around the 'net.)

And FWIW, OS X Server 10.6 has a layer of management tools atop Postfix with Server Admin key among these, and I'd manage via those first and not via the direct postfix commands. But the lower-level postfix commands do work on OS X Server, if you're looking around. In other words, read-only, don't use the lower-level Postfix tools to make changes, unless Server Admin et al don't allow you access to the setting.

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