SysAdmin’s Diary

Objective:

• To change user's password on SquirrelMail, based on /etc/passwd file
• To help those who are facing "ERROR:Connection refused (111)" problem.

Related Information:

• OS: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (ES)
• SquirrelMail: squirrelmail-1.4.8-4.0.1.el4 (official package from Red Hat)

How-To:

• Download change_pass plugin. If you're a Debianista, consider to use APT.
• Extract the tarball into SquirrelMail's plugin directory.
  [root@kuli plugins]# tar xzvf /tmp/change_pass-2.7a-1.4.x.tar.gz

• Download poppassd and compile the source code.
• Put it into /usr/sbin/
[root@kuli Temporary]# gcc poppassd.c -o poppassd -lcrypt
[root@kuli Temporary]# cp poppassd /usr/sbin

• Create poppassd service under xinetd. Restart xinetd service.
  PLAIN TEXT
  CODE:

  1. [root@kuli xinetd.d]# cat /etc/xinetd.d/poppassd
  2. # default: off
  3. # description: The POPPASSD service allows remote users to change their
  4. #              password remotely via Eudora or NUPOP using a network
  5. #              protocol on port 106.
  6. #
  7. service poppassd
  8. {
  9. disable = no
  10. socket_type             = stream
  11. wait                    = no
  12. user                    = root
  13. server                  = /usr/sbin/poppassd
  14. log_on_success          += USERID
  15. log_on_failure          += USERID
  16. }

• Test the poppassd service. Below is several examples,
  PLAIN TEXT
  CODE:

  1. [root@kuli ~]# telnet localhost 106
  2. Trying 127.0.0.1...
  3. Connected to localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1).
  4. Escape character is '^]'.
  5. 200 kuli.magnifix.com.my poppassd v1.6a hello, who are you?
  6.  
  7. 500 Username required.
  8. Connection closed by foreign host.
  9. [root@kuli ~]# nmap localhost
  10.  
  11. Starting nmap 3.70 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2007-09-05 12:10 MYT
  12. Interesting ports on localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1):
  13. (The 1651 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
  14. PORT    STATE SERVICE
  15. 25/tcp  open  smtp
  16. 80/tcp  open  http
  17. 106/tcp open  pop3pw
  18. 110/tcp open  pop3
  19. 139/tcp open  netbios-ssn
  20. 143/tcp open  imap
  21. 443/tcp open  https
  22. 445/tcp open  microsoft-ds
  23. 993/tcp open  imaps
  24.  
  25. Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.246 seconds
  26. [root@kuli ~]# netstat -tupan | grep 106
  27. tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:106                 0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      15558/xinetd       
  28. tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:106               127.0.0.1:43277             TIME_WAIT   -                   
  29. tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:106               127.0.0.1:43279             TIME_WAIT   -                   
  30. tcp        7      0 127.0.0.1:106               127.0.0.1:43228             CLOSE_WAIT  15362/passwd       
  31. tcp        7      0 127.0.0.1:106               127.0.0.1:43230             CLOSE_WAIT  15363/poppassd     
  32. tcp        7      0 127.0.0.1:106               127.0.0.1:43247             CLOSE_WAIT  15420/passwd       
  33. tcp        7      0 127.0.0.1:106               127.0.0.1:43249             CLOSE_WAIT  15422/passwd       
  34. tcp        7      0 127.0.0.1:106               127.0.0.1:43251             CLOSE_WAIT  15423/poppassd

• Activate the plugin.
  PLAIN TEXT
  CODE:

  1. SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php (1.4.0)
  2. ---------------------------------------------------------
  3. Plugins
  4.   Installed Plugins
  5.     1. delete_move_next
  6.     2. squirrelspell
  7.     3. newmail
  8.     4. abook_take
  9.     5. change_pass
  10.  
  11.   Available Plugins:
  12.     6. filters
  13.     7. translate
  14.     8. message_details
  15.     9. calendar
  16.     10. sent_subfolders
  17.     11. bug_report
  18.     12. mail_fetch
  19.     13. administrator
  20.     14. spamcop
  21.     15. fortune
  22.     16. info
  23.     17. listcommands
  24.  
  25. R   Return to Main Menu
  26. C   Turn color off
  27. S   Save data
  28. Q   Quit
  29.  
  30. Command>

• Test it on SquirrelMail. Done!