${auth_authen}

RFC2554 AUTH credentials V8.10 and later

A server offers authentication by presenting the AUTH keyword to the connecting site, following that with the types of mechanisms supported:

250-host.domain Hello some.domain, pleased to meet you
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-PIPELINING
250-8BITMIME
250-SIZE
250-DSN
250-ETRN
250-AUTH DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5                  ← note this line
250-DELIVERBY
250 HELP

If the connecting site wishes to authenticate itself, it replies with an AUTH command indicating the type of mechanism preferred:

AUTH X5                                                           ← client sends
504 Unrecognized authentication type.                             ← server replies
AUTH CRAM-MD5                                                     ← client sends
334  PENCeUxFREJoU0NnbmhNWitOMjNGNndAZWx3b29kLmlubm9zb2Z0LmNvbT4= ← server replies
ZnJlZCA5ZTk1YWVlMDljNDBhZjJiODRhMGMyYjNiYmFlNzg2ZQ=  =                 ← client
sends
235 Authentication successful.                                    ← server replies

Here, the client first asks for X5 authentication, which the server rejects. The client next asks for CRAM-MD5. The server says it can support that by replying with a 334 followed by a challenge string. The client replies to the challenge with an appropriate reply string, and the authentication is successful (as shown in the last line).

If authentication is successful, this ${auth_authen} macro is assigned the authentication credentials that were approved as its value. The form of the credentials depends on the encryption used. It could be a simple username (such as bob) or a username at a realm (such as bob@some.domain).

The client can then offer a different user, rather ...

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