Arch Linux

fiji885

Member

Registered: 2018-08-21

Posts: 2

[Neomutt] Microsoft email settings not working w/ university internet

Hi. New to the forums here and a little new to Linux as well. Over the pass 3 or so months, I've been using Neomutt to manage my email. It has worked fine so far until I had to move back into the university dorms and it seems to be the case with the university internet only. Neomutt receives emails using the university internet but doesn't send them. After a few tinkering and browsing Google, I've managed to get my Gmail working by changing:

set smtp_url = "smtp://username@smtp.gmail.com:587/"

to

set smtp_url = "smtps://username@smtp.gmail.com:465/"

Gmail was an easy fix, it would seem however, I can't seem to get my live account to send mail using the university internet. Here are my settings for my Microsoft live account in Neomutt:

unmailboxes *
set imap_user = "username@live.com"
set imap_pass = "password"

set smtp_url = "smtp://username@live.com@smtp-mail.outlook.com:587/"
set smtp_pass = "password"
set ssl_starttls = yes
set ssl_force_tls = yes
set from = "username@live.com"
set realname = "First Last"
set folder = "imaps://imap-mail.outlook.com:993"
set spoolfile = "+INBOX"
set record = ""
set postponed = "+[Live]/Drafts"

After a while of not being able to connect to the SMTP server, Neomutt gives me this error:

SMTP session failed: read error

boxofrox

Member

Registered: 2012-07-09

Posts: 10

Re: [Neomutt] Microsoft email settings not working w/ university internet

Not sure I can be much help here, but here are a couple checks I would try myself.

The smtp_url seems odd with two @ in it.  You say it was working before you moved into the dorm, but what can I say, I'm still skeptical.  The trailing slash might also be unnecessary or problematic.

First, try a simple username:

set smtp_url = "smtp://username@smtp-mail.outlook.com:587"

If you really need the @live.com in the username, try a url encoding:

set smtp_url = "smtp://username%40live.com@smtp-mail.outlook.com:587"

And if that still doesn't work, you might use dig to identify that you can resolve smtp-mail.outlook.com into an IP address while on the university network.

dig smtp-mail.outlook.com

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,190

Re: [Neomutt] Microsoft email settings not working w/ university internet

You had to change the port used for gmail. Maybe your university blocks port 587 for some reason?
You can test it with openssl. Try to connect to to the smtp server with openssl on port 587 or 25. (Ctrl-D to close the connection or Ctrl-C to abort) If it works you should get output that describes a succesful SSL handshake and ends with "250 SMTPUTF8"

openssl s_client -connect smtp-mail.outlook.com:587 -starttls smtp
openssl s_client -connect smtp-mail.outlook.com:25 -starttls smtp

As an alternative you could configure DavMail to access your outlook.com account with the EWS api and use it as a bridge to mutt.

Last edited by progandy (2018-08-22 12:54:42)

---

| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |