SASL
====

SASL stands for "Simple Authentication and Security Layer". SASL itself is
nothing more than a list of requirements for<authentication mechanisms>
[Authentication.Mechanisms.txt] and protocols to be SASL-compatible as
described in RFC 2222 [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2222.txt]. IMAP, POP3 and
SMTP protocols all have support for SASL.

Many people confuse SASL with one specific SASL implementation: the Cyrus SASL
library. Dovecot has its own SASL implementation which may at some point be
separated from Dovecot itself to "compete" against Cyrus SASL library in server
side. And it already can be:

 * Postfix as of *version 2.3* supports Dovecot's SASL server implementation.
   See http://www.postfix.org/SASL_README.html or <PostfixAndDovecotSASL.txt>
   for details.
 * There's a patch for Exim
   [http://www.exim.org/eximwiki/AuthenticatedSmtpUsingDovecot] as well, which
   has since been added to Exim snapshots.

Hopefully more software will follow. 

(This file was created from the wiki on 2007-04-13 14:32)
