Unauthenticated SMTP bugs (and workaround) (2231T-ZS)

jstrom

n3wb
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Hi,

did not find any posts related to this so thought I'd just write it down, in case anyone else have similar issues.

I've been trying to get my IPC-HDW2231T-ZS-S2 to send emails WITHOUT authentication to a local server, without any luck.
The Test button just yielded a "Fail" message with no more information. First with the firmware from 2019-11-xxsomething (R10?), but also with the latest 19.R from 2020-06-28.

After some network sniffing, checking mail server logs, and trying out a lot of variations, I have come to the following conclusion:
  • The "Anonymity" checkbox basically does nothing. It will attempt to use the SMTP command "AUTH PLAIN" regardless of setting, and regardless of any AUTH mechanisms the server responds with.
  • If username or password is blank (regardless of Anonymity checkbox), it just says Fail, with no attempt to connect to the server at all.

In my case it was a local postfix SMTP forwarding server that did not use authentication in any way (and of course was not reachable from internet). To get around it I ended up enabling authentication on the server.

@EMPIRETECANDY, perhaps you might want to forward this to Dahua as bug report. If nothing else, this might help someone in the future with the same issue.. :)

Edit: and oh, please ask them to remove the ridiculous and plain stupid "paste" block on all password fields :/ It really discourages the use of complex passwords. And yes, all cameras should be in a isolated private network which cannot be reachable from the internet, or even "untrusted" local machines, but security is made up by several layers.
 
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EMPIRETECANDY

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SvenVD

Getting the hang of it
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FYI, I also have exactly the same problem but with a
DH-IPC-HDW3849H-AS-PV-S3 System VersionV2.840.0000000.18.R, Build Date: 2022-06-29
There doesn't seem to be any newer firmware
 
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