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I recently got a VPS and want to start using it to host my websites instead of the Shared Hosting packages that i'm using.

Question 1: Is it possible to setup Autodiscovery for the IMAP configurations?

Most of my users are Microsoft Office Outlook users and Autodiscovery always gave me issues with the shared hosting, it seemed to miss the port numbers and encryption methods and the ISP always just said "We are working on it".

Question 2: If Autodiscovery is possible, how do I set it up?

I have my SPF and DKIM Records in place (These settings is what they are currently set to by the hosting provider on an existing shared hosting package)

This is the current records on the testing domain that I am moving to the VPS, excluding the Nameservers and IPs.

DNS Records:

  • autoconfig.example.com - CNAME - 7200 - example.com
  • autodiscover.example.com - CNAME - 7200 - example.com
  • _imaps._tcp.example.com - SRV - 7200 - 1 993 example.com
  • _autodiscover._tcp.example.com - SRV - 7200 - 0 443 example.com
  • _submission._tcp.example.com - SRV - 7200 - 1 25 example.com

By observing these records it does seem like it is supposed to be auto-discovering, but it is not.

IMAP Settings are:

  • IMAP Port 993, SSL
  • SMTP Port 465, SSL
  • Using username and password as required authentication
  • Server does require Secure Password Authentication (SPA)

My VPS is currently running CentOS with CentOS Web Panel.

Patrick Mevzek
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Jean-Louis Du Plessis
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  • Microsoft offers an online auto discovery analyzed. – John Greene Dec 25 '19 at 23:33
  • "Is it possible to setup Autodiscovery for the IMAP configurations?" Yes, but since there is not one true standard, each MUA will do it differently. So which MUAs did you test it with? For example, Thunderbird does not use those SRV records and needs a completely different way (see my other comment below the accepted answer) – Patrick Mevzek Jan 14 '20 at 23:51

1 Answers1

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You have to create two virtual hosts on the mail server. So you need Apache or Nginx. Then you need to create two directories for those virtual hosts in /var/www/html

Example :

/var/www/html/autodiscovery.example.com/

/var/www/html/autoconfig.example.com/

In both directories you need to create a mail directory.

Then you need to put there an XML file. You can search the XML file pattern in Google. This XML file contains information about ports, imap, smtp settings. Software like Thunderbird or Outlook can scan XML files to get the configuration from it. If you need more details let me know. I think my answer will let you to understand what to do. Anyway I have my own mail server where I have this configured, so I can share it if you need.

Patrick Mevzek
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Sysadmin
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  • Thank you. Any additional information would also be appreciated. In the meantime i'll check if I can find and understand those XML file patterns that you have mentioned. – Jean-Louis Du Plessis Dec 27 '19 at 22:49
  • Ok, update. I created a subdomain for mail.domain.com, it also made it easier to allocate a SSL certificate to it, I have placed the XML file I created. XML file example [XML File - Pastebin](https://pastebin.com/WcTwgyw5) Although the tests from Microsoft's side shows green marks (except for one) and states that the test passed, Outlook still gives me an error, but will check it out again and let you know. Am pondering to remove that last action redirect URL lines. – Jean-Louis Du Plessis Dec 29 '19 at 00:05
  • Ok, It worked, more-or-less. Here is the steps I took: Created a subdomain, within the subdomain is my XML file which is in the pastebin but without the redirection action and within the root domain I have the XML file but with the redirection action. I have tested the settings and it got everything right but complained about the SSL certificate, but that is a well-known CWP issue, but that, is a problem for another thread. Can send and receive and settings is 100%. This link: https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com Helped a lot too, but seemed the dude deleted it. Thanks a lot – Jean-Louis Du Plessis Dec 30 '19 at 19:02
  • Mozilla (Thunderbird) explanations are at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Thunderbird/Autoconfiguration – Patrick Mevzek Jan 14 '20 at 23:50