Talk:Mac OS X Mail 10.4

Mail Servers
Mail servers are set to mail.dreamhost.com to allow the SSL certificate to appear valid. The actions taken in step 1 essentially "aliases" mail.yourdomain.com to mail.dreamhost.com. This is why the changes by Brian were incorrect and removed.

etc/hosts editing
I've removed the alternative method for modifying /etc/hosts, it is entirely unnecessary to have two different ways to complete exactly the same task in this documentation. The original method from the original document avoids problems of describing how to use different text editors, that's why it was done that way. Sambauers
 * We have multiple methods for many things on here; is the second method somehow unsuitable? I don't see how it requires a specific editor, except perhaps in terms of the keyboard shortcuts. --Emufarmers 01:44, 5 Jan 2007 (PST)
 * I believe that the existence of two methods to complete this step is not useful to any person trying to complete the task. In fact, it is more likely to confuse than help. I'm just trying to keep this set of instructions as straight-forward as possible as it is aimed at novice users. Splitting the path at the first step does not make for a good start. If people think that the way Step 1 was originally authored was bad, then I'm open to that discussion here. Sambauers 00:05, 7 Jan 2007 (PST)

Removing note about skipping step one
This note was completely incorrect, skipping step one would break all the subsequent steps which refer to SSL ports and connecting specifically to mail.dreamhost.com

Perhaps there should be a how-to for non-SSL connections - but introducing inline "hacks" to this how-to is not a good way to go about it. -- Sambauers 20:36, 3 Feb 2007 (PST)

Removing from email-configuration category
The idea has been to have one page Mac OS X Mail listed in any categories, then that page can serve as an index for all Mac versions, of which there is about to be one more with Mac OS X 10.5

self-signed SSL errors
Did anybody actually get this working on 10.4? I'm on 10.4.9 (PPC) and I'm still getting errors. Yes, I'm using mail.dreamhost.com in my mail settings instead of mail.mysite.com. And Yes, I added mail.dreamhost.com to my /etc/hosts, and that's working fine. The certificate *.mail.dreamhost.com shows up in my keychain, but I'm still getting errors from Mail.app. --Yosef 19:35, 5 May 2007 (PDT)
 * I'm having the same problem. I'm using 10.4.9 and I continue to get this error: "The server error encountered was: Mail was unable to verify the identity of this server, which has a certificate issued to "*.mail.dreamhost.com". The error was: There is no root certificate for this server." --Markm 12:48, 13 May 2007 (PDT)
 * Still works for me on 10.4.9 - make sure you add the certificate to the "X509Anchors" keychain, not "login" Sambauers 19:25, 16 May 2007 (PDT)
 * For what it's worth, I'm having the same problem, also on 10.4.9. Is the cert I'm getting for *.mail.dreamhost.com somehow different than the one for just mail.dreamhost.com? That's the only difference I see from the instructions. I'm adding it to the X509Anchors keychain. The error message is the same as Markm's above. -- Anorwood 21:53, 16 May 2007 (PDT)
 * Yes, mine is also in the X509Anchors keychain, and I still get the error Markm referenced --Yosef 07:26, 26 May 2007 (PDT)
 * The *.mail.dreamhost.com doesn't sound right to me. Perhaps they have newer "wildcard" certificates on some servers. I'll add an attempted workaround to the instructions. Sambauers 06:14, 29 May 2007 (PDT)
 * Check the new troubleshooting area of the page for an attempted fix to this problem. Sambauers 06:30, 29 May 2007 (PDT)
 * Hmm, so close, but it still doesn't work for me. I updated my hosts file (which seems to be working, the name resolves) and all of my settings in Mail to point to 'wildcard.mail.dreamhost.com'. I get the same error as before when first launching Mail, "there is no root certificate for this server", except that now the end of the message warns me that the computer I'm connecting to might be pretending to be 'wildcard.mail.dreamhost.com'. I sent a note to Dreamhost support last week, and got a couple of responses back from Dan noting that they did change to a wildcard certificate, that there might be something more involved going on on their end of things, and they're looking into it. Anyhow, thanks for the help! --Anorwood 14:24, 29 May 2007 (PDT)

Added new instructions for new wildcard certificate
Basically you need to download the NDN root certificate and then connect to *.mail.dreamhost.com instead of mail.dreamhost.com. Leave feedback here. Sambauers 18:47, 21 June 2007 (PDT)


 * This worked for me! Awesome! Instead of adding the IP address for 'mail.example.com' to /etc/hosts, I actually used the IP address for my load-balanced mail server (which for me is a1.balanced.looney.mail.dreamhost.com). It seems quite a bit faster than when I was checking mail through the shortened address. Any reason why this is a bad idea? --Anorwood 08:49, 22 June 2007 (PDT)


 * I'm still stuck. I tried what Anorwood suggested but I'm still getting errors using Mail.app. If I use the IP address for my load-balanced server in /etc/hosts, I can't connect at all (nor can I ping this server). If I change the server I'm connecting to in Mail.app but keep the alias in /etc/hosts pointed to 'mail.mydomain.com' I get the "no root certificate" error. If I connect to '*.mail.dreamhost.com' and point /etc/hosts to my mail server, I also get the "no root certificate" error. It's very possible I don't completely understand the instructions posted. Can someone post verbose instructions of what changes I should make the my mail accounts and/or /etc/hosts? My mail server is postal. Thanks! --Mgessford 07:03, 24 June 2007 (PDT)
 * Nevermind, I found the instructions for installing the NDN Certificate. That's the step I was missing. --Mgessford 07:20, 24 June 2007 (PDT)

Removing references to tcsh shell
If a person knows how to set tcsh as their shell, then we can pretty safely assume that they would know how to manually edit the HOSTS file. bash is the default shell for Mac OS X 10.4, so the additional instructions are a real border case. The terminal based stuff in this how to should be kept to a minimum. Sambauers 12:11, 20 July 2007 (PDT)

New method, no more /etc/hosts hacking
I noticed that foo.mail.dreamhost.com resolves to the same host as a1.balanced.foo.mail.dreamhost.com, plus it works with Mac OS's treatment of the wildcard in the certificate. I've changed the instructions to use this host name. This gets the balanced server, SSL, no warnings, and it works correctly with the iPhone. &mdash;Mattsachs 09:56, 7 October 2007 (PDT)


 * That feature in the panel didn't exist when I rewrote the instructions to use the wildcard certificate. Thanks for updating (quite thoroughly too - even the images!). This is much simpler now. Sambauers 15:15, 22 October 2007 (PDT)