Novell Identity Manager and Java Mail Authentication Exception

I recently came across an interesting situation where I was getting a Java Mail Authentication Exception when attempting to send an email message using the Novell email templates.

I did the usual checks to make sure that I had permission to send mail and I checked the Template permission to double check that I had specified the host IP address and from address in the Default Notification Collection. All the fields were filled out so there should not have been a problem yet I kept getting the “Java Authentication” exception.

To analyze the issue in more depth I setup a tcpdump (tcpdump -vv -x -X -s 0 -i eth0 'port 25') so I could view the traffic generated by the send mail command. I tried to send another email transaction and it wasn’t generating any outgoing traffic.

I then uninstalled and reinstalled the Novell IDM and I was still receiving the Java mail Authentication Exception. After writing several java mail debug utilities, I finally came to the conclusion there must to something incorrect about the way the Novell JVM was seated.

So after forcing the remove of the Novell JVM then reinstalling the Novell IDM system everything starting working! No more java Authentication Exceptions!!.

So here is how to fix the issues.

Step 1. Find the Novell JVM package name. You can get this bye querying for the package.

· rpm -qa | grep -i jvm

you should get something like

(novell-NOVLjvml-3.6.10-20090519)

Step 2. Remove the Novell jvm package

· rpm -e novell-NOVLjvml-3.6.10-20090519

Step 3. Remove the Novell IDM package using the uninstaller.

· Change to the directory (/root/idm/Uninstall_Identity_Manager)

· Run the uninstaller (./Uninstall_Identity_Manager)

· Reinstall the Novell IDM System.