Unable to get Dovecot 2.4 to allow unencrypted connection

21 Apr 2026

      Hello,
In spite of:
ssl = no
auth_allow_cleartext = yes
..in a telnet session, I get:

OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE IDLE
LITERAL+ STARTTLS LOGINDISABLED AUTH=GSSAPI AUTH=CRAM-MD5] Dovecot
(Debian) ready.
a1 login ln@zample.com <super-secret>
BAD [ALERT] Plaintext authentication not allowed without SSL/TLS, but
your client did it anyway. If anyone was listening, the password was
exposed.
a1 NO [PRIVACYREQUIRED] Plaintext authentication disallowed on
non-secure (SSL/TLS) connections.

I need to see the network traffic to troubleshoot the way Outlook 2019
handles IMAP folders.
Regards,
David Koski
dkoski@sutinen.com