File-system encryption with something like encfs would be a great addition.
Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
101–110 of 150 posts
Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#102It remains a constant frustration to me that Postfix, Exim, Cyrus, Dovecot and the like still feel as if they belong very much in the "here be dragons" territories of the Unix world. Configuring these systems is an exercise in constant frustration and bafflement. They're such a pain to use that since becoming the sysadmin in charge of our work email servers, I gave up running personal ones as well and just pay FastMa…
There's probably something wrong with me but I quite enjoy the masochistic rituals of getting postfix/dovecot/opendkim/spamassassin/zarafa humming.
Postfix is actually a beautiful piece of software once you spend some time with it and get to know it. Like most things, once you've done it a few times (and written everything down!) it isn't so bad :)
LDAP on the other hand... that's something that _always_ defeats me.
Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if it can't set the PTR it's self, it could at least detect if your PTR is missing or wrong, and display that information to you with some advice on how to resolve it and how important it is.
Thanks for the idea! I've added a test for PTR: https://github.com/JoshData/mailinabox/commit/ec11241a7a619a...
You might also:
* Test/alert if your PTR mismatches your HELO name
* If your IP is on any of the major RBLs
* Point admins toward AOL/Yahoo/ReturnPath whitelists and feedback loops.
Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#104This is typical, I have just done the whole process myself a few weeks ago from scratch (fresh CentOS install) and now this comes up.
However I do not regret it at all. I had Linux experience and it took me one day and a half work to get it all working very nicely.
I am happy with my config: Postifx, Dovecot, RoundCube, SpamAssassin, ClamAV
Server supports unlimited domains and user accounts - SSL is required for all connections, I only allow IMAP and I have configured it with two valid free StartSSL certificates:
One under mail.domain.com (for email clients)
One under webmail.domain.com (for the webmail)
The thing that scared me the most was outgoing emails being dropped - however to date I have delivered fine to all main email provider - followed a few simple rules:
Ensure you have both SPF and TXT correct DNS records
Ensure you have IPv6 configured properly (Google was rejecting due to this)
Set your reverse DNS
Set your machine hostname etc. in postfixRe: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#105Rather interesting. I still like building the whole thing with postfix + dovecot by hand myself. Perhaps I'm wrong in the head.
One thing to watch out for: Yahoo is a complete bastard to deliver to. One day they'll decide to block you (if they don't immediately) and the only way out is to fill in a web form which either allows you 6 months of delivery if you're lucky or blocks you with no hope of resolution for 6 months.
Total assholes they are.
Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my experience, Gmail will send to spam everything from a small server that has no SPF (even when DKIM is on and OK -- which is strange because it basically has SPF built-in) and when the sender is not in the address book -- this is pretty enough for massive issues.
DKIM has nothing to do with SPF
Well sure, but DKIM can sign the sender so it can do the SPF work connected with an envelope spoofing filter. Still, my idea was that a spammer who can put a valid DKIM signature won't likely have any problems with SPF.
Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#107how does this differ from iRedMail?
Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#108It remains a constant frustration to me that Postfix, Exim, Cyrus, Dovecot and the like still feel as if they belong very much in the "here be dragons" territories of the Unix world. Configuring these systems is an exercise in constant frustration and bafflement. They're such a pain to use that since becoming the sysadmin in charge of our work email servers, I gave up running personal ones as well and just pay FastMa…
It is very much "here be dragons" but a lot of that is because of legacy compatibility issues from when mail was delivered directly to local users. If you don't care about local access (IMAP & POP is good enough, no mutt to the mail spool for you) Dovecot is a huge improvement on everything else. You configure it to listen directly for LMTP and use MySQL for user information and Maildir for data it's almost as easy a…
Re "zero point of failure mail system": I also use Dovecot, and I learnt about DSync recently, although haven't played with it yet. It provides two way synchronisation of mailboxes between two Dovecot servers, so you can store the same mail on two boxes, in completely different locations.
The clever thing is, it can recover from a split brain scenario completely, safely, and without any losses. If your two servers can't see each other for a few hours and you make conflicting changes on both of them, then it apparently is able to recover completely and entirely automatically when the connection comes back up.
http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Tools/Dsync
You could have one remote server in a DC, and the other locally in your office. Point your mail clients at the one in the DC, but then configure your office router to intercept connections to the DC server and re-route them to the local office server. When you're in the office, you hit the local office server. When you're outside of the office, you hit the DC server.
[edit] Any chance your can elaborate on your S3 test setup? I've considered something similar. I would be interested if there was any mail server software that already does this. The alternative would be to use an S3 based filesystem as your store, but this doesn't seem very efficient. You'd definitely want local caching of messages in this setup.
Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#109It remains a constant frustration to me that Postfix, Exim, Cyrus, Dovecot and the like still feel as if they belong very much in the "here be dragons" territories of the Unix world. Configuring these systems is an exercise in constant frustration and bafflement. They're such a pain to use that since becoming the sysadmin in charge of our work email servers, I gave up running personal ones as well and just pay FastMa…
There's probably something wrong with me but I quite enjoy the masochistic rituals of getting postfix/dovecot/opendkim/spamassassin/zarafa humming. Postfix is actually a beautiful piece of software once you spend some time with it and get to know it. Like most things, once you've done it a few times (and written everything down!) it isn't so bad :) LDAP on the other hand... that's something that _always_ defeats me.
>> Postfix is actually a beautiful piece of software
Couldn't agree more.
I've also learned a ton from the source code. If anyone has even a passing interest in security, i'd highly recommend browsing the postfix source code.
Re: Mail-in-a-box: easy to set up modern SMTP/SMTPS server stack
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's talking about something called the PBL (policy blocklist). The idea is it contains IP ranges that aren't "supposed" to send mail, like consumer ADSL ranges. People who want to send mail from home directly are supposed to do so via their ISPs SMTP servers, which may be configured to relay but only from IPs the ISP controls.
There is no reason you can't set up your SMTP server to use your ISP, or other SMTP service like gmail, as a smart relay. Personally I have a VPS that I relay mail through.
One downside with ISP outbound relaying is SPF; if you want to use it you need to figure out how mail exits the ISP and keep the SPF records up to date; and even if you do, suddenly all the other customers of that ISP can fake mail from you while passing SPF.
Another downside is you lose logs of and insight in the mailq and the recipient smtp server responses.