Mail server ¶

This role installs a complete mail server for incoming and outgoing mail. Incoming mail is either delivered to IMAP mailboxes via dovecot, or forwarded to an application via alias/transport configs. Outgoing mail is accepted on the submission port or via a sendmail executable.

An optional web mail UI is included. This role also includes state-of-the-art spam control.

User accounts can be created/modified dynamically. There is, however, no default mechanism for user management besides text files.

Contents

Mail server

Which components are included?¶

The main ingredients of this role are Postfix for mail delivery, Dovecot as IMAP access server, and Roundcube as web frontend. We rely mainly on rspamd for spam protection. To get outgoing mails delivered, they are signed with OpenDKIM and a basic SPF and SRS setup is included. Additionally, a Thunderbird-compatible client autoconfiguration XML file is provided which helps many clients to configure themselves properly.

How do I perform a basic setup?¶

First, you need public IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for your mail server’s frontend interface. Contact Support if you don’t have. Then, pick a mail host name which will be advertised as MX name on your mail domain. This host name (called mailHost from here on) must resolve to the FE addresses with both forward and reverse lookups.

Warning

Incorrect DNS setup is the most frequent source of delivery problems. Let our Support check your setup if in doubt.

Create a configuration file /etc/local/mail/config.json which contains all the basic pieces. In the following example, the server’s mailHost is mail.test.fcio.net and it serves as MX for the mail domains test.fcio.net and test2.fcio.net:

{
  "mailHost": "mail.test.fcio.net",
  "webmailHost": "webmail.test.fcio.net",
  "domains": [
    "test.fcio.net",
    "test2.fcio.net"
  ]
}

Run sudo fc-manage -b to have everything configured on the system.

Afterwards, a generated file /etc/local/mail/dns.zone contains all necessary DNS settings for your mail server. Insert the records found in this file into the appropriate DNS zones and don’t forget to check reverses.

How do I create users?¶

Edit /etc/local/mail/users.json to add user accounts. Example:

{
  "user1@test.fcio.net": {
    "aliases": ["first.last@test.fcio.net"],
    "hashedPassword": "$5$NTTg86onSoM1MK$Xir/pTc9G/TLM1LResKlyAip1oO9XcsmUKXaf7ALIS2",
    "quota": "4G",
    "sieveScript": null
  }
}

This file contains of key/value pairs where the key is the main email address and the value is a attribute set of configuration options. Domain parts of all e-mail addresses must be listed in the domains option in /etc/local/mail/config.json.

The password must be hashed with mkpasswd -m sha-256 {PASSWORD}.

How do mail users log into the mail server?¶

Username: full e-mail address
Incoming: IMAP with STARTTLS, mailHost port 143
Outgoing: SMTP with STARTTLS, mailHost port 587.

If the webmailHost option is defined, users can log into the web frontend with their full e-mail address and password.

How to change passwords ¶

We support two scenarios: static passwords and dynamic passwords.

Static passwords ¶

Passwords are set by the administrator and put into users.json. They cannot be changed by users.

Dynamic passwords ¶

To enable users to change their password themselves, leave the hashedPassword option in /etc/local/mail/users.json empty and set the initial password in /var/lib/dovecot/passwd instead. This file consists of a e-mail address/password pair per user. Example:

user1@test.fcio.net:$5$NwBmrzj2vPlIdoa0$Go0zrVY5ZQncFXlCAxA.Gqj.e4Ym6Ic242O6Mj3BK1

The initial password hash can be created with mkpasswd -m sha-256 {PASSWORD} as shown above. Afterwards, user can log into the Roundcube web mail frontend and change their password in the settings menu.

The spam filter misclassifies mails. What to do?¶

rspamd has a good set of defaults but is not perfect. To get be results, it must receive training.

False positive (ham classified as spam): Move that e-mail message from the Junk folder back into the INBOX folder.
False negative (spam classified as ham): Move that e-mail message from the INBOX folder into the Junk folder.

In both cases, the spam filter’s statistics module will be automatically trained. Note that the spam filter needs a certain amount of training material to become effective. This means that training effects will show up after time and not immediately.

How do I forward mails to remote addresses?¶

Declare a virtual alias map and create remote aliases there. Add the following snippet to config.json:

"dynamicMaps": {
  "virtual_alias_maps": ["/etc/local/mail/virtual_aliases"]
}

Create /etc/local/mail/virtual_aliases. Example contents:

alias@test.fcio.net remote@address

Invoke sudo systemctl reload postfix to recompile maps after map contents has been changed. Invoke sudo fc-manage --build as usual if the contents of config.json has been changed.

How do I feed mails into an application?¶

Feeding mails destined to special accounts into backend application servers can be done with a transport map. Transport and other Postfix lookup tables are declared inside a dynamicMaps key in config.json. The application should open a port capable of speaking SMTP on its srv interface. Example:

"dynamicMaps": {
  "transport_maps": [ "/etc/local/mail/transport" ]
}

Example transport file contents:

specialaddress@test.fcio.net relay:172.30.40.50:8025

In case a whole subdomain should be piped into an application server, we need both a transport and a relay_domains map. Both map declarations may point to the same source as relay_domains uses only the first field of each line.

Example config.json snippet:

dynamicMaps": {
  "transport_maps": [ "/etc/local/mail/transport" ],
  "relay_domains": [ "/etc/local/mail/transport" ]
}

Example transport file contents:

subdomain.test.fcio.net relay:172.30.40.50:8025

An DNS MX record for that subdomain must be present as well.

Invoke sudo systemctl reload postfix to recompile maps after map contents has been changed. Invoke sudo fc-manage --build as usual if the contents of config.json has been changed.

How do I allow authenticated users to send with any email address?¶

Add a custom .nix file, e.g. /etc/local/nixos/mailserver.nix, to remove the render restriction:

{ ... }:
{
  services.postfix.submissionOptions.smtpd_sender_restrictions = "";
  services.postfix.submissionsOptions.smtpd_sender_restrictions = "";
}

Reference ¶

DNS Glossary ¶

Some important terminology for understanding DNS issues:

HELO name

The canonical name of the mail server. The HELO name is the same as the value of the mailHost option and the myhostname Postfix configuration variable. The HELO name must be listed in the MX records of all served mail domains.

Example: mail.test.fcio.net

Frontend IP addresses

Public IPv4 and/or IPv6 adresses. A and AAAA queries of the HELO name must resolve to the frontend IP addresses. Each address must have a PTR record which must resolve exactly to the HELO name.

Example: 195.62.126.119, 2a02:248:101:62::1191

Mail domain

List of DNS domains that serve as domain part in mail addresses hosted by a mail server. Not to be confused with the domain part of the server’s FQDN which may be the same or may not. Each domain must have a MX record which points to the mail server’s HELO name.

Example: test.fcio.net, test2.fcio.net

Role options ¶

All options can be set in /etc/local/mail/config.json.

Frequently used options:

domains: List of mail domains which should be served by this mail server.
mailHost: HELO name, see above.
webmailHost: Virtual server name for the Roundcube web mail service. Appropriate DNS entries are expected to point to the VM’s frontend address. If this option is set, the Roundcube service will be enabled.
rootAlias: E-mail address to receive all mails to the local root account.
dynamicMaps: Hash map of Postfix maps (like transport) and one or more file paths containing map records. See section How do I forward mails to remote addresses? for details.

Specialist options:

redisDatabase: Database number (0-15) for rspamd. Defaults to 5. The database number can be adjusted if any another local application happens to use DB 5.
smtpBind4 and smtpBind6: Which frontend address to use in case ethfe has several of them.
explicitSmtpBind: Whether to include explicit smtp_bind_address in the Postfix main.cf file. Defaults to true if ethfe has more than one IPv4 or IPv6 address. Needs to be overridden only in very special cases.
passwdFile: Virtual mail users listing in passwd(7) format. Set this if an application generates this file automatically and puts it into an application-specific location.

User options ¶

Keys that can be set per user in /etc/local/mail/users.json.

aliases: List of alternative e-mail addresses that will be delivered into this mailbox. Note that domain parts of all aliases must be listed in the domains option.
catchAll: List of subdomains for which all incoming mails, regardless of their local parts, will be delivered into this mailbox. All subdomains must be listed in the domains option.
hashedPassword: Either a salted SHA-256 password hash (for static passwords) or empty string. In the latter case, the password is read from /var/lib/dovecot/passwd.
quota: Mailbox space limit like “512M” or “2G”.
sieveScript: Mail processing rules in the Sieve language. Users can set dynamic sieve scripts from the Roundcube web UI if left empty.

Further configuration files ¶

/etc/local/mail/local_valiases.json: Additional aliases which are not mentioned in users.json. Expected to be a dict with the alias as key and the receiving address as value.
/etc/local/mail/main.cf: Additional Postfix postconf(5) settings.
/etc/local/mail/dns.zone: Copy-and-paste DNS records for inclusion in zone files. Adapt if necessary.

Monitoring ¶

Monitoring checks/metrics created by this role:

Port checks for SMTP, submission, IMAP, and IMAPs.
Postfix excessive queue length check.
Postfix queue length, size, and age metrics.