Work in progress – UPDATED

Updated 27 Feb 2005: Grrr…I got the two Shuttle boxes (SV24 and SV25), only to discover that both have blown motherboards and power supplies. I’m working on the means to get them in usable order, but it’s going to take some fundage that I don’t currently have….can anyone help?

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UPDATED 12 FEB 2005: I know people are waiting on this document! Gomennasai…but I will hopefully be much closer after this weekend. I should be picking up two shuttle systems this weekend, one of which will be my new mail server. I will be using this to finalize all the steps I will take to make this document finally useful.

I have Amavisd-new, SpamAssassin,ClamAV and Maia Mailguard all running now. I still need to get Mailman list manager tested and Squirrelmail running on https, but I promise! it’s getting closer!

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UPDATED 13 OCT 2004: getting closer! See the bottom for the newest info…

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Wednesday, September 29 2004 @ 12:02 AM CDT
Just a little heads-up…I’m currently working on a test mail server, incorporating Fedora Core 1, Postfix, Dovecot Imap, fetchmail, amavisd, and Maia Mailguard, with full SSL and virtual domain/user support tied into a MySQL database.

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Like the title says, it’s a work in progress, so I don’t have a whole lot to give you yet, but I do have some success:

1. Postfix is working to receive mail to users who only exist in the MySQL database.
   
2. Dovecot will authenticate users via SSL, logging into the database.
   
3. I can perform all IMAP functions with Dovecot and Mozilla Thunderbird as the client.
   
4. I had to build custom RPMS for Postfix and Dovecot to incorporate the features I wanted (and remove Postgres support from Dovecot…grrrr)
   

Still to come:

1. Installing and setting up Amavis, SpamAssassin, and ClamAV, and tying it into Maia Mailguard for per-user configuration.
   
2. Setting up Fetchmail to POP several external accounts.
   
3. Setting up name-based virtual hosting on Apache2.
   
4. Probably other issues as they come up.
   
5. Writing up coherent documentation on the process.
   

Doesn’t sound like much, really, but it’s been a big accomplishment for me so far, especially considering how badly certain applications (*cough*dovecot*cough*) are documented. To be fair, it is a fairly new app, and the userbase is not what it could be (many people sticking with Courier and Cyrus out of familiarity, I’m sure). I’m going to attempt to do my part by creating documentation on the process here, so others can benefit from my experimentation.

I’ll be writing up a static document for this site once everything is in place, so be watching for it!

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UPDATE 13 OCT 2004: Process/Progress

Requirements:

• SMTP-AUTH
  
• IMAPS
  
• all auth to sqldb
  
• anti-spam
  
• antivirus
  
• web managable
  
• virtual domain hosting
  
• per-user config for antispam
  

Implementation:

• Fedora Core 1
  
• MySQL 3.23.58
  
• Postfix 2.1.5 w/ pcre, MySQL, sasl2, tls, vda support
  
• Dovecot 0.99.11 with MySQL support
  
• Maildir-formatted mailboxes
  

Done and Notes:

• OS – Fedora Core 1 and updates
  
• MySQL
  
• Postfix
  
  • set up SMTP via SASL/Pam for auth over TLS.
    
  • Requires Pam-mysql 0.5 module
    
  • User passwords in db must be in MySQL-Crypt format
    
  • Maildir mailbox format in /home/postbox/%domain/%name/
    
  
  
• Dovecot
  
  • configured to only offer IMAPS for encrypted comms
    
  • User passwords in DB must be in PLAIN-MD5 format
    
  
  
• PostfixAdmin
  
  • Web interface for virtual domains in Postfix
    
  • can set passwords in several formats. Set to md5crypt.
    
  • added new $CONF[‘postfix_smtp_pw’] set to mysql crypt for smtp-auth
    
  
  
• PHPMyAdmin
  
  • MySQL administrator for the web.
    
  • simplified testing password crypt methods.
    
  
  

ToDo:

• Amavis/SpamAssassin/ClamAV
  
• Maia Mailguard
  
• Fetchmail (for POPping external mailboxes)
  
• Squirrelmail webmail client
  

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