On Mon, 20 Jan 2003 07:35:50 -0500 Mark Weaver
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Todd Lyons wrote:
> > Mark Weaver wrote on Sat, Jan 18, 2003 at 06:05:27AM -0500 :
> > 
> >>>>cause nuttin is getting through...I'm gonna shoot dis damn thing!
> >>>
> >>>basics...  your having a "relay" problem which is OK since you don't
> >want>>to be an open-relay...  the trick is to figure out how to allow
> >those>>domains through that are legit in your case...  for me, it
> >wasn't until I>
> >>thanks Pierre...I "definately" have some more reading to do. I've
> >gotta >digest this stuff and get inside Postfix's head.
> > 
> > 
> > This is the thing to remember.  You don't want to enable "relay by
> > domain".  Why?  Ok, you're at domain "weaver.com" for example.  You
> > allow anybody who has an email account with you to relay through your
> > machine.
> > 
> > Ok, I say I'm "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" and I send my 2 million spams how to
> > make your sex better.  Since it's from "@weaver.com", your mail server
> > happily relays all 2 million messages PLUS gets all the bounces.
> > 
> > I hope you can see how fallible that is.
> > 
> > The correct solution is pop-before-smtp or (best) authenticated SMTP.
> > 
> > Blue skies...                       Todd
> 
> Hi Todd,
> 
> Thats what Pierre was saying. (the pop-before-smtp) the thing is for 
> what ever reason I don't seem to be able to wrap my brain around that 
> just yet. I don't know why, but it's just not making any sense yet.

Without pop-before-smtp, you are just another IP address on the 'net
trying to use your box as an open-relay.  Since SMTP is essentially
unauthenticated, anyone could spoof your user@domain.

Without pop-before-smtp, you'd have to config your postfix with your
current dial-in IP address to allow mail from there each time you connect
to the net...  pop-before-smtp does this automatically.  It simply
requires anyone wanting to relay mail through your server to first
authenticate themselves by doing a successful POP login (mail get is
optional AFAIK).  Once you've successfully logged in via POP, the
pop-before-smtp daemon will give the *IP address* from which the user
logged in 30 minutes to send mail. 

The gotchas are:
- reconnects on a dial-up will not terminate the timer; so someone getting
the 'net port you just dropped *could* use your remaining time -- like
parking on remaining meter time.  Fortunately, that's a rather obscure
risk.
- you'll often forget to "check mail" first before sending a message
- when you reconnect, you may get a new IP, so you should re-check mail to
enable this new address while the old one continues to timeout.
- pop-before-smtp relies on the system logs, so I found that it's a good
idea to run a cron task to restart the daemon regularly to ensure it's
still reading the *current* log file -- logrotate will switch log files;
but pop-before-smtp won't notice...

HTH,
Pierre


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