On 1/1/07, Arnie Stender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>         A while back I posted a question about using SSL connections to pick 
> up
> my mail and I got a lot of good information. I proceeded to implement
> based on that information but I still don't have it working. Part of
> what I recieved said I needed to import a key into my mail client
> (Seamonkey). I tried to do that but it wasn't able to import anything
> but PGP keys. I did an ldd on the binary and it isn't linked to the
> libssl. Does Seamonkey use some other implementation of SSL or am I
> going to have to recompile with some switch I failed to use the first
> time around? I looked again through the BLFS instructions and can't find
> any reference to SSL. I remember there was some sort of problem with
> building the system installed NSS and NSPR so I used the internal
> version. I did compile the enigmail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

NSS is the Mozilla library that implements SSL/TLS (Mozilla actually
created that technology). A couple things need to happen.

I believe you created your own mail server. Next you need to create
your server private/public SSL key pair. This is sort of non-trivial
because the whole security model of SSL certificates is that a 3rd
party is verifying that the server supplying the certificate is who
they say they are. This 3rd party is known as the Certificate
Authority or CA. You can purchase a commercial certificate (think
Verisign), but they are pricey. Or, you can act as your own CA. Here's
a howto:

http://sial.org/howto/openssl/ca/

Another option is cacert.org, which gives out free certificates and
has a pretty good wiki for figuring out how to do this stuff. I've
been using these for mail, http and ldap for about a year with no
problems.

The problem with the last two approaches is that NSS or OpenSSL don't
trust your CA. So, you have to import the CA certificate, implying
that you trust that CA. Same with any other users that plan on
authenticating with your server. The cacert.org CA certificate is here
(you'd want the Type 1 PEM):

http://www.cacert.org/index.php?id=3

In Seamonkey or Thunderbird, if you're in Preferences, I think there's
a Certificates tab in there somewhere. In there you should find
something about importing a CA certificate. I'm not at home to see
exactly what the dialog looks like.

Assuming that your mail server is setup correctly to issue the
public/private key, Seamonkey should move along with the
authentication process (possibly asking if you trust this CA once).
There's also a way to build any new CA certificates into the NSS
library, but it's a hassle. The list of CA certificates OpenSSL
typically uses are in /etc/ssl/certs.

HTH

--
Dan
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