Ireneusz Szcze??niak [[email protected]] wrote: > Hi, > > I'm running OpenBSD 5.2 on i386. I want to run there a personal mail > server (further referred to as "my server") with some specific > requirements. I want my server to be secure and stable. > > These are my critical requirements: > > * My server should support SMTP/IMAP with SSL/TLS. I want my server > and the client (i.e. Thunderbird that I use) to authenticate with > certificates that I issue. >
I don't think OpenBSD is capable of hosting an IMAP + TLS server. > * Depending on the address with which I send my mail (I have three > different email addresses), my server should relay the mail to the > mail server, where I have the account (for instance gmail.com). > This is definitely beyond the scope of a robust computer operating system. > * When the email that I send is received by my server, I want my > server to save the email in the Sent mailbox. > That's a function of your mail client and the IMAP server. But of course OpenBSD isn't capable of hosting IMAP so you re out of luck. > * I want the server to keep my email archive of about 5 GB (and > growing). > OpenBSD only works on partitions up to 600MB in size. So 5GB is going to be a serious challenge. Maybe you can split your mail up into several mailboxes with different logins? > * I want to access my mail (Inbox, Sent and Archive) with IMAP. > > * I want my server to receive emails from my three accounts with IMAP. > > The ease and safety of archiving messages would be welcome. I'm an > archiving freak, and I would love to have a reliable and easy way of > archiving my mail. For instance, I love the way how one can archive > git repositories by cloning, because it's safe and keeps the data > consistent. > > Currently I have a desktop to which I login remotely from three > different computers to receive and send mail with Thunderbird. > Thunderbird keeps my email archive, sends and receives mail. The > problem is that I'm tiried of logging into my remote desktop, and > instead I would like to configure Thunderbird for a single IMAP server > and a single SMTP server. > > For now I know that I want to use sendmail, since this is the default > in OpenBSD. > > Any advice would be welcome. Ok, all joking aside... Dovecot is by far the best IMAP server available these days, in my opinion. It's on the ports tree and it meets your requirements. The only thing in your entire list that Dovecot doesn't handle by default is the multiple-smarthost outgoing mail relay. That will require specfic MTA configuration. And you may be better off just pointing the MX records to your server in that case... If you don't do that, you will need an external utility like fdm to grab your mail from the actual server. I would use Postfix or OpenSMTPD as a MTA. Sendmail is too old and archaic, I don't think it's worth learning if you don't already know it. Spending your time with an MTA of newer design is going to be nicer. You are going to spend a bit of time in the MTA and Dovecot docs to figure out some of these things. Now, if you use fdm, you really don't need an MTA at all. fdm would have to deliver to the dovecot LDA or use its own LDA in the same directory structure that Dovecot retrieves mail from... Chris
