for applications to compose/send messages, receive delivery feedback, and
maintain suppression lists.
this is an alternative to applications using a library to compose messages,
submitting those messages using smtp, and monitoring a mailbox with imap for
DSNs, which can be processed into the equivalent of suppression lists. but you
need to know about all these standards/protocols and find libraries. by using
the webapi & webhooks, you just need a http & json library.
unfortunately, there is no standard for these kinds of api, so mox has made up
yet another one...
matching incoming DSNs about deliveries to original outgoing messages requires
keeping history of "retired" messages (delivered from the queue, either
successfully or failed). this can be enabled per account. history is also
useful for debugging deliveries. we now also keep history of each delivery
attempt, accessible while still in the queue, and kept when a message is
retired. the queue webadmin pages now also have pagination, to show potentially
large history.
a queue of webhook calls is now managed too. failures are retried similar to
message deliveries. webhooks can also be saved to the retired list after
completing. also configurable per account.
messages can be sent with a "unique smtp mail from" address. this can only be
used if the domain is configured with a localpart catchall separator such as
"+". when enabled, a queued message gets assigned a random "fromid", which is
added after the separator when sending. when DSNs are returned, they can be
related to previously sent messages based on this fromid. in the future, we can
implement matching on the "envid" used in the smtp dsn extension, or on the
"message-id" of the message. using a fromid can be triggered by authenticating
with a login email address that is configured as enabling fromid.
suppression lists are automatically managed per account. if a delivery attempt
results in certain smtp errors, the destination address is added to the
suppression list. future messages queued for that recipient will immediately
fail without a delivery attempt. suppression lists protect your mail server
reputation.
submitted messages can carry "extra" data through the queue and webhooks for
outgoing deliveries. through webapi as a json object, through smtp submission
as message headers of the form "x-mox-extra-<key>: value".
to make it easy to test webapi/webhooks locally, the "localserve" mode actually
puts messages in the queue. when it's time to deliver, it still won't do a full
delivery attempt, but just delivers to the sender account. unless the recipient
address has a special form, simulating a failure to deliver.
admins now have more control over the queue. "hold rules" can be added to mark
newly queued messages as "on hold", pausing delivery. rules can be about
certain sender or recipient domains/addresses, or apply to all messages pausing
the entire queue. also useful for (local) testing.
new config options have been introduced. they are editable through the admin
and/or account web interfaces.
the webapi http endpoints are enabled for newly generated configs with the
quickstart, and in localserve. existing configurations must explicitly enable
the webapi in mox.conf.
gopherwatch.org was created to dogfood this code. it initially used just the
compose/smtpclient/imapclient mox packages to send messages and process
delivery feedback. it will get a config option to use the mox webapi/webhooks
instead. the gopherwatch code to use webapi/webhook is smaller and simpler, and
developing that shaped development of the mox webapi/webhooks.
for issue #31 by cuu508
mox was already giving another try for received errors after the
`HELO`/`EHLO` command. Now mox do the same for received errors when
trying to deliver the message to the remote SMTP server.
This should help to deliver messages to SMTP server that rejects
incoming messages because of bad ipv4 or ipv6 configuration (for example
for servers checking reverse DNS records). mox will now try to deliver
messages on both ip family instead before considering the error as
permanent.
fix#149
The `TransportDirect` transport allows to tweak outgoing SMTP
connections to remote servers. Currently, it only allows to select
network IP family (ipv4, ipv6 or both).
For example, to disable ipv6 for all outgoing SMTP connections:
- add these lines in mox.conf to create a new transport named
"disableipv6":
```
Transports:
disableipv6:
Direct:
DisableIpv6: true
```
- then add these lines in domains.conf to use this transport:
```
Routes:
-
Transport: disableipv6
```
fix#149
transferring the data only once. we only do this when the recipient domains
are the same. when queuing, we now take care to set the same NextAttempt
timestamp, so queued messages are actually eligable for combined delivery.
this adds a DeliverMultiple to the smtp client. for pipelined requests, it will
send all RCPT TO (and MAIL and DATA) in one go, and handles the various
responses and error conditions, returning either an overal error, or per
recipient smtp responses. the results of the smtp LIMITS extension are also
available in the smtp client now.
this also takes the "LIMITS RCPTMAX" smtp extension into account: if the server
only accepts a single recipient, we won't send multiple.
if a server doesn't announce a RCPTMAX limit, but still has one (like mox does
for non-spf-verified transactions), we'll recognize code 452 and 552 (for
historic reasons) as temporary error, and try again in a separate transaction
immediately after. we don't yet implement "LIMITS MAILMAX", doesn't seem likely
in practice.
so you can still know when someone has put you on their blocklist (which may
affect delivery), without using them.
also query dnsbls for our ips more often when we do more outgoing connections
for delivery: once every 100 messages, but at least 5 mins and at most 3 hours
since the previous check.
have the full smtp reply in the Diagnostic-Code field, not something that
resembles it but isn't quite the same.
include any additional error message in the Status field as comment.
before, we ended up having an Diagnostic-Code that didn't include the original
smtp code. it only had the enhanced error code.
we now keep track of the full smtp error responses, potentially multi-line. and
we include it in a dsn in the first free-form human-readable text.
it can have multiple lines in practice, e.g. when a destination mail server
tries to be helpful in explaining what the problem is.
- prometheus is now behind an interface, they aren't dependencies for the
reusable components anymore.
- some dependencies have been inverted: instead of packages importing a main
package to get configuration, the main package now sets configuration in
these packages. that means fewer internals are pulled in.
- some functions now have new parameters for values that were retrieved from
package "mox-".
we don't want external software to include internal details like mlog.
slog.Logger is/will be the standard.
we still have mlog for its helper functions, and its handler that logs in
concise logfmt used by mox.
packages that are not meant for reuse still pass around mlog.Log for
convenience.
we use golang.org/x/exp/slog because we also support the previous Go toolchain
version. with the next Go release, we'll switch to the builtin slog.
we were already accepting, processing and displaying incoming tls reports. now
we start tracking TLS connection and security-policy-related errors for
outgoing message deliveries as well. we send reports once a day, to the
reporting addresses specified in TLSRPT records (rua) of a policy domain. these
reports are about MTA-STS policies and/or DANE policies, and about
STARTTLS-related failures.
sending reports is enabled by default, but can be disabled through setting
NoOutgoingTLSReports in mox.conf.
only at the end of the implementation process came the realization that the
TLSRPT policy domain for DANE (MX) hosts are separate from the TLSRPT policy
for the recipient domain, and that MTA-STS and DANE TLS/policy results are
typically delivered in separate reports. so MX hosts need their own TLSRPT
policies.
config for the per-host TLSRPT policy should be added to mox.conf for existing
installs, in field HostTLSRPT. it is automatically configured by quickstart for
new installs. with a HostTLSRPT config, the "dns records" and "dns check" admin
pages now suggest the per-host TLSRPT record. by creating that record, you're
requesting TLS reports about your MX host.
gathering all the TLS/policy results is somewhat tricky. the tentacles go
throughout the code. the positive result is that the TLS/policy-related code
had to be cleaned up a bit. for example, the smtpclient TLS modes now reflect
reality better, with independent settings about whether PKIX and/or DANE
verification has to be done, and/or whether verification errors have to be
ignored (e.g. for tls-required: no header). also, cached mtasts policies of
mode "none" are now cleaned up once the MTA-STS DNS record goes away.
in smtpserver, we store dmarc evaluations (under the right conditions).
in dmarcdb, we periodically (hourly) send dmarc reports if there are
evaluations. for failed deliveries, we deliver the dsn quietly to a submailbox
of the postmaster mailbox.
this is on by default, but can be disabled in mox.conf.
with requiretls, the tls verification mode/rules for email deliveries can be
changed by the sender/submitter. in two ways:
1. "requiretls" smtp extension to always enforce verified tls (with mta-sts or
dnssec+dane), along the entire delivery path until delivery into the final
destination mailbox (so entire transport is verified-tls-protected).
2. "tls-required: no" message header, to ignore any tls and tls verification
errors even if the recipient domain has a policy that requires tls verification
(mta-sts and/or dnssec+dane), allowing delivery of non-sensitive messages in
case of misconfiguration/interoperability issues (at least useful for sending
tls reports).
we enable requiretls by default (only when tls is active), for smtp and
submission. it can be disabled through the config.
for each delivery attempt, we now store (per recipient domain, in the account
of the sender) whether the smtp server supports starttls and requiretls. this
support is shown (after having sent a first message) in the webmail when
sending a message (the previous 3 bars under the address input field are now 5
bars, the first for starttls support, the last for requiretls support). when
all recipient domains for a message are known to implement requiretls,
requiretls is automatically selected for sending (instead of "default" tls
behaviour). users can also select the "fallback to insecure" to add the
"tls-required: no" header.
new metrics are added for insight into requiretls errors and (some, not yet
all) cases where tls-required-no ignored a tls/verification error.
the admin can change the requiretls status for messages in the queue. so with
default delivery attempts, when verified tls is required by failing, an admin
could potentially change the field to "tls-required: no"-behaviour.
messages received (over smtp) with the requiretls option, get a comment added
to their Received header line, just before "id", after "with".
the original next-hop domain. not anything after resolving cname's, because
then it takes just a single injected dns cname record to lead us to an
unrelated server (that we would verify, but it's the wrong server).
also don't fallback to just strict tls when something is wrong. we must use the
policy to check if an mx host is allowed. the whole idea is that unsigned dns
records cannot be trusted.
i noticed this while implementing dane.
the vendored dns resolver code is a copy of the go stdlib dns resolver, with
awareness of the "authentic data" (i.e. dnssec secure) added, as well as support
for enhanced dns errors, and looking up tlsa records (for dane). ideally it
would be upstreamed, but the chances seem slim.
dnssec-awareness is added to all packages, e.g. spf, dkim, dmarc, iprev. their
dnssec status is added to the Received message headers for incoming email.
but the main reason to add dnssec was for implementing dane. with dane, the
verification of tls certificates can be done through certificates/public keys
published in dns (in the tlsa records). this only makes sense (is trustworthy)
if those dns records can be verified to be authentic.
mox now applies dane to delivering messages over smtp. mox already implemented
mta-sts for webpki/pkix-verification of certificates against the (large) pool
of CA's, and still enforces those policies when present. but it now also checks
for dane records, and will verify those if present. if dane and mta-sts are
both absent, the regular opportunistic tls with starttls is still done. and the
fallback to plaintext is also still done.
mox also makes it easy to setup dane for incoming deliveries, so other servers
can deliver with dane tls certificate verification. the quickstart now
generates private keys that are used when requesting certificates with acme.
the private keys are pre-generated because they must be static and known during
setup, because their public keys must be published in tlsa records in dns.
autocert would generate private keys on its own, so had to be forked to add the
option to provide the private key when requesting a new certificate. hopefully
upstream will accept the change and we can drop the fork.
with this change, using the quickstart to setup a new mox instance, the checks
at internet.nl result in a 100% score, provided the domain is dnssec-signed and
the network doesn't have any issues.
the default transport is still just "direct delivery", where we connect to the
destination domain's MX servers.
other transports are:
- regular smtp without authentication, this is relaying to a smarthost.
- submission with authentication, e.g. to a third party email sending service.
- direct delivery, but with with connections going through a socks proxy. this
can be helpful if your ip is blocked, you need to get email out, and you have
another IP that isn't blocked.
keep in mind that for all of the above, appropriate SPF/DKIM settings have to
be configured. the "dnscheck" for a domain does a check for any SOCKS IP in the
SPF record. SPF for smtp/submission (ranges? includes?) and any DKIM
requirements cannot really be checked.
which transport is used can be configured through routes. routes can be set on
an account, a domain, or globally. the routes are evaluated in that order, with
the first match selecting the transport. these routes are evaluated for each
delivery attempt. common selection criteria are recipient domain and sender
domain, but also which delivery attempt this is. you could configured mox to
attempt sending through a 3rd party from the 4th attempt onwards.
routes and transports are optional. if no route matches, or an empty/zero
transport is selected, normal direct delivery is done.
we could already "submit" emails with 3rd party accounts with "sendmail". but
we now support more SASL authentication mechanisms with SMTP (not only PLAIN,
but also SCRAM-SHA-256, SCRAM-SHA-1 and CRAM-MD5), which sendmail now also
supports. sendmail will use the most secure mechanism supported by the server,
or the explicitly configured mechanism.
for issue #36 by dmikushin. also based on earlier discussion on hackernews.
