[Cialug] More Linux Basics? - Hardening and Email

[Daniel A. Ramaley]

On 2014-02-11 at 11:58:19 jim kraai wrote:
> Why has setting up a secure'ish email server not gotten any better in
> the last ten years?  Will the horror never end?

I'm actually in the middle of refreshing my mail server (using the 
ISPmail instructions as a baseline), so i feel your pain.

My suspicion is it is hard because when someone says "e-mail server" 
they don't mean just 1 server, but a variety of servers, all running 
together. You need a server to accept messages (SMTP, Submission). You 
need another server to provide messages to users (POP, IMAP). If you do 
content filtering, you need something to do that. If you offer web mail, 
you need something for that (HTTP, HTTPS). They are all different 
software that do different things. Not to mention some people like to 
mix their calendar up with their e-mail; if you do that, then you need 
another server to handle calendars. Or if you do password changes on the 
mail server, then you need some server to enable those.

There are some integrated solutions like Zimbra, but they just bundle up 
all those components and make it a lot easier to administer.

__
Daniel A. Ramaley
Network Engineer 2

Dial Center 112, Drake University
2407 Carpenter Ave / Des Moines IA 50311 USA
Tel: +1 515 271-4540
Fax: +1 515 271-1938
E-mail: daniel.ramaley at drake.edu