docs/diploma

annotate thesis/tex/1-Introduction.tex @ 254:db81f3cc6675

added thoughs about further dev ways
author meillo@marmaro.de
date Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:53:03 +0100
parents 724cc6057105
children f4966e84815d
rev   line source
meillo@26 1 \chapter{Introduction}
meillo@42 2 \label{chap:introduction}
meillo@26 3
meillo@96 4 << say what you want to say >>
meillo@92 5
meillo@102 6 << the overall goal of the document >>
meillo@92 7
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meillo@229 10
meillo@229 11
meillo@245 12
meillo@245 13 \section{Email prerequisites}
meillo@245 14
meillo@245 15 email and everything is defined in RFCs
meillo@245 16
meillo@245 17
meillo@245 18 \subsubsection{Mail agents}
meillo@245 19
meillo@253 20 This thesis will frequently use the three terms: \MTA, \NAME{MUA}, and \NAME{MDA}. The name the three different kinds of software on which the email system depends. Here they are explained with references to the snail mail system one knows from everyday's life. Figure \ref{fig:mail-agents} shows the relation between them and the way an email message takes trough the system.
meillo@253 21
meillo@245 22 \paragraph{MTA}
meillo@253 23 \name{Mail Tranfer Agents} are for electronic mail what post offices are for snail mail. The basic job of an \MTA\ is to transport mail from senders to recipients, or more pedantic: from \MTA\ to \MTA. This is the definition of such kind of software, and this is how \MTA{}s are generally seen \cite[page 19]{dent04} \cite[pages 3-5]{hafiz05}. \MTA{}s are explained in more detail in chapter \ref{chap:mail-transfer-agents}.
meillo@245 24
meillo@245 25
meillo@245 26 \paragraph{MUA}
meillo@253 27 \name{Mail User Agents} are the software the user deals with. He writes and reads email with it. The \NAME{MUA} passes outgoing mail to the nearest \MTA, and the \NAME{MUA} displays the contents of the user's mailbox. Well known \NAME{MUA}s are \name{Mozilla Thunderbird} and \name{mutt} on \unix\ systems, and \name{Microsoft Outlook} on \name{Windows}.
meillo@245 28
meillo@245 29
meillo@245 30 \paragraph{MDA}
meillo@253 31 \name{Mail Delivery Agents} correspond to postmen in the real world. They receive mail, destinated to recipients they are responsible for, from an \MTA, and deliver it to the mailboxes of those recipients. Many \MTA{}s include an own \NAME{MDA}, but specialized ones exist: \name{procmail} and \name{maildrop} are examples.
meillo@245 32
meillo@253 33 \begin{figure}
meillo@253 34 \begin{center}
meillo@253 35 \includegraphics[scale=0.75]{img/mail-agents.eps}
meillo@253 36 \end{center}
meillo@253 37 \caption{Mail agents and the way a mail message takes}
meillo@253 38 \label{fig:mail-agents}
meillo@253 39 \end{figure}
meillo@245 40
meillo@229 41
meillo@253 42
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meillo@229 44
meillo@229 45
meillo@245 46 \subsubsection{Mail transfer with SMTP}
meillo@245 47
meillo@245 48 Today most of the email is transfered using the \name{Simple Mail Transfer Protocol} (short: \SMTP), which is defined in \RFC821 and the successors \RFC2821 and \RFC5321. A good entry point for further information is \citeweb{wikipedia:smtp}.
meillo@245 49
meillo@245 50 A selection of important concepts of \SMTP\ is explained here.
meillo@245 51
meillo@253 52 First the \name{store and forward} transfer concept. This means mail messages are sent from \MTA\ to \MTA, until the final \MTA\ (the one which is responsible for the recipient) is reached. The message is gets stored for some time on each \MTA, until it is forwarded to the next \MTA.
meillo@245 53
meillo@253 54 This leads to the concept of \name{responsibility}. A mail message is always in the responsibility of one system. First it is the \NAME{MUA}. After it was transfered to the first \MTA, it takes the responsibility for the message over. The \NAME{MUA} can then delete its copy of the message. This is the same for each transfer, from \MTA\ to \MTA\ and finally from \MTA\ to the \NAME{MDA}, the message gets transfered and if the transfer was successful, the responsibility for the message is transfered as well. The responsibility chain ends at a user's mailbox, where he himself has control on the message.
meillo@245 55
meillo@253 56 A third concept is about failure handling. At any step on the way, an \MTA\ may receive a message it is unable to handle. In such a case, this receiving \MTA\ will \name{reject} the message before it takes responsibility for it. The sending \MTA\ still has responsibility for the message and may try other ways for sending the message. If none succeeds, the \MTA\ will send a \name{bounce message} back to the original sender with information on the type of failure. Bounces are only sent if the failure is expected to be permanent, or if the transfer still was unsuccessful after many tries.
meillo@245 57
meillo@245 58
meillo@245 59
meillo@245 60 \subsubsection{Mail messages}
meillo@245 61
meillo@253 62 Mail messages consist of two parts with defined format. This format is specified in \RFC822, and the successors \RFC2822 and \RFC5322.
meillo@245 63
meillo@253 64 The two parts of a message are the \name{header} and the \name{body}. The header of an email message is similar to the header of a (formal) letter. It spans the first lines of the message up to the first empty line. The header consists of several lines, called \name{header lines} or simply \name{headers}. They specify the sender, the address(es) of the recipient(s), the date, and possibly further information. Their order is irrelevant. Headers are named after the colon separated start of those lines, for example the ``\texttt{Date:}'' header. A user may write the header himself, but normally the \NAME{MUA} does this job.
meillo@245 65
meillo@253 66 The body is the payload of the message. It is under full control of the user. From the view point of the \SMTP\ protocol, it must consist of only 7-bit \NAME{ASCII} text. But arbitrary content can be included by encoding it to 7-bit \NAME{ASCII}. \NAME{MIME} is the common \SMTP\ extension to handle such convertion automatically in \NAME{MUA}s.
meillo@245 67
meillo@253 68 Following is a sample mail message with four header lines (\texttt{From:}, \texttt{To:}, \texttt{Date:}, and \texttt{Subject:}) and three lines of message body.
meillo@245 69
meillo@245 70 \input{input/sample-email.txt}
meillo@245 71
meillo@253 72 Email messages are put into envelopes for transfer. This concept is derived from the real world, so it is easy to understand. The envelope is what is used to route the message from sender to recipient. It contains the sender's address and addresses of one or more recipients. Envelopes are generated by \MTA{}s, usually by using mail header data. The user has not to deal with them.
meillo@253 73
meillo@253 74 The sample message would would lead to two envelopes, one from \name{markus@host01} to \name{alice@host02}, the other from \name{markus@host01} to \name{bob@host03}. Both envelopes would contain the same message. There is no difference to how it would be done for snail mail.
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meillo@92 81 \section{The \masqmail\ project}
meillo@102 82 \label{sec:masqmail}
meillo@96 83
meillo@96 84 << about masqmail (some history) >>
meillo@96 85
meillo@96 86 (include history of email, definition of MTA and sendmail-compatibility in text)
meillo@96 87
meillo@248 88 The \masqmail\ program was written by \person{Oliver Kurth}, starting in 1999. His aim was to create a small \mta\ which is especially focused on computers with dial-up connections to the internet. \masqmail\ is easy configurable for situations which are rarely solveable with the common \MTA{}s.
meillo@102 89
meillo@102 90 \masqmail\ queues mail for destinations outside the local network if no connection to the internet is online. If the machine goes online, this mail is sent. Mail to local machines is sent immediately.
meillo@102 91
meillo@102 92 While the other \MTA{}s are more general purpose \MTA{}s, \masqmail\ aims on special situations only. Nevertheless can it handle ordinary mail transfers too.
meillo@102 93
meillo@102 94 \masqmail\ is released under the \GPL, which makes it \freesw. The latest stable version is 0.2.21 from November 2005.
meillo@102 95
meillo@102 96 The program's new homepage \citeweb{masqmail:homepage} provides further information about this \MTA.
meillo@96 97
meillo@245 98 << specify the really important external documents here >> %FIXME
meillo@92 99
meillo@245 100
meillo@245 101
meillo@245 102 \subsection{Target field / When to use \masqmail}
meillo@160 103
meillo@248 104 Its original author, \person{Oliver Kurth}, sees \masqmail\ so:
meillo@92 105 \begin{quote}
meillo@92 106 MasqMail is a mail server designed for hosts that do not have a permanent internet connection eg. a home network or a single host at home. It has special support for connections to different ISPs. It replaces sendmail or other MTAs such as qmail or exim.
meillo@92 107 \end{quote}
meillo@92 108
meillo@92 109 \masqmail\ is inteded to cover a specific niche: non-permanent internet connection and different \NAME{ISP}s.
meillo@92 110
meillo@92 111 Although it can basically replace other \MTA{}s, it is not generally aimed to do so. The package description of \debian\citeweb{packages.debian:masqmail} states this more clearly by changing the last sentence to:
meillo@92 112 \begin{quote}
meillo@92 113 In these cases, MasqMail is a slim replacement for full-blown MTAs such as sendmail, exim, qmail or postfix.
meillo@92 114 \end{quote}
meillo@92 115 \masqmail\ is a good replacement ``in these cases'', but not generally, since is lacks features essential for running on mail servers. It is primarily not secure enough for being accessable from untrusted locations.
meillo@92 116
meillo@92 117 The program is best used in home networks, which are non-permanently connected to the internet. \masqmail\ sends mail to local destinations, like users on the same machine and on other machines in the local net, immediately. Email to recipients outside the local net are queued when offline and sent when a online connection gets established.
meillo@92 118
meillo@92 119 Further more does \masqmail\ respect online connections through different \NAME{ISP}s; a common thing for dial-up connections. In particular can different sender addresses be set, dependent on the \NAME{ISP} that is used. This prevents mail to be likely classified as spam.
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meillo@160 123
meillo@160 124 \subsubsection*{\masqmail's main goal}
meillo@160 125
meillo@160 126 \masqmail\ does have similar requirements, by being a \sendmail\ replacement, which is a basic goal of the project. The main difference is that \masqmail\ is intended to be used on workstations and in small networks, but \sendmail, \qmail, and \postfix\ are designed to run on large mail servers to handle masses of email. The author of \masqmail, \person{Kurth}, in contrast, warns on the old project's website \citeweb{masqmail:homepage2} about using it to accept connections from the Internet, because of the risk to be an open relay:
meillo@160 127 \begin{quote}
meillo@160 128 MasqMail is not designed to run on a host with a permanent internet connection. It does not have the ability to check for spam mail and it will relay everything from everywhere to everywhere. Use another mail server such as exim for permanent connections.
meillo@160 129 \end{quote}
meillo@160 130 Even if some relay control will be added, ``is not designed to'' is a clear indicator for being careful. Issues like high memory consumption, low performance, and denial-of-service attacks---things not regarded by design---may cause serious problems.
meillo@160 131
meillo@160 132 Here shows a misfit off: On the one hand does \masqmail\ want to be a \sendmail\ replacement. But on the other hand, is it not designed to be used like \sendmail. If \masqmail\ is inteded to replace other \MTA{}s, then one may replace another one with it. Hence it must be secure enough. It either needs the security features or must drop the unsecure funtionality. The second option, however, leads to being \emph{no} replacement for other \MTA{}s. It is a valid decision to not be a replacement for \sendmail\ or thelike, but this is a design decision---the change of a primary goal.
meillo@160 133
meillo@160 134 If \masqmail\ should be an \MTA\ to replace others, a switch to a better suited architecture that provides good security and extendability by design, seems required. But if \masqmail\ is wanted to cover some special jobs, not to replace common \MTA{}s, then its architecture depends on the special requirements of the specific job; \MTA\ architectures, like discussed by \person{Hafiz}, may be inadequate.
meillo@160 135
meillo@160 136
meillo@160 137 \subsubsection*{Full featured or stripped down}
meillo@160 138
meillo@160 139 What future is to choose for \masqmail---one to be a full featured \MTA, or one to be a stipped down \MTA\ for special jobs?
meillo@160 140
meillo@160 141 The critical point to discuss upon is surely the listening on a port to accepte messages from outside via \NAME{SMTP} (herafter also refered to as the \NAME{SMTP}-in channel). This feature is required for an \MTA\ to be a \name{smart host}, to relay mail. But running as deamon and listening on a port requires much more security effort, because the program is put in direct contact with attackers and other bad guys.
meillo@160 142
meillo@160 143 \MTA{}s without \SMTP-in channels can not receive mail from arbitrary outside hosts. They are only invoked by local users. This lowers the security need a lot---however, security is a general goal and still required, but on a lower level. Unfortunately, as they do not receive mail anymore (except by local submission), they are just better \name{forwarders} that are able to send mail directly to the destination.
meillo@160 144
meillo@160 145 This is not what \masqmail\ was intended to be. Programs that cover this purpose are available; one is \name{msmtp}.
meillo@160 146
meillo@160 147 \masqmail\ shall be a complete \mta. It shall be able to replace ones like \sendmail.
meillo@160 148
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meillo@160 150
meillo@245 151 \subsubsection*{Typical usage}
meillo@245 152 This section describes situations that make senseful use of \masqmail.
meillo@160 153
meillo@245 154 A home network consisting of some workstations without a server. The network is connected to the internet by dial-up or broadband. Going online is initiated by computers inside the local net. \NAME{IP} addresses change at least once every day.
meillo@160 155
meillo@245 156 Every workstation would be equiped with \masqmail. Mail transfer within the same machine or within the local net works straight forward. Outgoing mail to the internet is sent, to the concerning \NAME{ISP} for relaying, whenever the router goes online. Receiving of mail from outside needs to be done by a mail fetch program, like the \masqmail\ internal \NAME{POP3} client or \name{fetchmail} for example. The configuration for \masqmail\ would be the same on every computer, except the hostname.
meillo@160 157
meillo@245 158 For the same network but having a server, one could have \masqmail\ running on the server and using simple forwarders (see \ref{subsec:relay-only}) to the server on the workstations. This setup does only support mail transfer to the server, but not back to a workstation; also sending mail to another user on the same workstation is not possible.
meillo@160 159
meillo@245 160 A better setup is to run \masqmail\ on every machine %FIXME
meillo@160 161
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meillo@245 166
meillo@245 167 \subsection{When not to use \masqmail}
meillo@245 168
meillo@245 169 ...
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meillo@245 179
meillo@245 180 \subsection{Features}
meillo@238 181
meillo@248 182 Here regarded is version 0.2.21 of \masqmail. This is the last version released by \person{Oliver Kurth}, and the basis for my thesis.
meillo@238 183
meillo@238 184
meillo@238 185 \subsubsection*{The source code}
meillo@238 186
meillo@238 187 \masqmail\ is written in the C programming language. The program, as of version 0.2.21, consists of 34 source code and eight header files, containing about 9,000 lines of code\footnote{Measured with \name{sloccount} by David A.\ Wheeler.}. Additionally, it includes a \name{base64} implementation (about 300 lines) and \name{md5} code (about 150 lines). For systems that do not provide \name{libident}, this library is distributed as well (circa 600 lines); an available shared library has higher precedence in linking, though.
meillo@238 188
meillo@238 189 The only mandatory dependency is \name{glib}---a cross-platform software utility library, originated in the \NAME{GTK+} project. It provides safe replacements for many standard library functions, especially for the string functions. It also offers handy data containers, easy-to-use implementations of data structures, and much more.
meillo@238 190
meillo@238 191 With \masqmail\ comes the small tool \path{mservdetect}; it helps setting up a configuration that uses the \name{mserver} system to detect the online state. Two other binaries get compiled for testing purposes: \path{readtest} and \path{smtpsend}. All three programs use \masqmail\ source code; they only add a file with a \verb+main()+ function each.
meillo@238 192
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meillo@238 194
meillo@238 195 \subsubsection*{Features}
meillo@238 196 \label{sec:masqmail-features}
meillo@238 197
meillo@238 198 \masqmail\ supports two channels for incoming mail: (1) Standard input, used when \path{masqmail} is executed on the command line and (2) a \NAME{TCP} socket, used by local or remote clients that talk \SMTP. The outgoing channels for mail are: (1) direct delivery to local mailboxes (in \name{mbox} or \name{maildir} format), (2) local pipes to pass mail to a program (e.g.\ gateways to \NAME{UUCP}, gateways to fax, or \NAME{MDA}s), and (3) \NAME{TCP} sockets to transfer mail to other \MTA{}s using the \SMTP\ protocol.
meillo@238 199
meillo@238 200 Outgoing \SMTP\ connections feature \SMTP-\NAME{AUTH} and \SMTP-after-\NAME{POP} authentication, but incoming connections do not. Using wrappers for outgoing connections is supported. This allows encrypted communication through a gateway application like \name{openssl}.
meillo@238 201
meillo@238 202 Mail queuing and alias expansion is both supported.
meillo@238 203
meillo@238 204 \masqmail\ focuses on non-permanent online connections, thus a concept of online routes is used. One may configure any number of routes to send mail. Each route can have criteria to determine if some message is allowed to be sent over it. This concept is explained in section \ref{sec:masqmail-routes} in detail. Mail to destinations outside the local network gets queued until an online connections is available.
meillo@238 205
meillo@238 206 The \masqmail\ executable can be called under various names for sendmail-compatibility reasons. This is organized by symbolic links with different names pointing to the \masqmail\ executable. The \sendmail\ names are \path{/usr/lib/sendmail} and \path{/usr/sbin/sendmail} because many programs expect the \mta\ to be located there. Further more \sendmail\ supports calling it with a different name instead of supplying command line arguments. The best known of this shortcuts is \path{mailq}, which is equivalent to calling it with the argument \verb+-bq+. \masqmail\ recognizes the shortcuts \path{mailq}, \path{smtpd}, \path{mailrm}, \path{runq}, \path{rmail}, and \path{in.smtpd}. The first two are inspired by \sendmail. Not implemented is the shortcut \path{newaliases} because \masqmail\ does not generate binary representations of the alias file.\footnote{A shell script named \path{newaliases}, that invokes \texttt{masqmail -bi}, can provide the command to satisfy other software needing it.} \path{hoststat} and \path{purgestat} are missing for complete sendmail-compatibility.
meillo@238 207 %masqmail: mailq, mailrm, runq, rmail, smtpd/in.smtpd
meillo@238 208 %sendmail: hoststat, mailq, newaliases, purgestat, smtpd
meillo@238 209
meillo@238 210 Additional to the \mta\ job, \masqmail\ also offers mail retrieval services by being a \NAME{POP3} client. It can fetch mail from different remote locations, dependent on the active online connection.
meillo@238 211
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meillo@238 213
meillo@245 214 \subsubsection*{Online detection and routes}
meillo@245 215 \label{sec:masqmail-routes}
meillo@238 216
meillo@245 217 ---
meillo@238 218
meillo@245 219 As \masqmail\ is focused on non-permanent Internet connections, online state can be queried by three methods: reading from a file, reading the output of a command, or by asking an \name{mserver}. Each method may return a string indicating one of the available routes being online, or returning nothing to indicate offline state.
meillo@238 220
meillo@245 221 Delivery to recipients on the local host or in local nets is done at once; delivery to recipients on the Internet is only done when being online, and queued otherwise. Each online route may have a different mail server to which mail is relayed. Return address headers are modified appropriate if wished.
meillo@238 222
meillo@245 223 ---
meillo@238 224
meillo@245 225 \masqmail\ focuses on non-permanent online connections, thus a concept of online routes is used. One may configure any number of routes to send mail. Each route can have criteria, like matching \texttt{From:} or \texttt{To:} headers, to determine if some message is allowed to be sent over it. Mail to destinations outside the local network gets queued until an online connections is available.
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meillo@245 236 \section{Why \masqmail?}
meillo@92 237
meillo@92 238 As main advantage, \masqmail\ makes it easy to set up an \MTA\ on workstations or notebooks without the need to do complex configuration or to be an mail server expert.
meillo@92 239
meillo@92 240 Workstations use %FIXME
meillo@92 241
meillo@96 242 \textbf{Alternatives?}
meillo@245 243 http://anfi.homeunix.org/sendmail/dialup10.html
meillo@92 244
meillo@92 245
meillo@245 246 << explain why masqmail is old and why it is interesting/important however! >>
meillo@96 247
meillo@175 248 << why is it worth to revive masqmail? >>
meillo@175 249
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meillo@92 256 \section{Problems to solve}
meillo@92 257
meillo@245 258 << what problems has masqmail? >>
meillo@96 259
meillo@245 260 << what's the intention of this document? >>
meillo@96 261
meillo@245 262 << why is it worth the effort? >>
meillo@96 263
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meillo@245 268 \section{Delimitation}
meillo@96 269
meillo@150 270 << limit against stuff not covered here >>
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meillo@150 274