docs/diploma: a6be202e1b49 thesis/tex/1-Introduction.tex

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author	meillo@marmaro.de
date	Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:27:06 +0100
parents	c5f44219bc5d
children	da83360f8442

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1 \chapter{Introduction}

2 \label{chap:introduction}

4 << say what you want to say >>

6 << the overall goal of the document >>

10 \section{What's an MTA?}

12 The basic job of a \mta\ is to transport mail from senders to recipients. 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}.

14 An \MTA\ therefore needs at least a mail receiving facility and a mail sending facility.

16 << structure diagram of an MTA (and of masqmail) >>

22 \section{The \masqmail\ project}

23 \label{sec:masqmail}

25 << about masqmail (some history) >>

27 (include history of email, definition of MTA and sendmail-compatibility in text)

29 The \masqmail\ program was written by Oliver \person{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.

31 \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.

33 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.

35 \masqmail\ is released under the \GPL, which makes it \freesw. The latest stable version is 0.2.21 from November 2005.

37 The program's new homepage \citeweb{masqmail:homepage} provides further information about this \MTA.

40 \subsubsection*{Target field}

42 Its original author, Oliver \person{Kurth}, sees \masqmail\ so:

43 \begin{quote}

44 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.

45 \end{quote}

47 \masqmail\ is inteded to cover a specific niche: non-permanent internet connection and different \NAME{ISP}s.

49 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:

50 \begin{quote}

51 In these cases, MasqMail is a slim replacement for full-blown MTAs such as sendmail, exim, qmail or postfix.

52 \end{quote}

53 \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.

55 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.

57 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.

61 \subsubsection*{Typical usage}

62 This section describes situations that make senseful use of \masqmail.

64 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.

66 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.

68 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.

70 A better setup is to run \masqmail\ on every machine %FIXME

73 \subsubsection{Online detection and routes}

74 \label{sec:masqmail-routes}

76 ---

78 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.

80 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.

82 ---

84 \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.

90 \subsubsection*{\masqmail's main goal}

92 \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:

93 \begin{quote}

94 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.

95 \end{quote}

96 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.

98 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.

100 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.

101

102

103 \subsubsection*{Full featured or stripped down}

104

105 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?

106

107 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.

108

109 \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.

110

111 This is not what \masqmail\ was intended to be. Programs that cover this purpose are available; one is \name{msmtp}.

112

113 \masqmail\ shall be a complete \mta. It shall be able to replace ones like \sendmail.

114

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117

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119

120

121

122 \section{Existing code base}

123

124 Here regarded is version 0.2.21 of \masqmail. This is the last version released by Oliver \person{Kurth}, and the basis for my thesis.

125

126

127 \subsubsection*{The source code}

128

129 \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.

130

131 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.

132

133 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.

134

135 \masqmail\ lacks an interface to plug in modules with additional functionality. There exists no add-on or module system. The code is only separated by function to the various source files. Some functional parts can be included or excluded by defining symbols at compile time. Adding maildir support, means giving the option \verb+--enable-maildir+ to the \path{configure} call. This preserves the concerning code to get removed by the preprocessor. Unfortunately the \verb+#ifdef+s are scattered through all the source, leading to a code that is hard to read.

136 %fixme: refer to ifdef-considered-harmful ?

137

138

139

140 \subsubsection*{Features}

141 \label{sec:masqmail-features}

142

143 \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.

144

145 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}.

146

147 Mail queuing and alias expansion is both supported.

148

149 \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.

150

151 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.

152 %masqmail: mailq, mailrm, runq, rmail, smtpd/in.smtpd

153 %sendmail: hoststat, mailq, newaliases, purgestat, smtpd

154

155 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.

156

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165

166 \subsubsection*{What makes it special}

167

168 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.

169

170 Workstations use %FIXME

171

172 \textbf{Alternatives?}

173 % http://anfi.homeunix.org/sendmail/dialup10.html

174

175

176

177 << explain why masqmail is old and why it is interesting/important however! >> %FIXME

178

179 << why is it worth to revive masqmail? >>

180