Email (deprecated)

Email hosted by syn₂cat

If you have some email that is hosted by syn2cat, here is how to change the settings. Everything happens on syndi.hackerspace.lu.

Generalities

As per RFC822/2822/5322, an email address decomposes into local-part@domain. In these instructions replace the strings "localpart" and "DOMAIN" by their actual values for the address or domain you want to configure.

In general, the setup is two-level: an admin can either directly configure a domain or a local-part, or delegate that domain or local-part to a user. If a user gets a domain delegated, (s)he becomes the admin for that domain.

Except as detailed below, at each step ({domain,localpart}×{admin, user}), one can use flat-text files or LDAP for settings. The choice in indifferent, except for subtly different features of the storage system (such as symlinks), and different steps for one address can use a different setting storage technology. However, mixing different storage technologies for different settings in the same step of the same address is perilous.

flat-text file

Flat text files are in the directory /etc/exim4/virtual/DOMAIN/ for the admin, and in ~/srv/email/DOMAIN/ for users that got a delegation. Each class of setting (e.g. mail routing, spam filtering, greylisting, DNS black/whitelist, ...) is in a different file. They follow a syntax similar to the traditional /etc/aliases, namely a sequence of entries of format

LHS:      RHS

a left-hand-side, a colon, an arbitrary amount of whitespace and then a right-hand-side, then newline. A newline in the RHS can be escaped with a backslash (\). The file is read, matching the current local-part with the LHS; if there is a match, the instructions in the corresponding RHS are followed. First match wins.

The LHS can be

1. a constant string, matching only itself.
2. a perl-compatible regular expression, starting with ^
3. something like "*FOO" (without the surrounding double quotes), matching any local-part that ends with "FOO". In particular, "*" is a catch-all.
4. other things you are unlikely to want to use, but see the info documentation "(spec)Single-key lookup types" for nwildlsearch if you are curious.

LDAP

LDAP sits at an object of class mailDomain at dc=DOMAIN,dc=hackerspace,dc=lu for admin and at dc=DOMAIN,uid=DELEGATED_USER_UID,ou=People,dc=hackerspace,dc=lu for users that got a delegation. The settings for one local-part are grouped together in a child of that, of class mailAlias at sub-address mailLocalPart=local-part.

The value of the attribute for the setting contains the instructions to be followed for that setting; the syntax of that is always the same as the RHS of the flat-text file.

Delegations

flat-text files

To delegate a whole domain, just symlink /etc/exim4/virtual/DOMAIN to ~USER/srv/email/DOMAIN.

To delegate one or several local-parts, use file "delegations". The RHS should be the username you want to delegate to. For example "echo '^sim[0o]n([-+].*)?: sim0n' >> /etc/exim4/virtual/DOMAIN/delegations" to delegate sim0n@DOMAIN, simon@DOMAIN, sim0n-ANYTHING@domain, sim0n+ANYTHING@DOMAIN, etc to user sim0n.

LDAP

LDAP is not able to delegate whole domains.

To delegate one local-part, create an object of class mailDelegation at sub-address mailLocalPart=local-part, with attribute uid=UID-TO-DELEGATE-TO.

For example:

echo -e 'dn: mailLocalPart=local-part,dc=DOMAIN,dc=hackerspace,dc=lu\nchangetype: add\nobjectClass: mailLocalPart\nobjectclass: mailDelegation\nuid: UID\nmailLocalPart: local-part' | ldapmodify -x -D cn=admin,dc=hackerspace,dc=lu -H ldap://localhost

Mail routing

Mail routing is deciding where some email goes.

the syndi.hackerspace.lu domain

For mail in the syndi.hackerspace.lu domain, traditional UNIX processing (extended and automated) is done: you have address USERNAME@syndi.hackerspace.lu, you can use .forward, .procmailrc, .maildrop, etc files in your home directory and these files will be used automatically.

The default delivery is to ~/Maildir/, not /var/mail/USERNAME.

The ~/.forward file supports exim extensions, or SIEVE. See the "filter" info documentation on syndi, or /usr/share/doc/exim4/{filter.txt,README.SIEVE}.gz

virtual domains

For all other domains, the file is "aliases" and the LDAP attribute is "mailAlias". The RHS (attribute value, respectively) is a comma-separated list of destinations, of the form:

• an email address
• a local-part in the syndi.hackerspace.lu domain
• the special value ":fail:STRING" to make that address not exist; if STRING is non-empty, it is the error message given to the sender. STRING can also specify an SMTP error code.
• the special value ":defer:STRING" to try again later; if STRING is non-empty, it is the warning message given to the sender. STRING can also specify an SMTP error code.
• the special value ":blackhole:" to accept the message, but throw it away.

The ":fail:" special value is useful to introduce exceptions to patterns or regular expressions.

For example:

echo 'afarsimon:    sim0n' >> ~/srv/email/DOMAIN/aliases

instructs that the address afarsimon@DOMAIN goes to local user sim0n, assuming you've got local-part sim0n delegated to you by the admin-level config.

echo -e 'dn: mailLocalPart=afarsimon,dc=DOMAIN,uid=YOUR-UID,ou=People,dc=hackerspace,dc=lu\nchangetype: add\nobjectClass: mailLocalPart\nobjectclass: mailAlias\nmailAlias: sim0n\nmailLocalPart: afarsimon' | ldapmodify -x -D uid=YOUR-UID,ou=People,dc=hackerspace,dc=lu -H ldap://localhost

does the same through LDAP.