IndiMail

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IndiMail

IndiMail is a FS / OSS mail server built using following packages qmail, serialmail, qmailanalog, dotforward, fastforward, mess822, daemontools, ucspi-tcp, IMAP/POP3, Bogofilter - A Bayesian Spam Filter, Fetchmail, other useful utilities (pack, unpack, altermime, ripmime, flash). IndiMail also provides Management of Virtual domains. Some components especially qmail have been heavily modified. IndiMail works on 32 / 64 bit Unix platforms.

IndiMail came with the first release on Aug 15, 2008 to symbolically mark freedom from proprietary software. Aug 15th marks India's Independence from British Rule. A review of Sourceforge on Sep 09, 2009 indicates that IndiMail is ranking 654th on all packages with numerous third-party applications. IndiMail is licensed under GNU General Public License V3 (GPLv3)

Architecture

IndiMail provides qmail-remote (SMTP) / qmail-local (MDA), proxyimap (IMAP) & proxypop3 (POP3) which are user-location aware. This gives IndiMail the ability to distribute the users across multiple hosts using standard non-proprietary protocols and RFCs. The other use of user-location aware property is to have a single domain consisting of a heterogeneous email server environment (with some users on MS Exchange and some on Lotus Notes some on IndiMail). You can have multiple hosts hosting a domain placed geographically anywhere and tied up by IndiMail. This allows you to seamlessly migrate from a proprietary solution. The proxies for IMAP / POP3 and a SMTP router allows one to put any proprietary email server behind IndiMail. This does not force a filesystem architecture like NFS to be used for provisioning large number of users (typically in an ISP/MSP environment)

IndiMail departs from qmail in having multiple queues (called a queue collection). The collection, with each queue having its own dedicated qmail-todo / qmail-queue process, allows IndiMail to achieve high concurrency and hence process a very high incoming rate of mails compared to a system running with a single queue. The system ids, configuration files used by IndiMail are all configurable through a set (> 200) of environment variables. IndiMail uses envdir to use these environment variables for configuring the different services like SMTP, IMAP, POP3. The environment variables are also configurable using a system called envrules. This gives the ability of a single installation of IndiMail have a different behavior for each queue, sender, recipient, source host, destination host.

IndiMail can be installed either from the source, RPM or using YUM repository. The RPM installs qmail, daemontools, ucspi-tcp, serialmail, mess822, clamav, Fetchmail, Bogofilter, altermime, ripmime, mpack, nssd, libdkim, Courier IMAP/POP3 all in one package. IndiMail uses MySQL as the database for storing user information. The RPM installs IndiMail using philosophy outlined in Life with qmail. IndiMail is listed as one of the MTAs providing DKIM.

Features

Speed IndiMail uses a modified qmail as the MTA. qmail's modular, lightweight design and sensible queue management provides IndiMail the speed to make it one of the fastest available message transfer agent. IndiMail provides qmail-multi, a drop-in replacement to qmail-queue. qmail-multi uses multiple queues with each queue running its own qmail-send process. This allows IndiMail to process mails faster than what can be provided by qmail.

Setup

   * automatic adaptation to your UNIX variant
   * Linux, SunOS, Solaris, and more
   * automatic per-host configuration - gnu autoconf
   * High degree of automation of configuration through svctool
   * RPM packages for multiple Linux Distros

Security

   * clear separation between addresses, files, and programs
   * minimization of setuid code (qmail-queue, qhspi, qscanq, systpass)
   * minimization of root code (qmail-start, qmail-lspawn)
   * five-way trust partitioning---security in depth
   * optional logging of one-way hashes, entire contents, etc. (EXTRAQUEUE)
   * virus scanning through qscanq
   * Inbuilt virus scanner
   * sender/recipient accesslist, hostaccess using tcprules.

Message construction

   * RFC 822, RFC 1123
   * full support for address groups
   * automatic conversion of old-style address lists to RFC 822 format
   * sendmail hook for compatibility with current user agents
   * header line length limited only by memory
   * host masquerading (control/defaulthost)
   * user masquerading ($MAILUSER, $MAILHOST)
   * automatic Mail-Followup-To creation ($QMAILMFTFILE)
   * ability to add signature/content to messages using altermime.

SMTP service

   * RFC 2821, RFC 1123, RFC 1651, RFC 1652, RFC 1854, RFC 1870, RFC 1893
   * 8-bit clean
   * 931/1413/ident/TAP callback
   * relay control---stop unauthorized relaying by outsiders (control/rcpthosts)
   * no interference between relay control and aliases
   * automatic recognition of local IP addresses
   * per-buffer timeouts
   * hop counting
   * parallelism limit (tcpserver)
   * per host limit (tcpserver - MAXPERIP)
   * refusal of connections from known abusers
     (tcpserver, badmailfrom, badmailpatterns, badhelo, blackholedsender, blackholedpatterns)
   * goodrcptto, goodrcptpatterns which override the above
   * blackholercpt, blackholercptpatterns for blackholing mails to specific senders.
   * Control files spamignore, blackholedsender, badmailfrom, relaymailfrom,
     badrcptto, chkrcptdomains, goodrcptto, blackholercpt
     can be specified in plain text, cdb format as well as stored in MySQL tables.
   * relaying and message rewriting for authorized clients
   * authenticated SMTP PLAIN, LOGIN, CRAM-MD5 ( HMAC (RFC 1321, RFC 2104, RFC 2554))
   * STARTLS extension, TLS
   * Support for SMTPS
   * POP/IMAP before SMTP
   * ETRN (RFC 1985)
   * ODMR (RFC 2645)
   * RBL/ORBS support (rblsmtpd)
   * SPAM Control (Reject/Tag/Accept) using Bayesian techniques
   * High Performance MS Virus Control via control file viruscheck and
     control file signatures
   * Content Filtering and blocking of prohibited attachments via control file bodycheck
   * Ability to bounce mails for unknown/inactive users (CHECKRECIPIENT)
   * ability to have the RECIPIENT check for selective domains using
     control file chkrcptdomains
   * Antispoofing mode (turned on by environment variable ANTISPOOFING)
   * Masquerading ability.
   * Multiline greetings via control file smtpgreeting
   * Message Submission Agent – MSA (RFC 2476)
   * Domain IP address pair access control via control file hostaccess
   * Per User accesslist via control file accesslist
   * SPF – Sender Permitted From
   * Per User control of environment variable by envrules
     (rules file set by environment variable FROMRULES)
   * Greylisting capability using qmail-greyd or greydaemon
   * Bounce Address Tag Validation (BATV)

Queue management

   * instant handling of messages added to queue
   * parallelism limit (control/concurrencyremote, control/concurrencylocal)
   * split queue directory---no slowdown when queue gets big
   * quadratic retry schedule---old messages tried less often
   * independent message retry schedules
   * automatic safe queueing---no loss of mail if system crashes
   * automatic per-recipient checkpointing
   * automatic queue cleanups (qmail-clean)
   * queue viewing (qmail-qstat)
   * detailed delivery statistics (qmailanalog)
   * Configurable number of queues and time slicing algorithm for load balancing
     via qmail-multi. A queue in indimail is configurable by three environment variables
     QUEUE_BASE, QUEUE_COUNT, and QUEUE_START. A queue in IndiMail is a collection of queues.
     Each queue in the collection can have one or more SMTP listener but a single or no
     delivery (qmail-send) process. It is possible to have the entire queue collection without
     a delivery process (e.g. SMTP on port 366 – ODMR). The QUEUE_COUNT can be defined based on
     how powerful your host is (IO bandwidth, etc).
     NOTE: This configurable number of queues is possibe with a single installation and does not
     require you to install multiple instances of qmail.
   * Ability to hold local, remote or both deliveries (holdlocal, holdremote control file)
   * Qmail Queue Extra Header – Ability to pass extra headers to local and remote deliveries
     via qmail-queue (Environment variable QQEH).
   * External Virus scanning via QHPSI – Qmail High Performance Scanner Interface
   * Ability to extend QHPSI interface through plugins. The keyword plugin:shared_lib
     defined in the environment variable QHPSI denotes 'shared_lib' to be loaded.
   * Virus scanner qscanq. Ability to detect virus via a third party scanner defined by SCANCMD
     environment variable (clamscan, clamdscan, etc)
   * Blocking of prohibited filename extensions via qscanq program
   * Domainkeys (qmail-dk) RFC 4870
   * DKIM with ADSP/SSP (qmail-dkim) RFC 4871
   * Set all header values listed in envheader control file as environment variables.
   * Log all headers listed in control file logheaders to stderr.
   * Remove all headers listed in control file removeheaders from email.
   * Ability to do line processing instead of block processing.
   * qmail-nullqueue – blackhole the mail silently.

Bounces

   * QSBMF bounce messages---both machine-readable and human-readable
   * HCMSSC support---language-independent RFC 1893 error codes
   * double bounces sent to postmaster
   * Ability to discard double bounces
   * Ability to preserve MIME format when bouncing.
   * Control of bounce process via envrules (rules file controlled by environment
     variable BOUNCERULES)
   * limit size of bounce using control file bouncemaxbytes
   * Ability to process bounces using external bounce processor
     (environment variable BOUNCEPROCESSOR)

Routing by domain

   * any number of names for local host (control/locals)
   * any number of virtual domains (control/virtualdomains)
   * domain wildcards (control/virtualdomains)
   * configurable percent hack support (control/percenthack)
   * Clustered Domain. Same virtual domain can exist on multiple hosts,
     each having its own set of users. Provides Load Balancing and infinite scalability.

Remote SMTP delivery

   * RFC 2821, RFC 974, RFC 1123, RFC 1870
   * 8-bit clean
   * automatic downed host backoffs
   * Configurable tcp timeouts for downed host backoffs.
   * automatic switchover to next best MX
   * artificial routing---smarthost, localnet, mailertable (control/smtproutes)
   * Support for jumbo ISP (control/smtproutes.cdb)
   * per-buffer timeouts
   * passive SMTP queue---perfect for SLIP/PPP (serialmail)
   * AutoTURN support (serialmail)
   * Authenticated SMTP (userid/passwd in control/smtproutes)
   * STARTTLS, TLS
   * Static and Dynamic Routing. (SMTPROUTES environment variable)
   * Spam control (SPAMFILTER environment variable)
   * Environment variable control via envrules (rules file controlled by
     environment variable RCPTRULES)
   * QMAILREMOTE environment variable to run any executable/script instead of qmail-remote

Local delivery

   * user-controlled address hierarchy : fred controls fred-anything
   * mbox delivery
   * reliable NFS delivery (maildir)
   * user-controlled program delivery: procmail etc. (qmail-command)
   * optional new-mail notification (qbiff)
   * detailed Delivered-To Headers
   * optional NRUDT return receipts (qreceipt)
   * autoresponder RFC 3834 compliance (provide Auto-Submitted,
     In-Reply-To, References fields (RFC 3834))
   * conditional filtering (condredirect, bouncesaying, vfilter)
   * Environment variable control via envrules (rules file controlled by
     environment variable RCPTRULES)
   * Eliminate duplicate messages
   * QMAILLOCAL environment variable to run any executable/script instead of qmail-local

Other

   * Unix Client Server Program Interface (UCSPI) through
     programs tcpserver and tcpclient
   * Change concurrency of tcpserver without restart.
   * TLS/SSL Support in tcpserver
   * Ability to restrict connection per IP (MAXPERIP)
   * run shutdown script if present on svc -d
   * ability to log svscan output using multilog
   * inlookup – High Performance User Lookup Daemon.
   * indisrvr – Indimail Administration Daemon.
   * spawn-filter - Ability to add disclaimer, run multiple filters before
     local/remote delivery.
   * Proxy for IMAP/POP3 Protocol
   * svctool – Configuration tool for IndiMail.

Support

There are four Mailing Lists for IndiMail

  1. indimail-support - You can subscribe for Support at
     https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indimail-support.
     You can email indimail-support@lists.sourceforge.net for posting messages to this list.
     Old discussions can be seen here.
  2. indimail-devel   - You can subscribe at
     https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indimail-devel.
     You can email indimail-devel@lists.sourceforge.net for posting messages to this list.
     Old discussions can be seen here.
  3. Archive at Google - http://groups.google.com/group/indimail.
     This group acts as a remote archive for both indimail-support and indimail-devel list at
     sourceforge. Any discussions posted here goes to indimail-support.
  4. indimail-announce - This is only meant for announcement of New Releases or patches.
     You can subscribe at http://groups.google.com/group/indimail.

There is also a Project Tracker for IndiMail (Bugs, Feature Requests, Patches, Support Requests) at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=230686

Download

• IndiMail Source
• RPM / YUM repositories

References

Template:Reflist

See also

• Official qmail website, maintained by D.J. Bernstein
• Unofficial qmail website, maintained by Russ Nelson
• Life With Qmail
• The qmail section of FAQTS, an extensive knowledgebase built by qmail users
• qmailWiki is a relatively new wiki about qmail, hosted by Inter7
• Unofficial qmail Bug and Wishlist
• qmail-distributions - qmail patches combined into easy to use distributions