7.3 Securing Your MTA

Now we come to the specifics: how to configure SMTP server software securely. But which software should you use?

My own favorite MTA is Postfix. Wietse Venema, its creator, has outstanding credentials as an expert and pioneer in TCP/IP application security, making security one of the primary design goals. What's more, Postfix has a very low learning curve: simplicity was another design goal. Finally, Postfix is extremely fast and reliable. I've never had a bad experience with Postfix in any context (except the self-inflicted kind).

Qmail has an enthusiastic user base. Even though it's only slightly less difficult to configure than Sendmail, it's worth considering for its excellent security and performance. D. J. Bernstein's official Qmail web site is at http://cr.yp.to/qmail.html.

Exim, another highly regarded mailer, is the default MTA in Debian GNU/Linux. The official Exim home page is http://www.exim.org, and its creator, Philip Hazel, has also written a book on it, Exim: The Mail Transfer Agent (O'Reilly).

I mention Qmail and Exim because they have their proponents, including some people I respect a great deal. But as I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, Sendmail and Postfix are the MTAs we're going to cover in depth here. So if you're interested in Qmail or Exim, you'll need to refer to the URLs I just pointed out.

After you've decided which MTA to run, you need to consider how you'll run it. An SMTP gateway that handles all email entering an organization from the Internet and vice-versa, but doesn't actually host any user accounts, will need to be configured differently from an SMTP server with local user accounts and local mailboxes.

The next two sections are selective tutorials on Sendmail and Postfix, respectively. I'll cover some basic aspects (but by no means all) of what you need to know to get started on each application, and then I'll cover as much as possible on how to secure it. Where applicable, we'll consider configuration differences between two of the most common roles for SMTP servers: gateways and what I'll call "shell servers" (SMTP servers with local user accounts).

Both Sendmail and Postfix are capable of serving in a wide variety of roles and, therefore, support many more features and options than I can cover in a book on security. Sources of additional information are listed at the end of this chapter.