+++
date = '2024-11-19T16:29:01Z'
draft = true
title = 'How to Set up a Mail Server on Alpine Linux with Postfix and Dovecot'
+++

# About mail servers

Simply put, a mail server sends and receives email. When `ruby@protonmail.com` emails `klaasje@gmail.com`, Protonmail's
mail server's <abbr title="Mail Transfer Agent">MTA</abbr> sends the email to Google's mail server's MTA. Google's
MTA then passes the email on to Google's <abbr title="Mail Delivery Agent">MDA</abbr>, which is responsible for storing
the email. MDAs also run <abbr title="Internet Message Access Protocol">IMAP</abbr> or <abbr
title="Post Office Protocol 3">POP3</abbr> servers so you can read your emails and send emails with an email client.
IMAP and POP3 are protocols for email retrieval over [TCP/IP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite).
For sending email, you would use [<abbr
title="Simple Mail Transfer Protocol">SMTP</abbr>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol).

Or visualise it like this:

    Ruby's email client via SMTP -> Protonmail's MTA -> Google's MTA -> Google's MDA -> Klaasje's email client via IMAP

A mail server is software which can be run on any computer, including yours. You can host a mail server on a server you
already own that is hosting other services, so long as those other services aren't using any of the [mail
ports](#unblock-your-ports).

## Why run my own mail server?

I'll cut to the chase: the main reason why you'd want to run your own mail server is for related reasons of privacy and
digital sovereignty. For privacy benefits, as much as you have control over your server, you can protect your email
from the eyes of prying server admins (given that you yourself are the admin). Even for email providers that market
themselves around privacy such as Protonmail, rely on trust that Proton are not reading your unencrypted incoming
email. This is not an issue exclusive to any particular mail provider; if information arrives unencrypted at a server,
those with access to the server (i.e. administrators) can read that information, simple as. And as nice as it would be
if everyone used GPG end-to-end encryption for email, the vast majority of emails people receive are not end-to-end
encrypted, and entirely legible to the mail servers involved. If you're not exchanging <abbr
title="End-to-End Encrypted">E2EE</abbr> email, you can't mitigate the fact that your exchange is entirely legible to
the mail server of the person you're corresponding with, but you can at least eliminate your anxieties about the mail
server you yourself are using.[^server_trust]

Running your own mail server also allows you to implement things your way, with the features you want. For instance,
[you can run a sieve filter for encrypting all incoming mail with a user's public GPG
key](https://www.grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_Email); for obvious reasons, public (as in, open to
public sign-up) mail servers that implement sieve do not allow users to create their own executables for sieve filters.

Hosting your own mail server is not something I would universally recommend to people. While I'm very much against
"nothing to hide, nothing to fear", a combination of that factor alongside a low state threat model (i.e. there is
little state interest in you, domestic or foreign), a lack of relevant knowledge, and a lack of interest in managing
your own server/learning how to, likely make self-hosting email not a reasonable privacy suggestion.

When you host your own mail server, you are responsible for securing the server. If you entrust Google with your email,
you can at least know that your email is secure, though not private; Google will hire people with the relevant
knowledge and skills to secure a mail server. If you are not confident in your ability to do this and not interested in
learning, you may want to find another solution.

# Why this tutorial?

There are many tutorials on the internet about how to set up a mail server. I don't claim that mine is particularly
better than anyone else's; I'm mostly writing this for my own reference so that I can recreate my own setup on new
machines.

There are existing
[mail server tutorials for Alpine Linux](https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Hosting_services_on_Alpine#Mail), including
ones for Postfix and Dovecot. This tutorial aims to be "monolithic" (i.e. covers the entire mail server setup with all
its components), making it easier to follow without trying to follow different tutorials that may not be 100%
compatible with each other, and to be adapted to my own specific use-cases, which may not be yours.

I am hugely indebted to [LinuxBabe's mail server tutorial for
Ubuntu](https://www.linuxbabe.com/mail-server/setup-basic-postfix-mail-sever-ubuntu), which is actually what I followed
to set up my own server. Essentially, this tutorial could be thought of as an Alpine Linux adaptation of LinuxBabe's
tutorial. If you want to set up an Ubuntu or Debian mail server, I recommend following LinuxBabe's tutorial, which is
written very clearly and is easy to follow.

The mail server will be composed of the following software:

<!-- Using an html table for colspan & rowspan -->
<table>
    <tr>
        <th>Component</th>
        <th colspan="2">Software</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Mail transfer agent</td>
        <td colspan="2">Postfix</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Mail delivery agent</td>
        <td colspan="2">DKIM authentication and signing</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Spam filter</td>
        <td rowspan="2">Amavis</td>
        <td>SpamAssassin</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Antivirus</td>
        <td>ClamAV</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>MDA server-side filtering</td>
        <td colspan="2">Pigeonhole</td>
    </tr>
</table>

Postfix will be our SMTP server, and Dovecot will run an IMAP server for us.

Postfix and Dovecot are required for the minimum of what you'd expect from a working mail server (i.e. a user can log
in through a standard SMTP/IMAP/POP3 email client, read their emails, and send emails). The rest is optional and
modular, i.e. you can opt to have e.g. Pigeonhole but not Amavis.

We will end up with a small-scale mail server running on Alpine Linux with one domain, and we will use Unix user
accounts as mail accounts. We will only set up IMAP, not POP3.

This tutorial was written for Alpine Linux 3.20.3, though will most likely work on other versions too.

This tutorial assumes no prior knowledge about mail servers.

# You will need

## A server

Any computer will do. This tutorial is for Alpine Linux specifically.

The relevant thing to consider for your server is that port 25 (the port for sending email) is not blocked. Most <abbr
title="Virtual Private Server">VPS</abbr> hosts block port 25 because spammers commonly use VPSes to send spam, so you
will need to find one that doesn't block port 25. Some VPS hosts block port 25 by default, but will unblock it upon
request, and re-block it if they find you are spamming.

## A domain name

Self-explanatory. You need a domain name and the ability to set its DNS records.

# Before you start

## Set up your DNS records

Firstly, pick a domain for your mail server. If you're sending emails from `domain.com`, `mail.domain.com` is a common
choice.

### MX record

An MX record denotes that your domain is used to send and receive email, and tells other MTAs the domain name of your
mail server. We will use `mail.domain.com` for your MX record. For instance, my MX record looks like:

```bindzone
revsuine.xyz.                    14400 IN MX    0 mail.revsuine.xyz
```

### Mail server records (A, AAAA, and/or CNAME)

Now you need to set a record stating the IP address of your mail server (`mail.domain.com` above). Depending on your
setup, you may want to create a CNAME record pointing to `domain.com` if the IP address of `mail.domain.com` is the
same as the IP address of `domain.com`, or an A record if the IP address is not shared with another domain.

I use a CNAME record because the IP addresses of `mail.revsuine.xyz` and `revsuine.xyz` are the same, so my record is:

```bindzone
mail.revsuine.xyz.               14400 IN CNAME revsuine.xyz
```

If you use an A record, your record may look something like

```bindzone
mail.domain.com.                    14400 IN A     ip.address.here
```

If you use IPv6, you should also add an AAAA record, e.g.:

```bindzone
mail.domain.com.                    14400 IN AAAA  ip:address:here::
```

### A note on my DNS records

I use one server with one IP address for hosting several services under one apex domain. For instance, my static
website is hosted at `revsuine.xyz`; my Nextcloud is hosted at `cloud.revsuine.xyz`; and my mail server is hosted at
`mail.revsuine.xyz`. To handle this setup, I've created a subdomain `master.revsuine.xyz` (you can call the subdomain
anything you want) with an *A record* (because your [PTR record](#ptr-record) is expected to be an A record, not a
CNAME record) to my server's IP address.

I set my server's hostname and PTR record to `master.revsuine.xyz`. I will also refer to this `master.revsuine.xyz`
subdomain further down when configuring Postfix.

### PTR record

A PTR record is used for "reverse DNS", or rDNS, lookup: instead of mapping a domain to an IP address, it maps an IP
address to a domain. It is not managed through your DNS manager (e.g. whomever you bought your domain name from), but
through whoever gives you your IP address. If you rent a server, be it a VPS or a dedicated server, your hosting
provider whom you rent from will be able to manage PTR records. You may have an option to add a PTR record in the
dashboard of your hosting provider, or you may have to contact their support to get a PTR record added.

For the above stated reasons, my PTR record for my single server (which hosts all my services) is `master.revsuine.xyz`.

If your hostname is `mail.domain.com`, your PTR record should be `mail.domain.com`.

## Unblock your ports

After unblocking ports from your internet provider (e.g. if your VPS host blocks outgoing port 25), make sure the
following TCP ports are open on your firewall:

| Port | Usage                             |
| ---- | --------------------------------- |
| 25   | SMTP                              |
| 143  | IMAP                              |
| 465  | Email message submission over TLS |
| 587  | Email message submission          |
| 993  | IMAPS (IMAP over TLS)             |

## Obtain a TLS certificate

To enable TLS encryption, you need a certificate. [Let's Encrypt](https://letsencrypt.org/) provides free TLS
certificates. To get a certificate from them, you can use certbot:

    # apk add certbot

We will need a web server to use certbot. I'm going to use nginx for this guide, because nginx is what I use on my
server, but [the certbot website](https://certbot.eff.org/) has instructions for a variety of setups. If you don't
already have an nginx server, install nginx and set it up now.

Install `certbot-nginx` with:

    # apk add certbot-nginx

Add the following to your nginx config (for instance, inside `http {}` in `/etc/nginx/nginx.conf`, or in a dedicated
virtual host file `/etc/nginx/http.d/mail.domain.com.conf`):

```nginx
server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name mail.domain.com;

    root /usr/share/nginx/html/;

    location ~ /.well-known/acme-challenge {
        allow all;
    }
}
```

Replace `mail.domain.com` with the <abbr title="Fully-Qualified Domain Name">FQDN</abbr> of your mail server.

The `root` can be set to any extant directory on your system that you're happy to publish to the web. You can just make
an empty directory at `/usr/share/nginx/html`, or make this the directory of your website, etc.

Reload or restart nginx for the changes to take effect:

    # rc-service nginx reload

Now run the following command to get your free TLS certificate:

    # certbot certonly -a nginx --staple-ocsp --email your@email.here -d mail.domain.com

If you have several subdomains in your nginx config that you'd like covered by the same certificate, you can omit `-d
mail.domain.com` and get a certificate covering all the domains in your nginx config. On my server, I have one
certificate at `/etc/letsencrypt/revsuine.xyz/` covering my apex domain and all subdomains. If you go for a certificate
with only one domain name, e.g. for `mail.domain.com`, it will be at `/etc/letsencrypt/mail.domain.com/`.

# Postfix

Postfix is a [mail transport agent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_transfer_agent) (aka SMTP server). [In its
own words](https://www.postfix.org/):

> Postfix attempts to be fast, easy to administer, and secure. The outside has a definite Sendmail-ish flavor, but the
> inside is completely different.

## Installing Postfix

On your server, install Postfix with:

    # apk add postfix

You likely also want to have Postfix documentation:

    # apk add postfix-doc

Verify that Postfix is installed by checking its version:

    $ postconf mail_version

## Configuring Postfix

Edit `/etc/postfix/main.cf`.

You should set `myhostname` to the hostname of your server; [in my case, this is
`master.revsuine.xyz`](#a-note-on-my-dns-records).

Now set `mydomain` to the domain you intend to send email from. For instance, my email addresses are
`name@revsuine.xyz`, so `mydomain` is set to `revsuine.xyz`.

`myorigin` determines the domain name in the `From:` field of locally sent emails. So you could for instance set this
to `revsuine.xyz`.

`maillog_file` denotes where Postfix's log file is. By default this is `/var/log/messages`; you may want to configure
Postfix to have a dedicated log file like `/var/log/postfix.log`.

You probably want to have `logrotate` rotate your Postfix log. If there isn't already such a file, you want to create
one at `/etc/logrotate.d/postfix`:

```
/var/log/postfix*.log
/var/log/mail*.log
{
    daily
    missingok
    notifempty
    rotate 7
}
```

## Send your first email

Have the `postfix` service auto-start upon boot, and start it during this session:

    # rc-update add postfix default
    # rc-service postfix start

You can now send an email with the following command:

    $ echo "test email" | sendmail user@externaldomain.com

Send this email to your email account with an external server, e.g. a Gmail account. Note that Protonmail has quite
stringent spam filters and this likely would be rejected by Protonmail, i.e. not even reach your spam folder.

## Configure email aliases

You can configure aliases for your mail server. Edit the `/etc/postfix/aliases`[^postfix_aliases_location] file.

You shouldn't receive mail as root, so configure `root` to have an alias to your user, e.g.

```
root: revsuine
```

You also *must* have a `MAILER-DAEMON` and `postmaster` alias present:

```
MAILER-DAEMON: postmaster
postmaster:    root
```

Note how you can have referential aliases; mail to `postmaster` is aliased to `root`, which is aliased to `revsuine`,
so ultimately `revsuine` will get `postmaster`'s mail.

You can continue to populate the aliases file with whatever aliases you want.

# Dovecot

[Dovecot](https://www.dovecot.org/) is a popular IMAP and POP3 server which we'll be using for our MDA.

<!-- FOOTNOTES: -->

[^server_trust]: This is only true to the extent that your server is not compromised. You could say there's an order of
    server trust-ability that goes:

    ```
    VPS < rented dedicated server < server you yourself physically own, store, and manage
    ```

    There is little that can be done to secure a VM running on a compromised host. Even with full-disk encryption, the
    host can dump the encryption key from RAM, because the encryption key must be stored in memory whilst a
    full-disk-encrypted system is booted.

    For a dedicated server you rent, there are at least no concerns about a compromised host, but an attacker with
    physical access (in this case, the untrusted people you rent the dedicated server from) can attempt evil maid
    attacks. You are hopefully able to implement mechanisms to detect this, though.

    There are reasons you may want to go with a rented server instead of one you own, though. For instance, if you live
    in a jurisdiction known for terrible privacy laws such as a [5/14 eyes
    country](https://restoreprivacy.com/5-eyes-9-eyes-14-eyes/), or if you are a political dissident with domestic
    state interest in you, you likely want to go offshore for server hosting. Changing the jurisdiction can protect you
    if the jurisdiction you choose won't work with your national intelligence agencies.

[^postfix_aliases_location]: Your aliases file will most likely be in this location by default, but you can run

    ```
    $ postconf alias_maps
    ```

    to find out where this file should be.