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Verified Commit 12639369 authored by anarcat's avatar anarcat
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move IMAP deployment rationale to the "other alternatives" section

The idea here is that we don't need to justify every step in the
"actual changes" section. The section will be easier to read that
way. Regrouping this in the lengthy "other alternatives" section will
make the text lighter.
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......@@ -232,42 +232,21 @@ Other things to be careful about:
### IMAP deployment
This consists of an IMAP server deployment. This is a requirement
because the SPF records will *require* people to start using the
submission server to send mail.
And that, in turn requires an IMAP server because of clients
limitations. For example, it's not possible to configure Apple mail of
Office 365 with a remote server unless they also provide an IMAP
service, see [issue tpo/tpa/team#40586](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40586) for details.
It's also possible that implementing mailboxes could help improve spam
filtering capabilities, which are after all necessary to ensure good
reputation with hosts we currently relay mail to.
Finally, it's possible that we will not be able to make "hard"
decisions about policies like SPF, DKIM, or DMARC and would be forced
to implement a "rating" system for incoming mail, which would be
difficult to deploy without user mailboxes, especially for feedback
loops.
This consists of an IMAP and webmail server deployment.
In [the submission service hosting cost evaluation](howto/submission#internal-hosting-cost-evaluation), the hardware
costs related to mailboxes were evaluated at about 2500EUR/year with a
200EUR setup fee, hardware wise. TODO: review hardware cost estimates.
There's a lot of uncertainty regarding incoming email filtering, but
that is a problem we need to solve in the current setup anyways, so we
don't believe the extra costs of this would be significant. At worst,
training would require extra server resources and staff time for
deployment. User support might require more time than with a plain
forwarding setup, however.
We are currently already using Dovecot in a limited way on some
servers, so we will likely reuse this service for the IMAP server. The
webmail will likely be deployed with Roundcube, alongside the IMAP
server. Both programs are packaged and well supported in Debian. Mail
filtering is detailed in another section below.
Therefore, it is estimated that deploying mailboxes would require an
extra 2 weeks setup time, with high uncertainty. Ongoing costs would
probably be similar to the forwarding setup, with high uncertainty as
well.
TODO: webmail
It is estimated that deploying mailboxes would require an 2 weeks
setup time, with high uncertainty. Ongoing costs would probably be
similar to the forwarding setup, with high uncertainty as well.
### SPF/DMARC records
......@@ -611,9 +590,36 @@ sysadmin it's better that way.
# Other alternatives
## Mailboxes (+2500€/year)
## No mailboxes
An earlier draft of this proposal considered changing the
infrastructure to add only a mail exchanger and a relay, alongside all
the DNS changes (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).
We realized the IMAP was a requirement requirement because the SPF
records will *require* people to start using the submission server to
send mail. And that, in turn requires an IMAP server because of
clients limitations. For example, it's not possible to configure Apple
mail of Office 365 with a remote server unless they also provide an
IMAP service, see [issue tpo/tpa/team#40586](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40586) for details.
It's also possible that implementing mailboxes could help improve spam
filtering capabilities, which are after all necessary to ensure good
reputation with hosts we currently relay mail to.
Finally, it's possible that we will not be able to make "hard"
decisions about policies like SPF, DKIM, or DMARC and would be forced
to implement a "rating" system for incoming mail, which would be
difficult to deploy without user mailboxes, especially for feedback
loops.
There's a lot of uncertainty regarding incoming email filtering, but
that is a problem we need to solve in the current setup anyways, so we
don't believe the extra costs of this would be significant. At worst,
training would require extra server resources and staff time for
deployment. User support might require more time than with a plain
forwarding setup, however.
TODO: remove this section, make sure it's not refered to elsewhere.
## High availability setup
We have not explicitly designed this proposal for high availability
......
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