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Verified Commit dfb9ddc7 authored by anarcat's avatar anarcat
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add "bot" to personas

This actually impacts a lot of things, as we need to take those
servers into account when we do SPF and DKIM. Right now, I think the
plan is to grant those servers their own DKIM keys.

Also note the confusion about the name of `relay` which I thought I
already did cover, but now that becomes a little more obvious as we
start to refer to those things.
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......@@ -75,6 +75,26 @@ server uses it for authentication.
[issue 40539]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/40539
[issue 19914]: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/tpa/team/-/issues/19914
### Processing mail servers
Those servers handle their own outgoing email (ie. they do *not* go
through `eugeni`) and handle incoming email as well, unless otherwise
noted:
* BridgeDB (`polyanthum`)
* CiviCRM (`crm-int-01`, Dovecot)
* Gettor (`gettor-01`)
* GitLab (`gitlab-02`)
* LDAP (`alberti`)
* MTA (`eugeni`)
* Nagios/Icinga (`hetzner-hel1-01`, no incoming)
* Prometheus (`prometheus-02`, no incoming)
* RT (`rude`)
* Submission (`submit-01`)
Surprisingly, the Gitolite service (`cupani`) does *not* relay mail
through the MTA (`eugeni`).
## Known issues
The current email infrastructure has many problems. In general,
......@@ -255,20 +275,30 @@ replacing a part of `eugeni`.
### New mail relays
Configure new "mail relay" server(s) to relay mails from servers that
do not send their own email, replacing a part of `eugeni`.
do not send their own email, replacing a part of `eugeni`. Those are
temporarily called `submission-tls` but could be named something else,
see the [Naming things](#naming-things) Challenge below.
This is similar to current submission server, except with TLS
authentication instead of password.
### DKIM and ARC signatures
Implement outgoing DKIM signatures, probably with OpenDKIM.
Implement outgoing DKIM signatures, probably with OpenDKIM. This will
actually involve deploying that configuration on *any* server that
produces outgoing email. Each of those servers (listed in "Processing
mail servers" above) will therefore require its own DKIM records and
running a copy of the DKIM configuration.
### SPF/DMARC records
Deploy of SPF and DMARC DNS records, which will impact users not on
the submission and IMAP servers. This includes users with plain
forwards and without an LDAP account.
Deploy of SPF and DMARC DNS records to a strict list of allowed
servers. This list should include any email servers that send their
own email (without going through the relay, currently `eugeni`),
listed in the "Processing mail servers" section.
This will impact users not on the submission and IMAP servers. This
includes users with plain forwards and without an LDAP account.
Possible solutions for those users include:
......@@ -432,6 +462,32 @@ we suddenly have a much higher risk of leaking personal data in case
of compromise. This is a trade-off with the privacy we gain from not
giving that data to a third party.
### Naming things
Throughout this document, the term "relay" has been used liberally to
talk about a new email server processing email for other
servers. That terminology, unfortunately, clashes with the term
"relay" used extensively in the Tor network to designate "Tor relays",
which create circuits that make up the Tor network.
As a stopgap measure, the new relays were called `submission-tls` in
the architecture diagram, but that is also problematic because it
might be confused with the current `submission` server, which serves a
very specific purpose of relaying mail for *users*.
Technically, the `submission` server and the `submission-tls` servers
are both MTA, or a [Message Transfer Agent][MTA]. Maybe that terminology
could be used for the new "relay" servers to disambiguate them from
the submission server, for example the first relay would be called `mta-01.torproject.org`.
Or, inversely, we might want to consider both servers to be the same
and both name them `submission` and have the `submission` service also
accept mail from other TPO servers over TLS. So far that approach has
been discarded to separate those tasks, as it seemed simpler
architecturally.
[MTA]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_transfer_agent
## Cost estimates
Summary:
......@@ -649,6 +705,23 @@ They will have to reconfigure their mail server to relay mail through
the submission server. They will also likely start using the IMAP
server.
## Blipblop, the bot
Blipblop is not a real human being, it's a program that receives mails
from humans and acts on them. It can send you a list of bridges
(bridgedb), or a copy of the Tor program (gettor), when requested. It
has a brother bot called Nagios/Icinga who also sends unsolicited mail
when things fail. Both of those should continue working properly, but
will have to be added to SPF records and an adequate OpenDKIM
configuration should be deployed on those hosts as well.
There's also a bot which sends email when commits get pushed to
gitolite. That bot is deprecated and is likely to go away.
In general, attention will be given to those precious little bots we
have everywhere that send their own email. They will be taken care of,
as much as humanely possible.
# Other alternatives
Those are other alternatives that were considered as part of drafting
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