dovecot - Dec 2022 - Self hosting solution for Christmas

Hello everyone,

Here my present for Christmas: a new version of HomeBox, the self hosted email
solution.

Feel free to drop comments, create issues, update the docs, etc.

I released this quickly before going on vacation, so you may find some issues.
However, this is mostly stable, and the code is easy to modify.

Also, you can now add and remove components individually, with an Ansible
playbook.

https://github.com/progmaticltd/homebox

System installation and features

- Custom Debian installer generation with full disk encryption and fully
automatic installation.
- Unlock the system upon boot by entering the passphrase through SSH.
- Install packages only from Debian stable (Bullseye).
- Automatic letsencrypt certificates generation using Lego and DNS challenge.
- Automatic security updates (optional).
- Centralised authentication with an LDAP users database, SSL certificate,
password policies, PAM integration.
- AppArmor activated with a profile for all daemons.
- XKCD Random passwords generated and saved into pass (or on file system).
- Can be used at home, on a dedicated or virtual server hosted online.
- Flexible IP address support: IPv4 only, IPv6 only, and IPv4+IPv4 or IPv4+IPv6.
- Embedded DNS server, with CAA, DNSSEC and SSHFP (SSH fingerprint) support.
- Grade A https sites, HSTS implemented by default.
- Automatic configuration of OpenPGP Web Key Directory.
- Automatic firewall rules for inbound, outbound and forwarding traffic, using
nftables.
- Restricted outbound web sites access to the minimum.
- Automatic update of DNS keys, DNS servers and glue records on Gandi.

Emails

- Postfix configuration and installation, with LDAP lookups, internationalised
email aliases, fully SSL compliant.
- Generate DKIM keys, SPF and DMARC DNS records. The DKIM keys are generated
every year.
- Automatic copy of sent emails into the sent folder.
- Automatic creation of the postmaster account and special email addresses using
RFC 2142 specifications.
- Dovecot configuration, IMAPS, POP3S, Quotas, ManageSieve.
- Simple spam and ham learning by moving emails in and out the Junk folder
- Sieve and vacation scripts.
- Virtual folders for server search: unread messages, conversations view, all
messages, flagged and messages labelled as "important".
- Email addresses with recipient delimiter included, e.g. john.doe+lists at
dbcooper.com.
- Optional master user creation, e.g. for families with children or moderated
communities.
- Server side full text search inside emails, attached documents and files and
compressed archives, with better results than GMail.
- SOGo webmail with sieve filters management, password change form, Calendar and
Address book management, GUI to import other account emails.
- Powerful and light antispam system with rspamd and optional access to the web
interface.
- Antivirus for inbound and outbound emails with clamav (optional).
- Automatic configuration for Thunderbird and Outlook using published XML and
other clients with special DNS records (RFC 6186).

Calendar and Address book

- Install and configure a CalDAV / CardDAV server, with automatic discovery (RFC
6186).
- Groupware functionality in a web interface, with SOGo.
- Recurring events, email alerts, shared address books and calendars.
- Mobile devices compatibility: Android, Apple iOS, BlackBerry 10 and Windows
mobile through Microsoft ActiveSync.

Other optional features

- Incremental backups, encrypted, on multiple destination (SFTP, S3, Samba share
or USB drive), with email and Jabber reporting.
- Jabber server, using ejabberd, with LDAP authentication, direct or offline
file transfer and optional server to server communication.
- Static web site skeleton configuration, with https certificates and A+
security grade by default.

Development

- YAML files validation on each commit, using travis-ci.
- End to end integration tests for the majority of components.
- Playbooks to facilitate the installation or removal of development packages.
- Global debug flag to activate the debug mode of all components.
- Fully open source Ansible scripts licensed under GPLv3.

Merry Christmas,
Andr?

> 
> Here my present for Christmas: a new version of HomeBox, the self hosted
> email solution.
> 
> Feel free to drop comments, create issues, update the docs, etc.
> 
> I released this quickly before going on vacation, so you may find some
> issues. However, this is mostly stable, and the code is easy to modify.
> 
That is why one should not be interested to much risk of lacking future support.
What if your wife gets pregnant and there is no update/release for 9 months? ;)
Obviously I admire such open source efforts.
It is just such a pity to see so many projects initiated seemingly without first
trying to bundle forces. This is especially visible in crm all these individual
projects are 'shitty', I do not get why none of them try and work
together to create a few good ones.

I used to always state that there is only one real distribution you could use,
and that is the centos one. Basically because you could always buy a redhat
license and get the support of a billion dollar company (now even IBM), but with
their stream direction this all becomes questionable. However most projects do
not even have an argument other than 'this is the distribution I know'.

The only long term alternative I see, is using containers that hardly have any
os dependency and behave more like micro services. So you focus on the direct
updates of suppliers.