Mail Roadmap

Status

• Created: Date(2005-04-24T00:21:03Z) by MattZimmermanBR

• Priority: LowPriorityBR

• People: LaMontJonesLead, JeffBaileySecondBR

• Contributors: MattZimmermanBR

• Interested: SebastienBacherBR

• Status: BrainDump, BreezyGoal, UduBof, DistroSpecificationBR

• Packages: BR

• Depends: BR

• UduSessions: 1(0)BR

Introduction

Unix systems traditionally assume that mail to various accounts on the local system is being read, sent from, etc. On an Ubuntu desktop system, this generally isn't the case.

Spam bad, mmkay?

There are two common formats of storing mail on a Unix system: mbox and maildir. mbox is the older generation with several known issue, such as locking, corruption, and size. Maildir is a newer format defined by Daniel Bernstein that addresses these three limitations.

Rationale

An enduser configuring their Evolution will never be aware that email is accumulating in their local account warning them of various system events.

Spam bad, mmkay?

Various implementation of MTA and spam processing applications have varying levels of support for mbox and maildir. For seamless integration of these, we need to chose a single default.

Scope and Use Cases

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• Grandma Sue has a harddrive that is failing. She needs to be notified that this is happening.
• Spam bad, mmkay?
• In a server environment, our preferred pop3, imap4 and mail reading solutions should all work automatically when installed.

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• Remove the MTA from the base system
• Provide spam filtering out of the box

• Maildir by default ([http://www.ubuntu.com/wiki/MailStorageStandardisation MailStorageStandardisation])

• Delivery into homedir by default ([http://www.ubuntu.com/wiki/MailStorageStandardisation MailStorageStandardisation])

Implementation Plan

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• Prepare list of packages which expect an MTA, for what purpose, and propose alternative implementations
• Remove the MTA from the base system
• Need to make sure all instances of Depends: exim | mail-transport-agent, gets changed to postfix | mail-transfer-agent or dropped completely.
• Need to reduce stupid mails for things like dangling symlinks.
• Integrate with update-notifier to deliver critical notices.
• Move MTAs to ship seed
• Reenable questions in Postfix.

• Ensure that release notes clearly say how to install lsb package.

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Data Preservation and Migration

Packages Affected

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• All mail using

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User Interface Requirements

Outstanding Issues

UDU BOF Agenda

• What to do about automated mail
  • cron
  • debconf
  • sudo
  • ...
• Spam filtering
• Mail storage

UDU Pre-Work

• Prepare list of packages which expect an MTA, for what purpose, and proposed alternative implementations

  • The beginnings of this can be found in the [http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2005-February/004207.html discussion] on ubuntu-devel from February. This discusses the packages then in ubuntu-base and ubuntu-desktop. Other main packages that Depend: mail-transport-agent will be changed to prefer postfix instead of exim or exim4.

Suggestions/Notes

• What about replacing the MTA with SSMTP and configure all clients to use that as the standard smtp "gateway"?
  • Unfortunately, since this would have ubuntu-base Depend: ssmtp, it causes some of the very problems we're attempting to eliminate.

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• Please include [http://gmail-notify.sourceforge.net/ GMail Notifier] or something similar

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UDU BOF Agenda

• What to do about automated mail
  • cron
  • debconf
  • sudo
  • ...
• Spam filtering
• Mail storage

UDU Pre-Work

• Prepare list of packages which expect an MTA, for what purpose, and proposed alternative implementations

  • The beginnings of this can be found in the [http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2005-February/004207.html discussion] on ubuntu-devel from February. This discusses the packages then in ubuntu-base and ubuntu-desktop. Other main packages that Depend: mail-transport-agent will be changed to prefer postfix instead of exim or exim4.

Suggestions/Notes

• What about replacing the MTA with SSMTP and configure all clients to use that as the standard smtp "gateway"?
  • Unfortunately, since this would have ubuntu-base Depend: ssmtp, it causes some of the very problems we're attempting to eliminate.

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Eliminating MTA from Desktop ============================

Maildir by default ==================

• o mbox or maildir, asked once, share the answer. (/etc/mailbox-format) o Anything that can't do maildir needs to be moved to universe (probably already done) o Maildir lives in ~/.maildir/ (non-standard!!)

Spam ====

• o Spam filtering of any sort can be provided, but needs constant updates. o Spam filtering should happen on the server, not the client. o clamav can be provided, but needs constant updates.