[jay.scot]
[014]


--[ Re-evaluating my local mail setup with OpenSMTPD


This one is not limited to OpenBSD, but something I came across and
implemented after reading about daily(8) and security(8). These scripts
perform a variety of system tasks daily, weekly, and monthly. The report
produced by these tasks is sent to the local user, which prompted me to
re-evaluate my current email situation.


Previously, any mail I generated was sent via an external SMTP relay
configured directly in mutt. This also included my git configuration
file, which had an external SMTP relay set up for sending patches using
git-send-email. When sending mail via shell scripts, I would do this by
invoking mutt in the following manner.

	echo "the body" | mutt -s 'the title' -- me@domain.com


Outside of the initial local user mail delivery issue, it worked, but
came with overhead. If there were connectivity issues with the SMTP
relay, things would hang or break. Mail would not be queued unless it
was handled by the application or script. I would get a 1-2 second delay
when mutt connected to the relay, which was annoying for some scripts.
All mail that was meant for me, such as scripting results or
notifications, would go through a public round trip.

    Then:
      script -> external smtp relay -> external imap fetch -> mutt (maildir)

    Now:
      script -> local openSMTPD -> mutt (maildir)


And finally, after setting up OpenSMTPD locally I now get all system
mail directly to my Maildir and a mail queue system. I should have fixed
it ages ago, it's a nice quality of service change.


.EOF