Postfix/TLS - Testing

Testing the package is a little bit difficult, as the communication is encrypted, so that you cannot "imitate" the conversation just by telnetting to the SMTP port. You also cannot capture the packets (well, you can, but if everything is working as advertised, it won't help you :-).

Included debugging aids

As all of the messages generated by Postfix are sent to the syslog facility, debugging must be done using your normal system logfiles. Postfix/TLS supports the logging levels 0 (very quiet) up to 4 (a dump of the complete conversation, not recommended).

As a first step set smpt[d]_tls_loglevel=2 and watch the logfile. Typically you will have problems with the access to the keys or certificates, so you will find error messages here.

You can always try to send an email to postfix_tls-bounce@serv01.aet.tu-cottbus.de with TLS enabled at your side and watch, what is going to happen :-)

While testing the interoperability with ZMailer we learned, that an incorrect certificate type (must be server for the server :-) can lead to connection failures without clear symptoms. It helps to use Netscape 4.5x as a client and carefully study the message boxes and certificate information. I have yet to find out how to identify this problem from postfix to print a suitable warning to the logfile. Hopefully it will be possible without changes in the OpenSSL library.

Platforms

Please don't comment on the stability of Netscape, especially not on HP-UX...

Interoperability

Besides support by generic wrapper solutions, there exist specially crafted extensions for other MTAs: Other reports are welcome.

Known interoperability problems