+++ /dev/null
-Wish list:
-
- Things to do before the stable release:
-
- Remove this file from the stable release.
-
- Things to do after the stable release:
-
- When does it pay off to send domains in the active queue
- to a DNS prefetch daemon? Could this generalize to a dynamic
- transport map that piggy-backs domains with the same MX
- host into the same mail delivery transaction?
-
- inline table where the "whitespace replacement" character
- is specified in-line. Ex: inline:XYname1Xvalue1Yname2Xvalue2
- would instantiate a table with (name1, value1) and (name2,
- value2). I'm afraid this is just too ugly.
-
- tlsproxy(8) should receive TLS preferences from postscreen(8)
- and smtpd(8), instead of reading them from main.cf. This
- means that many tlsproxy_ parameters become postscreen_
- parameters, and that tls_server_init() parameters move to
- to tls_server_start(). That is a significant API change.
-
- anvil rate limit for sasl_username.
-
- Encapsulate nbbio buffer access and update by tlsproxy.
-
- Full-duplex support for tlsproxy(8). This requires updating
- events(3) and nbbio(3).
-
- Register automagic destructor for object attached to VSTREAM.
-
- smtpd xclient option for sasl_username.
-
- Use different ipc time limits for email message transactions
- (smtpd, pickup)->cleanup and for quick query/reply transactions
- such as address rewriting/resolution. Beware of large time
- limits for local or virtual alias expansion.
-
- permit_tempfail_action (default: defer_if_reject) to be
- used as the default value for dnswl_tempfail_action and
- rhswl_tempfail_action. Steal liberally from the code that
- implements unverified_recipient_tempfail_action etc.
-
- Support filtering of messages that are generated by Postfix:
- This would apply to postmaster notices and bounce messages
- (DKIM), and address verification (BATV).
-
- As postscreen implements more ESMTP keywords, need to copy
- inter-operability features from smtpd to filter keywords
- and command syntax.
-
- Consistency: in postconf.proto make <dt>..</dt> tags bold.
-
- postscreen(8): listen on multiple IP addresses and enforce
- that the client contacts the primary MX address first (i.e.
- punish hosts that contact the secondary before the primary).
- The downside with any approach that relies on temporary
- punishment is that it does not scale to configurations
- with multiple equal-preference MX hosts. Such hosts would
- have to share the postscreen cache, causing an unacceptable
- performance bottleneck and a single point of failure.
-
- According to a paper by Ted Unangst at BSDCON09, kqueue
- reports state changes, i.e. kqueue indicates when the socket
- becomes readable. Specifically, he writes when kqueue reports
- a socket becomes readable but no data is read from that
- socket, later kqueue calls won't report the socket as
- readable. That's not what happens on FreeBSD 8.0, where
- kqueue will keep reporting the socket as readable when
- nothing is read. Also, FreeBSD 8.0 kqueue still reports
- the socket as readable after a read operation does not empty
- the kernel buffer. We need a test program for this that
- repeats these tests with OpenBSD and NetBSD (and MacOS X
- once they fix their kqueue implementation).
-
- Would it help if there were different cleanup_service
- parameter names for different message paths? smtpd(8) uses
- the same cleanup_service value for receiving remote mail
- and for submitting postmaster problem reports. Do we need
- separate mumble_cleanup_service_name parameters for "inject",
- "notify" and "forward" (with backwards compatible defaults)?
-
- IF/ENDIF support for CIDR tables.
-
- Make postconf aware of magical suffixes (the ones that
- combine with transport names) and show them in "postconf
- -n" output. Making this work with "postconf -d" is trickier.
-
- Need a regular expression table to translate address
- verification responses into hard/soft/accept reply codes.
-
- Is there a way to make sendmail -V work after local alias
- expansion? Majordomo-like mailing lists would benefit from
- this; the example in VERP_README does not work in the general
- case.
-
- When an alias is a member of an :include: list with owner-
- alias, local(8) needs an option to deliver alias or alias->user
- indirectly. What happens when an :include: list with owner-
- alias includes another list?
-
- Don't allow empty result values in pcre and regexp maps.
- Postfix doesn't allow them anywhere else (check this).
-
- Make PCRE_MAX_CAPTURE configurable.
-
- Add some checks for tokens starting with #. A challenge
- is to report sensible context from the guts of some low-level
- parser, without introducing a great deal of clumsiness.
-
- Add sendmail macros for {verify} and maybe other TLS info.
-
- Find out if we are doing the correct thing by looking at
- state->milter_reject_text when expanding {rcpt_addr} or
- {rcpt_host}.
-
- Find out why post_mail() etc. block when the qmgr fifo is
- full (answer: trigger_timeout). How can this cause delays
- in the queue manager? When a recipient bounces during
- (transport, nexthop, address) resolution, it is redirected
- to the error or retry mailer; and bounce-after-delivery is
- asynchrounous so it can't block the queue manager, either.
-
- Add smtpd_sender_login_maps to proxy_read_maps, and make
- sure that defaults are set before proxy_read_maps is
- evaluated. What other parameters are worthy of being
- whitelisted for proxy access? Is there a way to automate
- this decision?
-
- How to ensure that proxy_read_maps is processed after all
- its dependencies are initialized, or just bite the bullet
- and rewrite the parameter initialization code.
-
- The cleanup virtual alias expansion limit does not really
- deliver on its promises. 1) It promises to truncate the
- result without aborting delivery, which would be undesirable
- anyway, but that is not what it does, so that is good. 2)
- It keeps all the recipients from multi-recipient database
- lookup, then terminates further recursion when the result
- exceeds the expansion limit. This behavior achieves the
- original goal that all things shall have a finite size (even
- though but we don'really care how large they are) but may
- result in surprises when recipients are listed in virtual
- alias domains or need expansion for other reasons. In a
- phone call with Victor, a reasonable way out is to set the
- limit to some large number (100000) and abort delivery when
- the result exceeds the limit.
-
- Should the postscreen save permanent white/black list lookup
- results to the temporary cache, and query the temporary
- cache first? Skipping white/black list lookups will speed
- up the handling of "good" clients without a permanent
- whitelist entry. Of course, this means that updates to the
- white/black lists do not immediately take effect. Workarounds:
- 1) use a shorter temporary cache TTL for clients on the
- permanent black/white lists; 2) ignore cached white/black
- list lookup results after "postfix reload"; 2) adjust the
- logging, for example "WHITELISTED address (cached)" and
- "BLACKLISTED address (cached)" to eliminate surprises.
- Comparing the cache entry time with the white/blacklist
- file modification time is not foolproof: for example, pcre
- or CIDR tables are read only once.
-
- It would be nice if the generic dict_cache(3) cache manager
- could postpone process suicide until cache cleanup is
- completed (but that is not possible when postscreen forks
- into the background to finish already-accepted connections,
- and it is not desirable when a host is being shut down).
-
- When postscreen drops a connection, a 521 "greeting" should
- be of the form "521 servername..." and not have an enhanced
- status code. The "521 5.7.1" form can be used after EHLO.
- Of course no spammer is going to complain about Postfix
- SMTP compliance.
-
- Find a place to document all the mail routing mechanisms
- in one place so people can figure out how Postfix works.
-
- Investigate viability of Sendmail socket maps (the moral
- equivalent of tcp_table(5)), and dns maps.
-
- The access map BCC action is marked "not stable", perhaps
- because people would also expect BCC actions in header/body_checks.
- How much would it take to make the queue file editing code
- generally usable?
-
- Move smtpd_command_filter into smtpd_chat_query() and update
- the session transcript (see smtp_chat_reply() for an example).
-
- SMTP connection caching without storing connections, to
- improve TLS mail delivery performance.
-
- postscreen has separate socket budgets for whitelisted
- clients and for other clients. If we add a dummy SMTP engine
- then we extend the session length for non-whitelisted clients
- and need to increase the socket budget (or create a new
- budget class, which complicates the user interface).
-
- Should not milter8_mail_event() unset the "hold" default
- reply? Better, the default reply should not be used for
- this purpose.
-
- Unescape the pregreeter's HELO command argument so that
- <CR><LF> don't show up as ??.
-
- Make postscreen logging easier. Always log connect, then log
- why the connection is or is not forwarded.
-
- Don't send MASTER_STAT_TAKEN/MASTER_STAT_AVAIL when a server
- runs with process limit of 1. But this means the master
- never learns that the process is successful and will always
- pause $service_throttle_time before restarting a failed service.
-
- Don't bother maintaining a per-service lockfile when a
- server runs with process limit of 1. The purpose of the
- lockfile is to avoid thundering herd problems when the kernel
- wakes up multiple processes for each new client connection.
-
- Concurrency/speed-matching: invoke a before-queue (smtpd_proxy)
- filter after the entire message is received, so that fewer
- filter processes will be running simultaneously. In some
- parts of the world, after-queue filtering is problematic.
-
- This is different than the MailChannels patented solution
- to multiplex many slow SMTP connections over a few fast
- SMTP connections. We simply postpone opening the connection
- to the filter, and rely on the before-filter SMTP server
- to reject invalid recipients. MailChannels uses one
- connection-to-MTA to discover invalid recipients, receives
- the email message with a potentially reduced bitrate, and
- then uses another connection-to-MTA to deliver the message
- quickly.
-
- Implement PREPEND action for milter_header_checks. Save the
- to-be-prepended text to buffer, then emit it along with the
- new header.
-
- Fix the header_body_checks API, so that the name of the map
- class (e.g. milter_header_checks) is available for logging.
-
- Fix the mime_state and header_body_checks APIs, so that
- they use VSTRINGs. This simplifies REPLACE actions.
-
- Update FILTER_README for multi-instance support, and rename
- the old document to FILTER_LEGACY_README.
-
- Need to sign delivery status notifications, to avoid surprises
- when eventually people start enforcing DKIM etc. signatures.
-
- Either document or remove the internal_mail_filter_classes
- feature (it's disabled by default).
-
- "postconf -N" option to print user-defined parameter names
- (these have no defaults, since they exist only when
- specified in main.cf or with "-o name=value").
-
- Make the "unknown recipient" test configurable as
- first|last|never, with "yes"=="last" for backwards
- compatibility. The "first" setting is good for performance
- (stress=yes) when all users are defined in local files; but
- it may perform worse when users are in networked tables.
-
- Cleanup: make DNSBL query format configurable beyond the
- client's reversed IP address.
-
- With 'final delivery' in the LMTP client, need an option
- to also add delivered-to and other pipe(8) features. This
- requires making mail_copy() functionality available in
- non-mailbox context.
-
- Cleanup: modernize the "add missing From: header" code, to
- ``phrase <addr>'' form. Most likely, quote the entire phrase
- if it contains any text that is special, then rfc822_externalize
- the whole thing.
-
- SMTP server: make the server_addr and server_port available
- to policy server, Dovecot, and perhaps Milters.
-
- Med: local and remote source port and IP address for smtpd
- policy hook.
-
- Maybe change maps_rbl_reject_code default to 521, and
- update wording in STRESS_README.
-
- Encapsulate time_t comparisons so that they can be made
- system dependent (use difftime() where available).
-
- Encapsulate time_t conversions (e.g. REC_TYPE_TIME) so that
- they can be made system dependent.
-
- Plan for time_t larger than long, or wait for LP64 to
- dominate the world?
-
- Make "AUTH=<>" appendage to MAIL FROM configurable, enabled
- by default.
-
- To support ternary operator without a huge parsing effort,
- consider ${value?{xxx}:{yyy}} where ${name} is existing
- syntax, and where ?{text} and :{text} are new syntax that
- is unlikely to break existing configurations. Or perhaps
- it's just too ugly.
-
- Write delivery rate delay example (which _README?) and auth
- failure cache example (SASL_README). Then include them in
- SOHO_README.
-
- Look for alternatives for the use of non_smtpd_milters.
- This involves some way to force local submissions to go
- through a local SMTP client and server, without triggering
- "mail loops back to myself" false alarms. The advantage is
- that it makes smtpd_mumble_restrictions available for local
- and remote mail; the disadvantage is that it makes local
- submissions more dependent on networking. One possibility
- is to use "pickup -o content_filter=smtp:127.0.0.1:10025",
- or a dedicated SMTP client/server on UNIX-domain sockets;
- we could also decide to always suppress "mail loop" detection
- for loopback connections. Another option is to have the
- pickup or cleanup server drive an SMTP client directly;
- this would require extension of the mail_stream() interface,
- plus a way to handle bounced/deferred recipients intelligently,
- but it would be at odds with Postfix design where delivery
- agents access queue files directly; exposing delivery agents
- to raw queue files violates another Postfix design principle.
-
- Consolidate duplicated code in *_server_accept_{pass,inet}().
-
- Consolidate duplicated code in {inet,unix,upass}_trigger.c.
-
- In the SMTP client, handle 421 replies in smtp_loop() by
- having the input function raise a flag after detecting 421
- (kill connection caching and be sure to do the right thing
- with RSET probes), leave the smtp_loop() per-command reply
- handlers unchanged, and have the smtp_loop() reader loop
- bail out with smtp_site_fail("server disconnected after
- %s", where), but only in the case that it isn't already in
- the final state. But first we need to clean up the handling
- of do/don't cache, expired, bad and dead sessions.
-
- Combine smtpd_peer.c and qmqpd_peer.c into a single function
- that produces a client context object, and provide attribute
- print/scan routines that pass these client context objects
- around. With this, we no longer have to update multiple
- pieces of code when a client attribute is added. Ditto for
- SASL and TLS context.
-
- Make TLS_BIO_BUFSIZE run-time adjustable, to future-proof
- Postfix for remote connections with MSS > 8 kbytes.
-
- Don't log "warning: XXXXX: undeliverable postmaster
- notification discarded" for spam from outside.
-
- Really need a cleanup driver that allows testing against
- Milter applications instead of synthetic events. This would
- have to provide stubs for clients that talk to Postfix
- daemon processes. See if this approach can also be used for
- other daemons.
-
- smtpd(8) exempts $address_verify_sender from access controls,
- but it doesn't know whether cleanup(8) or delivery agents
- modify the sender. Would it be possible to "calibrate" this
- exemption, perhaps by having delivery agents pass the probe
- sender to the verify server, keeping in mind that the probe
- sender may differ per delivery agent due to output rewriting.
-
- Update attr_print/scan() so they can send/receive file
- descriptors. This simplifies kludgy code in many daemons.
-
- Would there be a problem adding $smtpd_mumble_restrictions
- and $smtpd_sender_login_maps to the default proxy_read_maps
- settings?
-
- Remove defer(8) and trace(8) references and man pages. These
- are services not program names. On the other hand we have
- man pages for lmtp(8) and smtp(8), but not for relay(8).
- Likewise, retry(8) does not have a man page.
-
- Bind all deliveries to the same local delivery process,
- making Postfix perform as poorly as monolithic mailers, but
- giving a possibility to eliminate duplicate deliveries.
-
- Maybe declare loop when resolve_local(mxhost) is true?
-
- Update message content length when adding/removing headers.
-
- Need scache size limit.
-
- Make postcat header/body aware so people can grep headers.
- What headers? primary, mime, nested? What body? Does it
- include the mime and attached headers?
-
- REDIRECT should override original recipient info, and
- probably override DSN as well.
-
- Find out if with Sendmail, a Milter "add recipient" request
- results in NOTIFY=NONE as Postfix does now.
-
- Update FILTER_README with mailing list suggestions to tag
- with a badness indicator and then filter down-stream.
-
- Make null local-part handling configurable: either expand
- into mailer-daemon (current bahavior) or disallow (strict
- behavior, currently implemented only in the SMTP server).
-
- The type of var_message_limit (and other file size/offset
- configuration parameters or internal protocol attributes)
- should be changed from int to off_t. This also requires
- checking all expressions in which var_message_limit etc.
- appears: qmqpd, netstring, deliver_request, ...
-
- Add M flag (enable multi-recipient delivery) to pipe daemon.
-
- The usage of TLScontext->cache_type is unclear. It specifies
- a TLS session cache type (smtpd, smtp, or lmtp), but it is
- sometimes used as an indicator that TLS session caching is
- unavailable. In reality, that decision is made by not
- registering call-back functions for cache maintenance.
-
- Postfix TLS library code should copy any strings that it
- receives from the application, instead of passing them
- around as pointers. TLScontext->cache_type is a case in
- point.
-
- Are transport:nexthop null fields the same as in the case
- of default_transport etc. parameters?
-
- Don't lose bits when converting st_dev into maildir file
- name. It's 64 bits on Linux. Found with the BEAM source
- code analyzer. Is this really a problem, or are they just
- using 64 bits for upwards compatibility with LP64 systems?
-
- Do or don't introduce unknown_reverse_client_reject_code.
-
- Check that "UINT32 == unsigned int" choice is ok (i.e. LP64
- UNIX).
-
- Tempfail when a Milter application tries to negotiate content
- access, while it is configured in an SMTP server that runs
- before the smtpd_proxy filter.
-
- Log DSN original recipient when rejecting mail.
-
- Keep whitespace between label and ":"?
-
- Make the map case folding/locking options configurable, if
- not at run-time then at least at compile time so we get
- consistent behavior across applications.
-
- Investigate what it would take to eliminate oqmgr, and to
- make the old behavior configurable in a unified queue
- manager. This would shave another 2.7 KLOC from the source
- footprint.
-
- Document the case folding strategy for match_list like
- features.
-
- Eliminate the (incoming,deferred)->active rename operation.
- This requires an in-memory hash of queue file names to avoid
- duplicate open() operations.
-
- Softbounce fallback-to-ISP for SOHO users. This heuristic
- assumes that when direct-to-MX delivery fails with 5XX,
- delivery via the ISP may still succeed. This could be
- implemented by enabling soft bounces for destinations other
- than the smtp_fallback_relay. So the only benefit of this
- over the existing soft_bounce feature is that it has no
- effect on smtp_fallback_relay deliveries.
-
- Centralize main.cf parameter input so that defaults work
- consistently. What about parameter names that are prefixed
- with mail delivery transport names?
-
- Fix default time unit handling so that we can have a default
- bounce lifetime of $maximal_queue_lifetime, without causing
- panics when a non-default maximal_queue_lifetime setting
- includes no time unit.
-
- After the 20051222 ISASCII paranoia, lowercase() lowercases
- ASCII text only.
-
- Privacy: remove local command/pathname details from remote
- delivery status reports, and log them via local msg_warn().
-
- Is it safe to cache a connection after it has been used for
- more than some number of address verification probes?
-
- Try to recognize that Resent- headers appear in blocks,
- newest block first. But don't break on incorrect header
- block organization.
-
- Hard limits on cache sizes (anvil, specifically).
-
- Laptop friendliness: make the qmgr remember when the next
- deferred queue scan needs to be done, and have the pickup
- server stat() the maildrop directory before searching it.
-
- Low: replace_sender/replace_recipient actions in access
- maps, so they can be used in policy servers?
-
- Low: configurable order of local(8) delivery methods.
-
- Med: smtp_connect_timeout_budget (default: 3x smtp_connect_timeout)
- to limit the total time spent trying to connect.
-
- Med: transform IPv4-in-IPv6 address literals to IPv4 form
- when comparing against local IP addresses?
-
- Med: transform IPv4-in-IPv6 address literals to IPv4 form
- when eliminating MX mailer loops?
-
- Med: Postfix requires [] around IPv6 address information
- in match lists such as mynetworks, debug_peer_list etc.,
- but the [] must not be specified in access(5) maps. Other
- places don't care. For now, this gotcha is documented in
- IPV6_README and in postconf(5) with each feature that may
- use IPv6 address information. The general recommendation
- is not to use [] unless absolutely necessary.
-
- Med: the partial address matching of IPv6 addresses in
- access(5) maps is a bit lame: it repeatedly truncates the
- last ":octetpair" from the printable address representation
- until a match is found or until truncation is no longer
- possible. Since one or more ":" are usually omitted from
- the printable IPv6 address representation, this does not
- really try all the possibilities that one might expect to
- be tried. For now, this gotcha is documented in access(5).
-
- Low: reject HELO with any domain name or IP address that
- this MTA is the final destination for.
-
- Low: should the Delivered-To: test in local(8) be configurable?
-
- Low: make mail_addr_find() lookup configurable.
-
- Low: update events.c so that 1-second timer requests do not
- suffer from rounding errors. This is needed for 1-second
- SMTP session caching time limits. A 1-second interval would
- become arbitrarily short when an event is scheduled just
- before the current second rolls over.
-
- Low: configurable internal/system locking method.
-
- Low: add INSTALL section for pre-existing Postfix systems.
-
- Low: add INSTALL section for pre-existing RPM Postfixes.
-
- Low: disallow smtpd_recipient_limit < 100 (the RFC minimum).
-
- Low: noise filter: allow smtp(8) to retry immediately if
- all MXes return a quick ECONNRESET or 4xx reply during the
- initial handshake. Retry once? How many times?
-
- Low: make post-install a "postfix-only script" so it can
- take data from the environment instead of main.cf.
-
- Low: randomize deferred mail backoff.
-
- Med: separate ulimit for delivery to command?
-
- Med: postsuper -r should do something with recipients in
- bounce logfiles, to make sure the sender will be notified.
- To be perfectly safe, no process other than the queue manager
- should move a queue file away from the active queue.
-
- This could involve tagging a queue file, and use up another
- permission bit (postsuper tags a "hot" file, qmgr requeues it).
-
- Low: postsuper re-run after renaming files, but only a
- limited number of times.
-
- Low: smtp-source may block when sending large test messages.
-
- Med: find a way to log the sender address when MAIL FROM
- is rejected due to lack of disk space.
-
- Low: revise other local delivery agent duplicate filters.
-
- Low: all table lookups should consistently use internalized
- (unquoted) or externalized (quoted) forms as lookup keys.
- smtpd, qmgr, local, etc. use unquoted address forms as keys.
- cleanup uses quoted forms.
-
- Low: have a configurable list of errno values for mailbox
- or maildir delivery that result in deferral rather than
- bouncing mail. What about "killed by signal" exits?
-
- Low: after reorganizing configuration parameters, add flags
- to all parameters whose value can be read from file.
-
- Medium: need in-process caching for map lookups. LDAP servers
- seem to need this in particular. Need a way to expire cached
- results that are too old.
-
- Low: generic showq protocol, to allow for more intelligent
- processing than just mailq. Maybe marry this with postsuper.
-
- Low: default domain for appending to unqualified recipients,
- so that unqualified names can be delivered locally.
-
- Low: The $process_id_directory setting is not used anywhere
- in Postfix. Problem reported by Michael Smith, texas.net.
- This should be documented, or better, the code should warn
- about attempts to set read-only parameters.
-
- Low: postconf -e edits parameters that postconf won't list.
-
- Low: while converting 8bit text to quoted-printable, perhaps
- use =46rom to avoid having to produce >From when delivering
- to mailbox.
-
- virtual_mailbox_path expression like forward_path, so that
- people can specify prefix and suffix.