[clug] Linux Security

David Tulloh david at tulloh.id.au
Thu Oct 9 23:57:58 GMT 2008


On Thu, October 9, 2008 6:37 pm, steve jenkin wrote:
>
> Picking up an old thread, I was wondering how people provide (local)
> email access for 'global travellers'.
> ...
>
> Is this solved with just TLS/SSL + user login (and I get busy reading),
> or will using SSH's ability to map a remote port locally be easiest?
>
> User runs Windows and is not terribly IT capable - the config has to be
> simple and 'set and forget'. Plus be able to suffer others tinkering
> with it if he goes somewhere and it stops & locals get 'helpful' :-(

SSL + user login is very simple from the users perspective as most email
clients support it.  SSH tunnels and VPN seem like overkill if you just
want SMTP.

Most email clients allow you to connect and authenticate to the SMTP
server using SSL.  This generally requires accessing some kind of
advanced configuration tab to set it up but if you hit the 'remember
password' box the user will never realise that anything is different.

SMTP over SSL is widely used.  I use Internode's secure email server
from my laptop, they will happily let you authenticate and send email
from anywhere in the world.  A nice extra feature is that you will no
longer be sending your confidential business information around in
plaintext.


David


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