>> However, my main point of confusion was surrounding the use of >> "smtp_tls_security_level", where I believe the documentation says the >> default for this setting is 'none'. > > As documented in TLS_README and other places, the default is "no > TLS" for both server and client, and I do not expect that to change. > Sites that want to use TLS will have to configure it (with "may", > typically).
OK, sounds like you are not interested in changing the default. I expected that. I still maintain that adding verbiage that links the two settings would add value to the documentation... the TLS_README is a fairly long document and it is easy to miss that detail or not understand what is required versus optional. However, it strikes me as strange that developers went through the trouble of automatically configuring "smtpd_use_tls = yes" for client/servers that support STARTTLS, when that setting has little value if the smtp_tls_security_level setting is not also changed. What other purpose does the smtpd_use_tls setting have, except to explicitly disable the protocol? As a bit of an aside, I see that there is a setting called "smtp_tls_loglevel' that is independent of "debug_peer_list" that may have helped me? IMO this distinction is not intuitive, users typically don't expect to have to enable debug logging in multiple places to diagnose a problem. I am not sure if it is included in the higher log levels of smtp_tls_loglevel, but perhaps you might consider adding a log message such as: "WARNING remote server advertised support of STARTTLS but smtp_tls_security_level is defined as none; communications will not be encrypted." In any case, thanks for your time and attention. Hopefully someone finds this conversation helpful when searching the archives. Matt
