Hi Victor,

> On Dec 11, 2017, at 6:13 PM, Viktor Dukhovni <postfix-us...@dukhovni.org> 
> wrote:
> 
>> On Dec 11, 2017, at 5:40 PM, J Doe <gene...@nativemethods.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I have a question regarding specifying where the list of trusted CA’s are in 
>> regards to the smtp client.
> 
> The recommended set of trusted CAs for the Postfix SMTP client is
> *empty*.  TLS in SMTP is opportunistic, and email sent whether or
> not the peer appears to be authenticated.  So any trusted CAs you
> might configure are largely just wasted memory and CPU.

Ok.  If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that if the SMTP 
client is configured to use opportunistic TLS, the mail will be delivered 
regardless of whether the remote peer is *authenticated* ?

In my case, I use opportunistic TLS for the SMTP client:

    /etc/postfix/main.cf
        smtp_tls_security_level = may

I then had the CA list set up:

    /etc/postfix/main.cf
        smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

I did not have any per-destination rules set up - all mail via the SMTP client 
used these settings.  When I send a test message in to my server and the SMTP 
client sends it out to my test Gmail address, I note that the TLS log line in 
mail.log is:

Dec 11 20:40:44 server postfix/smtp[2559]: Trusted TLS connection . . .

But when I remove the CA list the log line is:

Dec 11 20:40:44 server postfix/smtp[2559]: Untrusted TLS connection . . .

*HOWEVER* you are saying that the authentication status (“Trusted” / 
“Untrusted”), is actually irrelevant as the mail will still be delivered to 
Gmail regardless.  The fact that I receive successful authentication 
(“trusted”), is irrelevant compared to no authentication (“untrusted”), because 
the mail goes through either way so in effect all I am doing is wasting compute 
resources ?

Apologies if this is a basic question - I do appreciate your help.  

After Postfix configuration ins and outs, I have a book ready on cryptography 
that I am going to read to get a better handle on this.

- J

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