Installing EmailRelay on OpenBSD

EmailRelay is a free, open-source SMTP proxy that can be used to relay email messages between different email servers. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install EmailRelay on OpenBSD.

Prerequisites

Before starting with the installation of EmailRelay on OpenBSD, you must have the following:

  • A running instance of OpenBSD
  • Root access or sudo privileges to install packages

Step 1: Update the System

The first step is to update your OpenBSD system to make sure you have the latest software packages and security updates.

sudo pkg_add -u

This command updates all installed packages on your OpenBSD system.

Step 2: Install EmailRelay

EmailRelay is available in the OpenBSD packages repository. Use the following command to install EmailRelay on OpenBSD.

sudo pkg_add emailrelay

The package manager will install EmailRelay along with its dependencies.

Step 3: Configure EmailRelay

After installing EmailRelay, it needs to be configured before you can use it. The configuration file of EmailRelay is located at /etc/emailrelay/emailrelay.conf.

You can open the configuration file using any text editor of your choice.

sudo vi /etc/emailrelay/emailrelay.conf

By default, EmailRelay is configured to listen on localhost port 8025 for incoming SMTP connections. You can change these settings as per your requirements.

Step 4: Start EmailRelay

After configuring EmailRelay, you can start it using the following command:

sudo /etc/rc.d/emailrelay start

This command starts the EmailRelay service. You can also use the status and restart options with the rcctl command to check the status and restart the EmailRelay service.

Step 5: Testing EmailRelay

You can test the EmailRelay installation by sending an email to the email relay server using the telnet command.

telnet localhost 8025

This command establishes a connection with the EmailRelay server. After the connection is established, type HELO to identify yourself to the server, and then type MAIL FROM and RCPT TO to specify the sender and recipient email addresses.

If you do not encounter any errors, you have successfully installed and configured EmailRelay on your OpenBSD system.

Conclusion

EmailRelay is a powerful SMTP proxy that can be used to relay email messages between different email servers. This tutorial demonstrated how to install and configure EmailRelay on OpenBSD. With EmailRelay, you can improve the performance, reliability, and security of your email infrastructure.