Some thoughts on security after ten years of qmail 1.0

  • Authors:
  • Daniel J. Bernstein

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Illinois, Chicago, IL

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 2007 ACM workshop on Computer security architecture
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

The qmail software package is a widely used Internet-mail transfer agent that has been covered by a security guarantee since 1997. In this paper, the qmail author reviews the history and security-relevant architecture of qmail; articulates partitioning standards that qmail fails to meet; analyzes the engineering that has allowed qmail to survive this failure; and draws various conclusions regarding the future of secure programming.