Improve mail quality

[stoecker]

The email sent by certspotter is so low quality, that it's hard to get it through a spam filter.

Please add:

• A configurable "From" (i.e. sender address).
• Use this from in the SMTP hello message (-f option of sendmail)
• Use the header line "Precendence: bulk" to indicate it's not human generated.
• If possible add some short text like "This is an automated message of certspotter running on {machinename}. A new certificate for domain {domain} was detected in the list of {ctprovidername}. Following text describes the certificate:" ... or something similar to make it look like a real human would write this. Make the email also better readable.

Especially the sender from address and the "From:" mail header are important. They also enable to properly setup DKIM/DMARC.

First 3 points I fixed hardcoded in notify.go on my system:
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "From: myname@mytld\n")
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "To: %s\n", strings.Join(to, ", "))
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Subject: [certspotter] %s\n", notif.Summary())
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Date: %s\n", time.Now().Format(mailDateFormat))
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Message-ID: <%s>\n", generateMessageID())
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Mime-Version: 1.0\n")
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII\n")
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "X-Mailer: certspotter\n")
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Precedence: bulk\n")
fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "\n")
fmt.Fprint(stdin, notif.Text())

args := []string{"-i", "-f", "myname@mytld", "--"}

[stoecker]

Patch against 0.18:

diff -ur pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]_orig/cmd/certspotter/main.go pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]/cmd/certspotter/main.go
--- pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]_orig/cmd/certspotter/main.go	2024-05-21 15:53:27.388850751 +0200
+++ pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]/cmd/certspotter/main.go	2024-05-21 15:14:09.636850751 +0200
@@ -169,6 +169,7 @@
 		verbose     bool
 		version     bool
 		watchlist   string
+		mailSender  string
 	}
 	flag.IntVar(&flags.batchSize, "batch_size", 1000, "Max number of entries to request per call to get-entries (advanced)")
 	flag.Func("email", "Email address to contact when matching certificate is discovered (repeatable)", appendFunc(&flags.email))
@@ -182,6 +183,7 @@
 	flag.BoolVar(&flags.verbose, "verbose", false, "Be verbose")
 	flag.BoolVar(&flags.version, "version", false, "Print version and exit")
 	flag.StringVar(&flags.watchlist, "watchlist", defaultWatchListPathIfExists(), "File containing domain names to watch")
+	flag.StringVar(&flags.mailSender, "mailsender", "", "Sender mail address")
 	flag.Parse()
 
 	if flags.version {
@@ -204,6 +206,7 @@
 		Email:               flags.email,
 		Stdout:              flags.stdout,
 		HealthCheckInterval: flags.healthcheck,
+		MailSender:          flags.mailSender,
 	}
 
 	emailFileExists := false
diff -ur pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]_orig/man/certspotter.md pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]/man/certspotter.md
--- pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]_orig/man/certspotter.md	2024-05-21 15:53:27.392850751 +0200
+++ pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]/man/certspotter.md	2024-05-21 15:13:05.480850751 +0200
@@ -113,6 +113,10 @@
     certspotter reads the watch list only when starting up, so you must restart
     certspotter if you change it.
 
+mailsender *ADDRESS*
+
+:   Sender address for mail notification.
+
 # NOTIFICATIONS
 
 When certspotter detects a certificate matching your watchlist, or encounters
diff -ur pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]_orig/monitor/config.go pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]/monitor/config.go
--- pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]_orig/monitor/config.go	2024-05-21 15:53:27.392850751 +0200
+++ pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]/monitor/config.go	2024-05-21 15:13:54.920850751 +0200
@@ -25,4 +25,5 @@
 	Email               []string
 	Stdout              bool
 	HealthCheckInterval time.Duration
+	MailSender          string
 }
diff -ur pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]_orig/monitor/notify.go pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]/monitor/notify.go
--- pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]_orig/monitor/notify.go	2024-05-21 15:53:27.396850751 +0200
+++ pkg/mod/software.sslmate.com/src/[email protected]/monitor/notify.go	2024-05-21 15:14:24.456850751 +0200
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
 	}
 
 	if len(config.Email) > 0 {
-		if err := sendEmail(ctx, config.Email, notif); err != nil {
+		if err := sendEmail(ctx, config.Email, config.MailSender, notif); err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
 	}
@@ -63,10 +63,13 @@
 	os.Stdout.WriteString(notif.Text() + "\n")
 }
 
-func sendEmail(ctx context.Context, to []string, notif notification) error {
+func sendEmail(ctx context.Context, to []string, mailSender string, notif notification) error {
 	stdin := new(bytes.Buffer)
 	stderr := new(bytes.Buffer)
 
+        if mailSender != "" {
+            fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "From: %s\n", mailSender)
+        }
 	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "To: %s\n", strings.Join(to, ", "))
 	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Subject: [certspotter] %s\n", notif.Summary())
 	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Date: %s\n", time.Now().Format(mailDateFormat))
@@ -74,10 +77,20 @@
 	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Mime-Version: 1.0\n")
 	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII\n")
 	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "X-Mailer: certspotter\n")
+	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "Precedence: bulk\n")
 	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "\n")
+	host, err := os.Hostname()
+	if err != nil {
+	  host = "unknown host"
+	}
+	fmt.Fprintf(stdin, "This is an automated message of certspotter running on %s. A new event was detected (%s). Following text describes the certificate:", host, notif.Summary())
 	fmt.Fprint(stdin, notif.Text())
 
-	args := []string{"-i", "--"}
+        args := []string{"-i"}
+	if mailSender != "" {
+	    args = append(args, "-f", mailSender)
+	}
+	args = append(args, "--")
 	args = append(args, to...)
 
 	sendmail := exec.CommandContext(ctx, sendmailPath(), args...)

[AGWA]

certspotter will now set the envelope sender and RFC5322.From address to the value of $EMAIL if set. $EMAIL is a semi-standard environment variable for specifying a user's email address.

Please provide citations to justify using Precedence: bulk and adding text to the beginning of the message. In particular, "indicate it's not human generated" and "make it look like a real human would write this" are contradictory.

[stoecker]

Precedence header: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6148865/what-is-the-effect-of-a-precedence-bulk-header-on-e-mail-messages

Was suggested by Google guidelines. It helped to get mail to Google. Seems they no longer request it.

SpamAssassin and other mail filters expect mails to be readable text. Everything which deviates from that usually get's downvoted. Also these systems often have Bayes filters for training. And the text can contain additional information and it simply looks better when an e-mail states what it is.