Files
selfpost/docs/plans/panel-notifications.md
T
mixandClaude Opus 5.5 50fd6b859f panel-notifications: the notifier, its mail and the server's own DKIM key
internal/notify applies the owner's rules. Each subject has a row of state,
so a thing is said once and a restart says nothing again:

- DNS of a sending domain: said after two hourly checks in a row found a
  record wrong, said to be over after two found it right. A lookup that did
  not answer moves nothing; a warning (no DMARC record) is not a subject.
- TLS certificate: at 14 days and at 3, per certificate.
- Queue: a message older than three days, once; once more when none is.
- Level-2 limit: from the rejected rows of the send log, every five minutes;
  at most once a day per domain and application.

Global users are told everything, domain users about their domains; one
message per recipient. With the instance switch off nothing is checked and no
state moves. A message that could not be handed to Postfix is tried again at
the next check.

Mail leaves by sendmail(1) as postmaster@<hostname>, addresses after "--",
no shell. For it to be believed the server's own name is signed like a
sending domain: domain.Service keeps a key for it and a line in OpenDKIM's
tables without a registry row, and non_smtpd_milters now names OpenDKIM. A
sending domain of the same name shares its key with the server.
dnscheck.ServerMail checks the name's DKIM and SPF records;
postfix.QueueMessages reads postqueue -j for arrival times.

The notifier is a sixth role of the panel process. Nothing in the panel
shows or switches it yet.

Checked on Windows: go vet clean; go test passes for notify, store, postfix,
dnscheck, cmd, and domain apart from TestWriteLoadPrivateKeyRoundtrip, which
fails there on file modes and always did. Not yet run in a container: whether
the unprivileged panel may submit is for the e2e step.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-12 15:56:13 +03:00

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# Plan: panel-notifications
**Status:** agreed 2026-10-12 - the design questions were closed with the owner and he took it into work ("Делаем")
**Date:** 2026-10-12
**Version:** `2.3.0` MINOR (one migration; opt-out by a switch).
---
## Goal
The panel writes to its administrators when something needs them, instead of
waiting to be opened.
## Decisions (owner, 2026-10-12)
### Events of the first version
Four, each of them something the panel can already tell and a person has to
act on:
| Event | Who is told |
|---|---|
| A sending domain's DNS record stopped matching (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) | global users, and `domain` users the domain is assigned to |
| A level-2 rate limit refused mail | the same, for the domain of the limit |
| The TLS certificate is about to expire | global users |
| A message has been in the queue for more than **three days** | global users |
Three days, not one (owner: "one day is not that much"): Postfix keeps a
message five, so two are left to act before it bounces. The threshold is a
constant, not a setting.
Left for later: a process or milter socket down (a relay in that state often
cannot send), an inbound upstream unreachable, DMARC failures appearing
(noisy). Mail held in quarantine is not an event: quarantine is an idea
outside the roadmap.
### Sender and path
From `postmaster@<SELFPOST_HOSTNAME>`, submitted locally. Not from one of the
sending domains (owner): with several domains the choice is arbitrary, and a
message about the certificate has no business coming from a domain.
These messages have to arrive (owner: "we need the best deliverability for
them"), so the server's own name gets what a sending domain has:
- a **DKIM key for the hostname**, generated by the panel, with which
notifications are signed - no domain has to be chosen for it. An SPF record
alone would pass DMARC, but not after the user's mailbox forwards the
message on, and large receivers treat unsigned mail more strictly;
- an **SPF record** for the hostname, `v=spf1 a -all`.
The records themselves are under **Server › Settings** (owner: "the DNS
records go to Settings, Health has only the status"), in a box of their own
drawn with the record component of a domain's DNS page: host, value to
publish, copy buttons, state. **Server › Health** has a card of its own,
*Notification mail*, with the state of each record and a link to Settings.
A DMARC record for the hostname is not asked for: the name inherits its
parent domain's policy, and with SPF and DKIM aligned it passes any.
Without the records notifications are still sent, and the card warns.
Notifications are the panel's own mail: they are not rows of the Outbound log
and count against no level-2 limit.
A relay that cannot send cannot say so; none of the four events is "the relay
is down", and that is why.
### Who chooses what
- One switch for the instance under **Server › Settings**.
- One checkbox per user under **Account**, "send me notifications" - on when
the profile has an e-mail. No choice per event: four events, none of them
noise. Per-event choice comes when there are more and some are.
- A user without an e-mail gets nothing.
### When a message is sent
A background check once an hour for DNS, certificate and queue.
| Event | Sent | "Cleared" message |
|---|---|---|
| DNS mismatch | after two checks in a row found it (it has held for an hour). A resolver that did not answer is not a mismatch | after two good checks in a row |
| Certificate | 14 days before expiry, and again 3 days before if it is still the same certificate | none |
| Level-2 limit refused mail | at the first refusal for a domain or application, then at most once a day for the same limit | none |
| Queue older than three days | when such a message appears | one, when none is left |
Event state is kept in the database, so a restart announces nothing a second
time.
## To settle while building
- How the panel submits: `sendmail` as the unprivileged panel user, and what
that needs of the image.
- Whether a notification carries a link to the panel - there is no setting
for the panel's own address.
- Where the refusal of a level-2 limit is noticed: in the journal milter as
it refuses, or from the `rejected` rows of the send log on the hourly check.
- Schema: the user's checkbox, the instance switch, the event state table.
## Screens
Not drawn. The Notifications box was taken out of the `account` and
`settings` mockups on 2026-10-10 (owner: 2.0 ships no box for a feature that
is not built). Drawing them again - one checkbox on Account, one switch on
Server › Settings, the SPF check on Server › Health - is the first step, shown
to the owner before any code ([panel-redesign.md](panel-redesign.md)
§ Enforcement).
## Implementation checklist
- [x] Mockups: Account checkbox, Settings switch and records, Health status card, help topic; accepted by the owner 2026-10-12 (`design:` commit)
- [x] Migration and store: user flag, instance switch, event state
- [x] Sending: local submission from `postmaster@<hostname>`, message text (`sendmail` as the panel user; signed through `non_smtpd_milters` with a key of the server's own name; no link in the text - the panel does not know its own address)
- [x] Background checker: DNS, certificate, queue; the rules of *When a message is sent*
- [x] Level-2 refusal event (from the `rejected` rows of the send log, looked at every five minutes)
- [ ] Panel: Account, Settings, Health check, help
- [ ] guide.md, architecture.md, security.md, schema-migrations.md
- [ ] `go vet`, `go test`, e2e: an event reaches a mailbox once and clears once
- [ ] Technical review
- [ ] Security review