ActionmailerX509

petRUShka, Fabien Penso

DESCRIPTION

This plugin allows you to send X509 signed andor crypted mails with Rails 3 ActionMailer. If you want to sign mails with Rails 2, you should use the original plugin: github.com/penso/actionmailer_x509

It has been tested with Rails 3.0.3.

Creation of the certificates

(1) Generate your own Certificate Authority (CA).

openssl genrsa -des3 -out ca.key 4096
openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -key ca.key -out ca.crt

(2) Generate a server key and request for signing (csr).

Note : use your email address for the Common Name (CN) field

openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 4096
openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr

(3) Sign the certificate signing request (csr) with the self-created

  certificate authority (CA) that you made earlier.

openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -CA ca.crt -CAkey ca.key -set_serial 01 -out server.crt

(3 bis) or self sign your certificate with the same key.

openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt

(4) Compute all thoses files into a PCKS#12 file (so you can include it in your mailer):

openssl pkcs12 -export -in server.crt -inkey server.key -certfile ca.key -name "My Cert" -out name-cert.p12

Extracting the files from a PKCS#12 file

If you have a PKCS#12 file, usualy named .p12, you can extract the required files with the following commands.

(1) Extract the private key

openssl pkcs12 -in file_input.p12 -clcerts -nocerts -out file_out.key -nodes

(2) Extract the certificate

openssl pkcs12 -in file_input.p12 -clcerts -nokeys -out file_out.crt -nodes

Please note the -nodes to leave the private key uncrypted, use -des if you wish to protect it.

INSTALLING THE PLUGIN

Put this line in your Gemfile

gem 'actionmailer_x509'

USING THE PLUGIN

If you wish to send a signed email you just need to put new informations in your ActionMailer model.

class FooMailer < ActionMailer::Base

  def sending_method(email, from , subject = "Empty subject for signed")
    # If you want to sign the mail
    x509_sign  true
    x509_sign_cert  "certs/yourwebsite.crt"
    x509_sign_key   "certs/yourwebsite.key"
    # In case your certificate has a passphrase
    x509_sign_passphrase "my passphrase for the certificate"
    # If you want to crypt the mail
    x509_crypt  true
    x509_crypt_cert  "certs/crypt.crt"
    # In case you want to set non DES cipher
    x509_crypt_cipher "AES-128-CBC"

    mail(:subject => subject, :to => email, :from => from)
  end

You can also specify the certificate and key in your environment file:

ActionMailer::Base.default_x509_sign = true
ActionMailer::Base.default_x509_cert = "certs/server.crt"
ActionMailer::Base.default_x509_key  = "certs/server.key"
ActionMailer::Base.default_x509_crypt = true
ActionMailer::Base.default_x509_crypt_cert = "certs/crypt.crt"

USING TEST

You can benchmark the plugin with:

rake actionmailer_x509:performance_test

Send yourself a signed mail with:

rake actionmailer_x509:send_test

Verify the plugin generates valid signature

rake actionmailer_x509:verify_signature

Generate a signed mail in a local file

rake actionmailer_x509:generate_mail

REQUIREMENTS

* Ruby 1.8 or later
* Rails 3.0 or later
* OpenSSL 0.9.8e or later and Ruby/OpenSSL 1.8.6.36 or later

Mail User Agent tested

We checked with the following MUA for making sure the signed mails are readable.

* Mutt 1.5: OK
* Outlook 2007: OK
* iPhone: The message appears without the signature but no other problem
* Thunderbird 5.0: OK
* Evolution 2.12: OK
* Apple Mail.app: OK
* Google Mail: A file smime.p3s appears as attachment
* Yandex Mail: A file smime.p3s appears as attachment
* Opera Mail: A file smime.p3s appears as attachment

AUTHORS

Porting to Rails 3\Mail from Rails 2\Tmail, adding crypting and wrap code into the gem was done by petRUShka <[email protected]>.

Original development for Rails 2.0.1 was done by Fabien Penso <[email protected]> from CONOVAE www.conovae.com for Dimelo www.dimelo.fr

Special thanks to Geal for noticing on content-id error.

This code is under the BSD license.

LICENSE

Copyright © 2011, petRUShka, 2008, Fabien Penso

All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
  notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
  notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
  documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* Neither the name of the University of California, Berkeley nor the
  names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
  derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.