How to install DKIM with OpenDKIM and Postfix in CentOS 6

What is OpenDKIM?

It is a digital email signing/verification technology, which is already supported by some common mail providers. In general, DKIM means digitally signing all messages on the mail-server to verify the message was actually sent from the domain in question and was not spam

UPDATE THE SYSTEM

Before going any further, make sure you’re in a screen session and your system is fully up-to-date by running:

## screen -U -S opendkim-screen
## yum update

ENABLE EPEL REPOSITORY

OpenDKIM is available in the EPEL repository, so we need to enable it on the system before we can install OpenDKIM

CentOS 6.x
wget http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/CentOS/6/x86_64/ius-release-1.0-13.ius.centos6.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -Uvh ius-release*.rpm

CentOS 7.x
wget http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/CentOS/7/x86_64/ius-release-1.0-13.ius.centos7.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -Uvh ius-release*.rpm

INSTALL OPENDKIM

Install the package using yum:

## yum install opendkim

CONFIGURE OPENDKIM

Next thing to do is to configure OpenDKIM. Its main configuration file is located in /etc/opendkim.conf, so before making any changes create a backup and add/edit the following:

## cp /etc/opendkim.conf{,.orig}
## vim /etc/opendkim.conf

AutoRestart             Yes
AutoRestartRate         10/1h
LogWhy                  Yes
Syslog                  Yes
SyslogSuccess           Yes
Mode                    s
Canonicalization        relaxed/simple
ExternalIgnoreList      refile:/etc/opendkim/TrustedHosts
InternalHosts           refile:/etc/opendkim/TrustedHosts
KeyTable                refile:/etc/opendkim/KeyTable
SigningTable            refile:/etc/opendkim/SigningTable
SignatureAlgorithm      rsa-sha256
Socket                  inet:8891@localhost
PidFile                 /var/run/opendkim/opendkim.pid
UMask                   022
UserID                  opendkim:opendkim
TemporaryDirectory      /var/tmp

SET-UP PUBLIC/PRIVATE KEYS

Generate set of keys for your mydomain.com domain name:

## mkdir /etc/opendkim/keys/mydomain.com
## opendkim-genkey -D /etc/opendkim/keys/mydomain.com/ -d mydomain.com -s default
## chown -R opendkim: /etc/opendkim/keys/mydomain.com
## mv /etc/opendkim/keys/mydomain.com/default.private /etc/opendkim/keys/mydomain.com/default

add mydomain.com to OpenDKIM’s key table by adding the following record in /etc/opendkim/KeyTable

default._domainkey.mydomain.com mydomain.com:default:/etc/opendkim/keys/mydomain.com/default

next, edit /etc/opendkim/SigningTable and add the following record to OpenDKIM’s signing table:

*@mydomain.com default._domainkey.mydomain.com

and add your domain and your hostname as trusted hosts in /etc/opendkim/TrustedHosts:

127.0.0.1
mydomain.com
host.mydomain.com

assuming the domain in question is ‘mydomain.com’ and server’s hostname is set to ‘host.mydomain.com’

finally, edit your mydomain.com DNS zone and add the TXT record from /etc/opendkim/keys/mydomain.com/default.txt

default._domainkey      IN      TXT     ( "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; "
          "p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDApHRr7ZmXRaAB+RQRbP4VdMwIrIHIP18KFtXRsv/xpWc0Gix6ZXN13fcG03KNGKZo2PY+csPkGC5quDnH5V0JEhDZ78KcDWFsU6u4fr9ktVAdt6P7jWXjcyqdHOZ8+YN4cAeU4lRFNgQvdupIcByYwzPYMgBFHfJm9014HvRqhwIDAQAB" )  ; ----- DKIM key default for mydomain.com

it is also a good idea to add an SPF record if you haven’t already

mydomain.com. 14400 IN TXT "v=spf1 a mx ~all"

you can verify your dkim TXT record is valid using dig for example:

## dig +short default._domainkey.mydomain.com TXT

"v=DKIM1\; k=rsa\; " "p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDApHRr7ZmXRaAB+RQRbP4VdMwIrIHIP18KFtXRsv/xpWc0Gix6ZXN13fcG03KNGKZo2PY+csPkGC5quDnH5V0JEhDZ78KcDWFsU6u4fr9ktVAdt6P7jWXjcyqdHOZ8+YN4cAeU4lRFNgQvdupIcByYwzPYMgBFHfJm9014HvRqhwIDAQAB"

CONFIGURE POSTFIX

In order to integrate OpenDKIM with Postfix we need to add the following few lines in /etc/postfix/main.cf:

smtpd_milters           = inet:127.0.0.1:8891
non_smtpd_milters       = $smtpd_milters
milter_default_action   = accept
milter_protocol         = 2

(RE)START SERVICES

Add OpenDKIM to your system’s start-up and start opendkim and restart postfix using the following commands:

## service opendkim start
## chkconfig opendkim on
## service postfix restart

TEST THE SET-UP

To test the set-up simply send an email to check-auth@verifier.port25.com and you should receive back an email containing something like this:

==========================================================
Summary of Results
==========================================================
SPF check:          pass
DomainKeys check:   neutral
DKIM check:         pass
DKIM check:         pass