MKESMTPDCERT(8)

✨ MKESMTPDCERT ✨

okay bestie, pull up a chair 🪑 because we're talking about mkesmtpdcert from the Courier Mail Server man pages (section 8, admin-coded 💅) — it's the little icon that creates a secure SMTP test certificate 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

/usr/sbin/mkesmtpdcert

no args, no flags, no drama. it just goes. periodt. 💖

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💫 DESCRIPTION 💫

so here's the vibe: secure ESMTP is not playing games — it literally requires a valid, signed X.509 certificate ✨ like, that's the whole requirement, no certificate no party 🎉

the default home for that certificate file is:

/etc/courier/esmtpd.pem

and what mkesmtpdcert does is generate a self-signed X.509 certificate 🦋 — mainly for testing, bestie. read that again. testing. not production. 🙈

for production use, that X.509 certificate has to be signed by a recognized certificate authority — that's the only way mail clients will actually accept it. no cap. 💀 (a self-signed one in prod is giving "trust me bro" energy and the clients will side-eye it.)

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🔐 the ownership rules (do not skip these, fr fr)

/etc/courier/esmtpd.pem must be owned by the courier user, and it must have no group or world permissions. like, zero. none. nada. 👑

good news: mkesmtpdcert will enforce this for you 🫶 it's not gonna let that slide.

⚠️ and here's the anti-chaos feature: to prevent an unfortunate accident, mkesmtpdcert will not work if /etc/courier/esmtpd.pem already exists. so if you're like "why is this failing" — check if the file's already there, queen 😭 it's protecting you from yourself. iconic behavior honestly.

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🧚 requirement check

mkesmtpdcert requires OpenSSL to be installed. that's the whole dependency. slay. 💜

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• courier(8)^[1] — go read it, iykyk 📖

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💖 AUTHOR 💖

Sam Varshavchik — Author 🫡 thank you for your service

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⭐ NOTES ⭐

1. courier(8) — https://www.courier-mta.org/courier.html

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 this was Courier Mail Server, dated 01/10/2026, and you can find mkesmtpdcert chillin' in section 8 of the manual forever and always 💅 mwah, go make that test cert, and maybe get a real CA signature before you ship it to prod, ok?? love u 😘✨