F5 and STARTTLS

Question

I am not able to find a way for the F5 (BIG-IP 11.6.0 Build 1.0.403 Hotfix HF1) to essentially proxy an SMTP connection inbound and outbound to/from our email gateway and establishing (or not) a TLS connection. I am looking for the opportunistic conversation to occur between the F5 and the backend email gateway. Going outbound, the email gateway would forward the email to the F5 and the F5 would query the receiving gateway to determine if it could do or responded properly to the STARTTLS conversation.  Likewise, an incoming email toward our gateways - the F5 would establish (yes/no) if the sending gateway could do STARTTLS.
Thanks very much.&nbsp;

nut2889 · Answer

Hi,&nbsp;
Do you have example logical network diagram for better understanding.&nbsp;

simon_blakely · Answer

You will probably need an irule similar to one of these:  
&nbsp;

SMTP Start TLS&nbsp;
Advanced iRules: SMTP Start TLS&nbsp;

chuck76_338274 · Answer

I don't know if this will help - but here is the concept.  Thanks for the help.&nbsp;

noc_admin_35422 · Answer

Hey Chuck76,&nbsp;
Did this worked? can you confirm back?&nbsp;
Regards&nbsp;

chuck76_338274 · Answer

After review we decided not to use the irule approach. We implemented TLS for email with the F5 listening for incoming email as opposed to initiating via the F5. The email gateways sending email outbound will initiate the TLS going out. The irule approach didn't seem to be a clean approach. We looked at it for a while. Thanks for following up.

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F5 and STARTTLS

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