One of the down sides of having to rebuild the snapturtle server was the need to recreate all the SSL certificates used with SMTP and IMAP services.
With the release of Panther, Apple Mail has had a really annoying problem that causes Mail to prompt for the validaty of self-signed certificates and does not allow you to save your choice like in Jaguar.
I’ve tried some of the tricks listed on other blogs like trying to add them to your keychain which did not work for me.
So, when I recreated the certificates I wanted to make sure I was doing it right. I found this article on AFP548.com that describes how to not only create the SSL certificates but creating a certificate authority (CA) so Apple Mail won’t complain about self-signed certs anymore. Just follow the instructions to the letter (you can place the certs where ever you want not just /etc/certs) and you too can rid yourself of the annoying Apple Mail SSL dialog box.