[Gllug] Exim4 with Debian Sarge

[Russell Howe]

On Fri, Oct 28, 2005 at 11:30:35AM +0100, Chris Bell wrote:
> On Fri 28 Oct, Russell Howe wrote:
> > 
> 
> > then, a comma seperated list of your local LAN ranges (probably just
> > one, I guess) and I would suggest adding your static IP address from
> > Demon here too.
> 
>    That is something I had not considered.

That won't affect your HELO/EHLO response, it will just allow your
gateway to relay email via your server, should for some reason the
connection originate from the public IP address of the gateway. You
might well decide that your gateway box shouldn't be sending email
to non-local addresses anyway, in which case this certainly doesn't
apply.

>    I felt that what I was trying to do should be fairly standard, so would
> not require a myriad (about 40) small files, and the standard Debian single
> config file method should be able to cope. Perhaps I am wrong. Everything
> else seems to match what I tried.

The single config file is equivalent to the bunch of 40 small files. I
think the rationale for all the files is because it should work better
with the way Debian handles configuration files, and should allow
packages to extend the functionality of your exim configuration without
either the package install script editing your configuration file (and
potentially misparsing and breaking it), or you having to make the
changes manually.

If you aren't happy with your MTA's configuration being under Debian's
control, then the various options at your disposal are detailed in:

/usr/share/doc/exim4-config/README.Debian.gz

I'm still convinced that your desired configuration can be achieved
using the debconf interface to exim4-config, without having to dive into
configuring exim yourself, although if you want to, Debian certainly
won't stop you doing so.

The only bit which will probably take some enhancing of the way Debian
configures exim for you is if you really want exim to respond to
HELO/EHLO requests from within your network with the box's internal DNS
name, rather than the public one (accountname.demon.co.uk). So many mail
servers respond with something which doesn't match their actual
hostname, however, that I would be very suprised if a bogus HELO/EHLO
response actually affected anything besides spam scanners.

>    Another approach would be to ensure that every local box sends emails
> with the correct external mail address and not even try to rewrite headers,
> (but then I do not get to learn anything about rewriting headers).

If all you want to do is rewrite foo at localdomain to bar at publicdomain,
then Debian's /etc/email-addresses file is what you need. If you want to
understand how it works, then a quick search in the generated
configuration file for 'email-addresses' should turn up the rewrite
rule, which together with the exim specification (their term for what
everyone else calls a manual) should give you all you need.

I can't (from a quick search) turn up any more documentation on the
format of /etc/email-addresses other than the quick comment at the top
of the file, though.

-- 
Russell Howe       | Why be just another cog in the machine,
rhowe at siksai.co.uk | when you can be the spanner in the works?
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