Re: EXim and address_pipe

I have to agree very strongly with Piete on this one. A default that
simply blackholes mail for certain error conditions is awful ! The
one thing that people really definitely want from an MTA is for it not
to frivolously throw away messages. If you persist you'll give Exim a
start at a bad reputation, I think.

Furthermore, this is not the only solution to the problem of broken
.forward's bothering postmaster.

In Smail there is often a `real-<user>' arrangement, whereby mailing
real-<whoever> will deliver mail locally regardless.

If you arrange that when mail goes through a .forward file any errors
are sent to the real-<whoever> rather than to the user in question
then the mail will not be lost, but will instead pile up somewhere
where the user will hopefully notice it.

An option to make this happen would obviate the perceived need to
ignore the exit status of pipes. It would be good for the option to
specify indepdendently whether or not errors resulting from .forward
files should be sent to (a) the original sender of the message (return
path), (b) the local postmaster and (c) the `real user'.

Perhaps the most general solution would be to have an option on the
appropriate director (or a general option) to allow one to set the
return path of a message as it goes through the director, and having
expansion variables for the original sender and the real user in this
context. (I haven't delved into the manual deeply enough to know
whether this option or these expansion variables already exist.)

Ian.