> For message reception, yes. However, it if goes on to deliver the
> message it has just received, it has to fork()/exec() in order to
> recover system privilege, unless you run it as root by not defining an
> Exim user (or as seteuid during reception), in which case it just forks
> a delivery process. Neither of these are recommended because they reduce
> security.
In that case, running exim as root sounds like a good idea to me, because
the mail is stored on servers that are only accessed by the input queue
boxes and the POP3 proxies. Thanks for pointing that out.
> Alternatively you could run it in queue_only mode, so all incoming mail
> is initially just put on the queue, to be delivered by queue runners
> that you kick at suitable intervals.
I use queue_only for the input queue machines, but for the mail stores,
I want immediate delivery.
> All this talk of 3M mails per day is way, way beyond anything I
> conceived of when I started writing Exim.
For smaller, in particular for single-machine mail systems, qmail is a
great choice, because all commonly needed features are available without
having to configure anything.
Exim focuses on being highly configurable for those people who want
more, so you should not be surprised to see people configuring it for
the special tasks of single nodes in a scalable, distributed mail system.
Now, if you could speed it up a bit more ... :)
Michael
--
*** Exim information can be found at
http://www.exim.org/ ***
