Re: [Exim] block outsider to my local mailing list

On 10-Sep-00 at 18:14, Tabor J. Wells (twells@???) wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 10, 2000 at 05:55:07PM -0700,
> patl@??? <patl@???> is thought to have said:
>
> > True; but every time you added a user you would have to remember to
> > add their address to that file. (The script would have to work from
> > the passwd file, not the aliases; and you would have to make sure that
> > any incoming messages from local users had been canonicalized to remove
> > their hostname from the domain part before passing them to majordomo.)
>
> Umm actually you'd want to use the aliases rather than the password file so
> that users with multiple aliases can use whichever they want for mailings.

You're assuming that the primary address is even in the aliases file;
which it isn't in most unix environments.

> And besides my users don't have accounts on my mail servers. We're also
> talking about a handful of lines of perl or shell scripting at most,
> running out of cron on a periodic basis. Not terribly difficult to setup
> or taxing on the system except in large installations. But anyway, this is
> well off the topic of Exim by now.

In that type of situation, you probably have some other existing file
that lists the users; and chances are that it will be easier to use or
parse than the aliases or password file.

I work mostly with two setups. In one, the entire domain is virtual,
and none of the users have any sort of unix account - the individual
services (HTTP, FTP, IMAP/POP, SMTP, etc.) have their own authentication
databases, or share them via libsasl or PAM. In the other, the mailserver
uses NIS to get the list of local users and associate them with passwords;
but has an override on the home directory and shell to prevent shell access.

In either case, I'd probably do things a bit differently than my suggested
solution. But the original poster sounded like he had a very simple
environment; so I responded with the simplest and most elegant solution
for a fairly simple initial setup.

> > It is -much- simpler to setup an exim director to reject mail from
> > outside addresses. (Note that the Majordomo/Mailman/etc. solutions
> > require greater changes to the exim config file)
>
> Your opinion. I happen to like MLMs for managing my lists and don't find
> working with them to be terribly difficult.

Actually, I love MLMs and have been using them for all of my lists for
years. (Initially Majordomo, now mostly Mailman.) BUT, if he didn't
already have one set up then installing and configuring one sounded like
an awful lot of work to solve his simple problem. (Especially if he
had never set one up before.)



-Pat