Re: [Exim] Testers needed: LMTP support

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: John Holman
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] Testers needed: LMTP support
On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, John Holman wrote:

> The current LMTP implementation in exim, unlike sendmail, only supports
> program invocation. Cyrus 2 (currently in alpha) on the other hand provides
> an LMTP daemon that listens on either a Unix domain socket or TCP/IP socket.
> The MTA is expected to connect to this socket to make local deliveries. (I
> believe the M-Store server from Messaging Direct uses a Unix domain socket
> in a similar way).


I read the LMTP RFC, and got the impression from the examples that it
was aimed at inter-process communication, which was what I then
implemented. I see on re-reading it that it doesn't actually say
anything about only using it in this manner.

The current LMTP transport is a cross between the pipe and smtp
transports. The easiest way to implement LMTP over TCP/IP is probably to
have it as an option on the smtp transport; I will take a look at how
easy this might be. Unix domain sockets may be more complicated.

> Another wrinkle is that when listening on a TCP/IP socket the Cyrus LMTP
> daemon by default requires the MTA client to authenticate using the SMTP
> AUTH extension. This is probably not essential (although an open LMTP
> service accessible over the net is not a good idea!) but it might be useful.


That would fall out naturally if LMTP were an optional mode of the smtp
transport.

Thanks for the testing and the feedback.

Philip

-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@???      Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.