I surely didn't expect Phillip Hazel himself to answer my silly
questions! Thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.
> It's called reply_transport, and it applies only to forwardfile, because
> alias files can't generate auto replies. Note that this is for Exim 3,
> which is what the book describes.
Yes, my mistake.
> > It seems like almost all autoreply transport options can be specified in
> > the "mail" command itself -- all except for the "mode" option. Or at
> > least so it seems. So, how can one specify the mode from the user's filter?
>
> Er, the "mail" command is concerned with generating a message. I'm not
> sure what "mode" you are talking about. Messages don't have modes.
Well, I meant to say that there is this "once" option in the
reply_transport that specifies the name of the file in which the
addresses of people who have already been sent an "autoreply" email are
stored. Well the "mode" option, if I understand it correctly, specifies
the mode of this "once" file if doesn't exist and it needs to be
created. It also seems to relate to the "log" option in the same way.
Now, the reason I was asking about "mode" in relation to "mail" was because I
wanted to know how one can use the "mode"/"once" or (any other
reply_transport specific options for that matter) in a user filter
(stored in a .forward). Or if it's not possible to do from the filter
itself, how can one refer to a configured reply_transport in the exim
configuration file from a configured forwardfile director?
What started this confusion in my mind was the fact that the forward
file does have address_pipe_transport and address_file_transport options
for the forwardfile director in case pipes or redirections to files are
encountered in the .forward file. But there seems to be no way to
specify that the reply_transport should be used in case a "mail" command
is encountered in the .forward file. Or is it automatically assumed? But
then I thought about how I would specify "mode" and "once" options in
the .forward file and couldn't come up with an answer.
Hope it makes sense.
> > I do have a second question. I have a box that is named, say
> > "mail.domain1" and it is the mail server for, say "foobar_alias.com".
> > "foobar_alias.com" has "mail.domain1" in its MX record. However, "foobar_alias.com"
> > is really just an alias for "foobar_real_deal.com".
>
> Alias in the DNS? That is, are we talking about a CNAME here?
Exactly.
> > In my exim.conf on a completely different computer that runs exim just
> > for outgoing mail, I set "qualify_domain" to "foobar_alias.com". When I
> > send a message directly to, say "john" on "foobar_alias.com", I get the
> > message at "john@???" as expected and the "Return path"
> > contains "john@foobar_alias.com". So far so good.
> >
> > On yet another mail server, say "mail.domain2", I created a forward that
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Is this also running Exim?
I should have mentioned this right away and I swear I was thinking about
this. No, the server runs sendmail.
> Exim does not canonicise domain names, but some other MTAs do, which is
> why I asked if this third server was running Exim. (The RFC 821/822 mail
> standards specified canonicisation, but this has been taken out of the
> new 2821/2822 documents.)
Now, I see what's happening. So sendmail canonicizes domain names.
That's interesting. I should take a look at those RFC's. A quick
question on the "return path" header. As I understand, it's added to the
message by the last email server in the email route and it's taken from
the smtp "MAIL FROM" command without any rewriting or any other DNS
trickery? Is that correct?
Thanks very much
