Re: [Exim] mail-1.ref.book:mail-2.ref.book

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Author: Philip Hazel
Date:  
To: Dan Jacobson
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] mail-1.ref.book:mail-2.ref.book
On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, Dan Jacobson wrote:

> In the spec file, what does the mail-1.ref.book:mail-2.ref.book of
> route_list = dict.ref.book mail-1.ref.book:mail-2.ref.book byname
> mean? Does it mean "if mail-1 is down, try again via mail-2"?
>
> Yes, there is a section "28.2 Host list format" below that that might
> explain it.


"28.2 Host list format" is a section in the Exim 3 manual. Exim 3 is no
longer being developed. Exim 4 has now been out for over a year. The
manual is much changed.

> P.S. why does the author use ".book" when ".com" or ".edu" might be a


When I first wrote the manual, I wanted to use non-existent domains. I
created a lot of examples based on books, films, tv shows, etc. Since
then, we have ".example" and ".example.com" officially defined for
documentation examples. The Exim 4 manual uses them. You will not find
".book" in the Exim 4 manual.

> P.S. The spec says "Thus, the keys in "lsearch"ed files are literal
> strings and are not interpreted in any way."
> OK, so how can one use e.g. *.edu in a lsearch file?


You can't. That's not the way key/value lookups (lsearch, dbm, NIS, etc)
work. However, you can make Exim do several "probes" (that is, try
several different keys) by making use of partial-lsearch and/or lsearch*
lookup types. These were available in Exim 3. These facilities allow
certain forms of "apparent" wildcarding to work as you might expect.

Fairly soon now I think I will stop answering questions about Exim 3,
because I am rapidly forgetting what it did and didn't have.

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