Re: [Exim] Some general questions regarding Exim (New here)

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Author: Andreas Metzler
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] Some general questions regarding Exim (New here)
On 2004-02-11 Jason Williams <jwilliams@???> wrote:
[...]
> the authid is
> passed along to lmtpd in the AUTH= keyword in the MAIL FROM command. lmtpd
> then checks to see if this authid has posting rights on the rcpt
> mailbox.

[...]
> Now, I know sendmail will do it, but im not sure if I want to use
> sendmail. The other MTA that I was told that could do it is Exim.


Afaict correct.
| authenticated_sender (smtp) option
| This option allows you to use the "smtp" transport in LMTP mode to
| deliver mail to Cyrus IMAP ...


> Now, I have heard of Exim, but never used it and so I was hoping I could
> get some feedback on the following questions:


> - configuration. How is the syntax? Is it easy to ready, or like sendmail,
> cryptic?


It is quite easy to read and nothing like sendmail, but a lot more verbose
than postfix. - There is less magic built in.

> - security.


Exim's major design goal is not security like postfix or qmail
(quoting from the manual "For reasons that this author does not
understand, some people have promoted Exim as a `particularly secure'
mailer."). Exim is usually suid root but it does not _run_ as root it
drops priviledges when unnecesary.

Check bug-track or CERT, exim's history is actually very very good.

> - stability
> - scalability
> - the ability to interface with 3rd party virus scanners (vexitra, sophos
> etc.)


Sure. Either at SMTP time with exiscan or later with amavis-(new|ng).

> - anti-spam checking, rbl checks etc.


It is all there.

> Basically, im trying to get a general overall feel for Exim to see if it is
> a good possibility for me.


imho exim's major favours are:
* The documentation. (Not a dozen readmes but a full reference
manual.) Check <http://www.exim.org/>.
* Debugging possibilities. - Because of exim's design as a single
executable you can debug the complete chain of database/file
lookups, tests, etc. with "echo blah | sendmail -d foo@bar".
* Flexibility.
* Responsive and easy to work with upstream author.

http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/mtas
             cu andreas
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