[Exim] need more newbie help..

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Author: Brian
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: [Exim] need more newbie help..
Hello all,

I'm so confused with all the exim options that their are, I have no idea what I
have to do to accoplish what I'm looking for.

This is what I am trying to do.. (intermixed with my own findings) I
find that spelling things out helps know what I'm looking for. I
only use qmail and postfix as examples because that's all I know.

I'm trying to use exim to filter email for multiple domains.
- using domainlist local_domains = domain1.tld : domain2.tld
I've seen refrences where I can use a flat file can I also use a cdb?

The machine will take no local mail.
- qmail calls these rcpthosts then they are listed in virtualdomains or
smtproutes.

The machine will accept emails for various designated domains.
- postfix designates these as relay_domains. Is domainlist what I want to
use for this?

I need to be able to define who will get mail for these domain. Some
domains have a finite list of users, others I have no idea.
- postfix uses relay_recipient_maps in a hash'd file, w/ qmail there are
patches to smtpd needed.
- can there be a per domain reject message?

I need to always accept emails for various acceptable users, ie.
postmaster, abuse.. etc. regardless of dnsbl status or other.
- I belive exim does this

I need to use dnsbl's to block and would like to be able to tag on
others.
- We think this would do that.
warn  message = X-Warning: $sender_host_address is in SPEWS
     log_message = found in spews
     dnslists = spews.localmirror.int


I would like to be able to filter out things like spaces and irregular
quotation marks in MAIL FROM or RCPT TO.
- I see it does some regex with the HELO, something simmilar to that
possible?

In accepting emails for other domains some will have different hosts
where the mail will be delivered.
- qmail calls this smtproutes, postfix calls this transports, I belive
this is called a manualrouter, but it looks like I would need one
router per domain.
- not all destination hosts are on 'port 25' I don't see where port is
defined, it all looks like port 25 is assumed.

I would like to be able to call an antivirus scanner from within the
mta, or using as little resources as possible to do so and preferrably
not using perl to do it.
- I've seen the av_scanner configuration, not sure if I have it
configured correctly.. how to test?

The messages if something is bounced needs to be coherenant message to
the user (probably not technical) as possible.
- just so the bounce message contains what the dnsbl issued, or just
  something semi-clear.
- we have our own composite dnsbl using rbldnsd which is just a mirror
  for spamhouse and the cbl and dsbl.  Sometimes the address spaces over
  lap, resulting in more than one return value for the IP.  Does exim show
  all the results or just the first one?
# deny  message = $sender_host_address is in dnsbl at $dnslist_domain
# ($dnslist_value: dnslist_text)
#       log_message = found in spamcop
#       dnslists = bl.spamcop.net
- This is what we are using, this looks like it just returns the first
  one, is there a way to make it show all the return values?


along with the various, MX and/or A record checks, blocking the verisign
.com global thing if possible.
- Looks like the MX/A record check is there, but I can't figure out
which.

We are currenly using qmail and qmail-scanner to do the majority of
these things, but what it cannot do is whitelist recipients :(
I've been reading so much exim stuff, that I can't seem to find what
these things are called in 'exim terms' or examples of someone using
exim for what I want to use it for.

There are many hits on google for various postfix/qmail uce/spamcontrol
but I can't find something simmilar on exim. Might look at putting SA
on this if everything all goes well. We have SA on the machines where
the mail is finally delivered.

I'm just really looking for clues on how I can implement these things
that I'm looking for, or a sign that we can't use exim for this project.

Today we (according to qmailmrtg) are currenly the proud recipients of 46k max
smtpd processes per hour, of which 25k are done in by dnsbls.
Delivering about 1500 emails an hour. We currenly do this on p3 550's.
We have two new Dell Poweredge 2.8G to use for exim (if we can get this
to work..)

And for what it's worth I'm using FreeBSD 4.x with exim 4.32 from ports
along with the eximacl patch.

I do appreciate any help that anyone may have to offer, but please don't
knock me for not reading something that you might think is obvious.
I've been trying to do this exim thing for almost 3 weeks now, and not
really gotten anywhere and it's really started to take it toll on me.

But if there is something that would answer all of this, in a simple
understandable sort of way, or a 'migrating from $other_mta to exim'
doc, I'd gladly read something else on exim.

We've mainly gotten the books by the authors on their MTA's (or next
best things) and gotten basic things to work from there and gotten more
things to work from the Internet. But we all agree that we from the
exim book cannot figure out exim, and we're just really frustrated.

I thank you for taking the time to read this message.

- Brian