Re: [Exim] Using IMAP protocol to SEND email ??

Marc Perkel wrote:
>
> Actually - yes - the idea is to be an alternative to SMTP AUTH.
> The are a couple of downsides to SMTP AUTH. First - Port 25 blocking is
> common - so you can't connect to something to auth in the first place.
> And the other problem is that you have to authenticate separately to a
> different process.

Practically no one blocks TCP 587 (SMTP Submission), that port along with
SMTP-AUTH was designed just for this. Just set up exim to listen on both
port 25 and 587, and have all of your users set there smtp port for
outgoing email to 587. Why does no one use this?? Also, if you find that
users cannot get to tcp 587 then setup a third arbitrary port 2525? that
they should be able to get to. My point being, choose an alternative port
that your users use ALL the time so that they do not have to change
settings depending on where they are.

> My idea of letting IMAP accept mail for sending you eliminates both
> problems. You are already authenticated - and no one is blocking IMAP
> ports.

Just use pop/imap before smtp if you do not want them to auth twice ;)

> Here's the part that might be confusing to you. What I envision is that
> after IMAP accepts the outgoing email it passes it on to the local SMTP
> service and SMTP is actually used to send the message on to the world.
> So IMAP is just acting as a front end to receive the message over an
> alternate port with an existing authentication.

That is not what I would call a bad idea, but do you really want to rely
on either the IMAP daemon, or a cron job to go and grab the outgoing folder
on a timely basis?

> IMAP accepts the message and then hands it over to Exim for sending. So
> what I'm proposing is extenting the IMAP protocol to accept outgoing
> email and hand it off to the existing MTA.


This to me, just seems like a 'ell-lota work for very little gain, as this
can already be done in an easier way, with current standards, and no
updates to the users software to support it.

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