Author: Hagen Paul Pfeifer Date: To: 'Exim-Users (E-mail)' Subject: Re: [Exim] Exim 4.34 environment variable patch
* Eli | 2004-06-21 18:59:18 [-0400]:
>I use it (as you could see from my example) that I track some CGI variables.
>It kicks in when any client from the local server sends email out, which in
>my case is through web forms using the local server to deliver their email.
>Since the Apache CGI interpreter sets up these environment variables, they
>get tracked with the email (and on my webservers I log this info in the log
>files too), so I can tell who sent what since they're able to forge their
>From: addresses (I have to let them since the webserver has no knowledge of
>their mail server, and the webserver hosts tons of different domains).
>
>I've hacked up a little trick to track PHP generated email as well through
>it's mail() function - so now with the environment variable patch, I can
>*finally* track all outbound email on my web servers.
>
>I was previously unable to do this - especially with PHP. I can't imagine
>life without this patch! It's so much simpler to say "oop, you spammed,
>begone" rather than "hmm, I wonder who this is, let me sit and monitor it
>for a day..." :P
I saw the conf but now everything is plausible! ;-)
>Oh, and I can't see how it's error prone - it's about as prone to errors as
>anything else in Exim - if the person configuring Exim can't figure out how
>to set it up properly, then they can enjoy the onset of errors they bought
>themselves. The only case for confusion is possibly in some circumstances
>where a new shell may be created with no inherited environment, and so the
>person will draw back a NULL value rather than something they expected. It
>does happen, but so far in my testing (where I see this patch useful) I have
>never come across it when I didn't expect it.
What about logging functionality at php/apache level? My private
opinion is that this functionality belong to a "higher" level (php(?))
and not in exim. My position is that the apache level is the "cleaner"
implementation. But my opinion is high individually, see next paragraph!
Last but not least maybe there exists requirement for this patch. Let we
the community make a decision! ;-)