Hi
Please may I check my understanding of a couple of points regarding the
behaviour of the default Exim configuration with respect to connections from
remote MUAs such as Outlook, Thunderbird etc:
1. The RFC1413 ident check will not elicit any response from any remote
based mail client that attempts to send email via SMTP, so it basically is
just going to cause a response delay in this case? So maybe I need to reduce
the timeout?
2. In order for such clients to send mail via SMTP, they must authenticate?
I have a large community of remote users with (for the most part) Windows
mail clients and since I installed Exim I have "broken" their ability to send
email outside the host domain. Point 1 is an irritation. Point 2 is a problem.
Assuming I am correct about point 2, I have to say I have been unable to get
PAM authentication to work (I posted about this a week or so ago).
So I am going to need to do something like use SASL or set up a virtual user
scheme. Alternatively perhaps "whoson" might work - but in that case I need
to plug it into my IMAP/POP server, which step is not well documented.
I am aware I can alter the configuration to defeat these problems by removing
the need for authentication and removing the RFC1413 check, but that seems a
BAD idea!
I'm thinking of replacing my UW IMAP server with a new Courier installation
and setting up a virtual user scheme based on MySQL (because something like
that is already in place for a web based service I provide, and the mail user
community is a subset of the web user community by and large, so I can use
the existing structures for the most part). My users only require remote web
and email services, so there is no need for them to have actual accounts on
the server.
So, if someone could please respond to the following I would be very grateful:
1. Have I got points 1 & 2 straight, and is my analysis of what I need to do
about it correct? (SMTP auth with maybe a reduced timeout?)
2. Given my abject failure to get PAM working (RH9, PAM 0.75), doing you
think that going for a new IMAP server and replacing my physical users with
virtual users as described (which is a non-trivial project) is the best
solution *for my situation*, or am I overlooking something which would allow
me to get this problem knocked on the head much more quickly?
3. Finally, has anyone any experience with using "whoson" with Courier IMAP 3?
Sorry to be so wordy. Thanks for reading this
Best wishes
Phil Jordan
Administrator
www.toomuchcoffee.com
