[exim] Future architectures

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Author: Nigel Metheringham
Date:  
To: exim-users
Old-Topics: Re: [exim] [Exim RPM w/ mysql-enable for FC2] Anybody out therewhohad installed mysql enabled exim rpm for fedora core 2?
Subject: [exim] Future architectures
[Change of subject to reflect discussion - bet it still goes on under 3
different subjects :-/ ]

On Tue, 2004-08-31 at 11:03 +0000, Peter Bowyer wrote:
> OK, while we're discussing architecture for Exim 6, I'd like to put in my
> €0.02-worth...


Did I miss Exim 5?

> A plugin architecture as described by Wakko is very useful for sysdev
> environments. But in a medium-scale+ production environment, in which
> changes in config happen rarely and in a controlled, predictable manner,
> you wouldn't want to introduce per-process overhead.


Yes.

> So any loadable-module scheme must come with a mechanism either to ensure
> it doesn't introduce overhead for production (even if this overhead is
> just scanning stuff in the config and adding references to already-loaded
> modules), or a way of easily 'freezing' a defined dynamic config into a
> static config for deployment.


Yay - frozen sendmail configs :-)

> I'm also attracted by the idea of a separate caching daemon which handles
> 'external' lookups - it can have its own bindings to its back-end stores
> (LDAP, *SQL etc) which are independent of the Exim config, and simply
> referenced as tokens from Exim.


A possible alternative would be to have exim processes always started by
forking from the privileged dispatcher daemon (the forked children would
normally immediately be down-prived).  We would then need a means to
regain privilege for:-
      * Initial mail injection
      * Delivery setup


And we have the big fat central management daemon like people have been
pining for all these years...

    Nigel.


-- 
[ Nigel Metheringham           Nigel.Metheringham@??? ]
[ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]