Re: [exim] possible accept_8bitmime problems?

On 2/21/2005 13:33, "Marten Lehmann" <lehmann@???> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> a customer asked us the set accept_8bitmime=true, because his
> default-installation of postfix would do something weired if our
> mailserver doesn announce 8BITMIME.
> On the other hand, the documentation of accept_8bitmime sounds a bit
> scary to me:
>
> ----
> This option causes Exim to send 8BITMIME in its response to an SMTP EHLO
> command, and to accept the BODY= parameter on MAIL commands. However,
> though Exim is 8-bit clean, it is not a protocol converter, and it takes
> no steps to do anything special with messages received by this route.
> Consequently, this option is turned off by default.
> ----
>
> What could happen in the worst case?

You would violate the RFCs by accepting 8-bit messages which you later can't
send along properly converted to a mail server which doesn't accept 8 bit
messages. (I've forgotten what Exim does in that case, but the violation is
in accepting the message. Either the message gets sent in 8-bit form to the
7-bit-only server (another violation), or you generate a bounce message
after trying [not good in the forged spam/virus era].)

At the very least, you should expand that setting so that you only advertise
8BITMIME to that one client machine (if its value expands...I haven't
looked).

--John