RE: [exim] long delays on debian testing (mypost: rl3sept27)

--On 27 September 2005 17:23:03 -0400 Timothy Spear
<tspear@???> wrote:

> What is the purpose of ident anymore? With the vast majority of mail
> servers not supporting ident (this is anecdotal based on my logs). It
> does not help with spam and only seems to slow the server down.
>
> Tim

Well, there are some situations in which it could be useful. For example,
where the server and many clients are in the same organisation - a business
or university. If the clients are configured to support ident, then ident
can add information about the source of email. For example, the
organisation may not require authenticated SMTP submission. Even if you do
require authenticate SMTP, it can be useful if PC login is different from
the SMTP login.

We do log ident, with a 3 second timeout, but actually don't get a lot of
useful information from it. Of 10 hits yesterday, 8 were encrypted but the
user had authenticated anyway. One off-campus hit said "U=Debian-exim". The
last was an unauthenticated smtp session on campus (yes, we're trying to
move people to using auth smtp). Maybe its time I switched it off.


--
Ian Eiloart
Servers Team
Sussex University ITS