Re: [exim] suggestion - exim-new-users

On 11/19/05 1:00 PM, "Jeremiah Foster" <jeremiah.foster@???> wrote:

> I politely disagree. The point of this excellent peice of software is
> for people to use it. I appreciate that it is large and complex, but I
> see great good in more people being able to understand it. If exim4
> were the main MTA on the internet;
>
> - we'd have less spam
> - mail administrators would be more productive
> - mission-critical infrastructure would be patent-free
> - standards would be better implemented to allow for exim
> inter-operability
> I think exim can be run by nearly anyone, but it takes patience and
> help. I think of Richard Feynman, the great physicist who "took great
> care when explaining topics to his students, making it a moral point
> not to make a topic arcane, but accessible to others."[1] We should do
> that too.

A significant subset of new users are hobbyists who are installing Linux
(perhaps Debian, perhaps Ubantu, perhaps <fill in as desired>.

These users should be encouraged by the distribution (DebianConf if that's
the right name in the case of Debian), to set Exim (In Debian's case) up so
that it accepts mail ONLY from localhost and delivers mail ONLY to the
user's ISP account (preferably with TLS and SMTP AUTH).

If they want to do more, they should be led to a discussion of various
reasons not to (are you on a variable IP address, etc etc).

The people who survive that should be led to a gentle introduction to how
email works, and why carelessly configuring the MTA (a term they learn in
the gentle introduction can be harmful to the internet and can get them
booted off their ISP in extreme cases.

THEN they are ready to start trying to configure, preferably with help from
a mentor (personal mentor, not a mailing list). And lots of reading.

Much--by not means all--of the grumpiness here stems from people who
shouldn't try to use the MTA except as a means of seeing the routine
messages sent by system stuff, but who instead decide to run their own
world-facing MTA with no idea how.

Naturally, there should be a way for people who AREN'T in the above category
to plunge in. But that path should strongly encourage having a mentor for
those who are new to email but otherwise experienced. And should encourage
doing lots of reading before plunging in unless already an expert in the
particular MTA (Exim or otherwise).

Apple ships the desktop version of Mac OS X with Postfix installed but
disabled. One simply sets up the mail program (cleverly named Mail.app) to
deal with the ISP account and/or the .Mac account. (And doesn't receive the
routine system messages, most of which aren't sent.) A third party has
provided a "Postfix Enabler" which gathers configuration information,
provides for obtaining and installing the UW IMAP server if desired and
configuring that, and provides on/off controls for both. (It takes
considerable effort to produce an open relay using the Postfix Enabler
program.) Most Mac OS X users never use Postfix Enabler (and don't know
they have Postfix.

I happen to have turned on Postfix, but (1) I have a fixed IP and a nice
host name for it and (2) I only turned it on so I can test a feature we will
be offering. It accepts mail only from the LAN and two /24 subnets which
contain every mail server I want it to accept mail from [both by
configuration and by ipfw configuration (and a lot of hosts which will never
send it mail and even more unused addresses). It won't relay except
possibly from the LAN, and then only by using our server as its smart host
(which it also uses for mail from localhost, which I never send). And
despite that limited use--easy to set up using Postfix Enabler--I purchased
a nice book on Postfix.

--John (sometimes grumpy)