Hi, and thanks for you reply.
W B Hacker [wbh@???] wrote:
> What Exim tries first is easily set with the sequential order of its
> router-transport sets. 'conditonals can be created that alter that
> normal order.
>
> But...
>
> From what you have furnished, it looks as if you have the sort of
> 'legacy' setup that is no longer even Best Current Practice for
> Postfix-as-it-has-become - let alone Exim. That could be why you've
> found so little like it.
>
> If you have fewer than several tens of thousands of messages per day, it
> might be more productive to analyze what you have available in the way
> of public-facing IP, control over DNS entries (especially MX and PTR RR)
> internal LAN nneds, firewalls, et al in the environment, and look for a
> new, simpler, one or two box solution.
I should have perhaps added to my mails that I'm doing this, not for the
sake of scalability, or something like that, but for the sake of having
just plain fun with email. I'd not exactly a 'legacy' setup that I'm trying
to revive or anything like that. It's just that I want a cool setup, and
from earlier experience I'm very fond with Exim, for a number of reasons.
I'm currently running Postfix to do the one-machine-handles-it-all, but
there are inherent problems with it which I cannot understand at all. I'm
a one man shop essentially, but I subscribe to a lot of email lists, and
for some very strange reason Postfix+maildrop/procmail don't play ball
with me. This is a problem. Exim filters have never given me any grief,
so I obviously want to move to them.
The point with the whole idea which I deviced was that it would be a cool
way to handle things. Nothing more infact. I want Exim at the outer
border because it's in my opnion the most secure choice you can make.
Postfix and qmail are probably also safe, but qmail is insane, unless
you patch it until your fingers hurt from repetitively typing patch on
the CLI, and Postfix just doesn't cut it in my opnion. Exim configuration
has a harsh learning curve, but once you get it, it makes a lot sense.
Postfix is supposed to be easier than this, but I'll be damned if I can
figure out how the configuration works, and what it can do.
> I.E. - what do you actually need to accomplish, not how to duplicate &
> modify that rig.
>
> I'd do it with one Exim box, possibly a twin in load-balanced
> hot-standby. Others might use a single Exim primary with an Exim
> fallback MX - both near-as-dammit identically configured, and with
> access to the same userbase info.
>
> If a separation between incoming and outgoing MTA is desired, Exim can
> even do that on a single box - separate distrbution (or the same effect)
> included.
>
> And if this design IS driven by massive load, then several boxes
> splitting the load in a pool, rather than passing it around, 'Tinker to
> Evers to Chance', may still be better.
>
> Any of the simpler approaches makes it dead-easy to keep any rejection
> and delivery failure notification 'in session' so you run less risk of
> generating post-session bounces to possibly forged sources.
>
> Doing ANY filtering 'post-smtp-session' is less efficient, as you have
> to take the message on-board before you analyze it, wasting time,
> storage space, machine cycles, and bandwidth as well as risking bounces
> to the wrong parties.
>
> JM2CW, but I'd suggest that with modern hardware, a clean start will
> serve you better and take better advantage of Exim's in-session
> filtering strengths.
Uhm, I'm not running massive volumes, just a maybe hundred mails a day,
so I obviously wont need a load balanced solution, as just about any
386 or so could handle the load, and still be idle most of the time.
So what you're saying is that the idea of a mail hub is insane, unless
the mail hub can itself send out messages to port 25? I'm considering
this option ofcourse, but I would like to avoid it. However, if you think
it's not a good idea, then I might as well scrap it. Just out of curiousity,
does the configuration I proposed work at all, or can it work? What happens
to mail that is bound to bounce because the mail hub has no clue what to do
with the message, and it must go through another relay to send out the
message? Will this mess up the notification in some way? Am I going to be
sending wrong stuff to the wrong place?
Oh and while I'm at it, I heard from a friend who is very adept with Exim
that Philip Hazel has retired and is no more maintaing Exim. Is there
somebody already who has stepped up and taken the place as the maintainer?
To what extent is mr. Hazel's departure going to hurt Exim development, if
at all? I would really hate to see Exim go unmaintained.
thanks and best wishes,
Bo Granlund
>
> Bill
>
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