Re: [exim] exim attachment handling

2008/10/29 W B Hacker <wbh@???>:
> Exim is doing precisely what an(y) MTA is supposed to do - NOT
> whimsically altering the headers, message or attachment content, or
> encoding of valid smtp message traffic.

This is exactly the sort of response I had hoped to receive. The
vendor's suggestion seemed contrary to my understanding of what any
MTA would do (irrespective of the flavour.) I have a conference call
with their second-line staff shortly. Their current stance is:

<snip>

From the message headers i saw that the message passes EXIM 4.5.1 server
which uses UUENCODE as default attachment format.

We are not able to resolve the issue using <insert appliance here>
since messages is
received by <insert appliance here> already corrupted.

If possible bypassing the EXIM server will be the best solution fore
this issue.

</snip>

...so it seems they are content that Exim receives the email and then
mangles it before squirting it to the upstream appliance.

> THEN the only thing you can ask of Exim is to block uuencoding at an
> earlier stage, hopefully encouraging whomever is using the MUA or
> executable that creates it to switch away from it.
>
> Exim can be taught to do that.
>
> But it should not be.

Agreed - we're not doing that. Our internal relaying function is
simple, clearly defined and proven. Fortunately, the appliance is not
within my remit...

Thanks

Paul