On 2014-12-24 at 16:20 -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:
> I guess it would not look `hard' if the entire config is left out and
> apparently just happens... so all you need to do install then test and
> away we go.
>
> Er.. that seems just a tad unlikely...
Why?
Email can be hard, if you want to do hard things, but for an end-user
box where there's existing working DNS and the hostname is the mail
domain, the default configuration will treat the current system as
authoritative for all mail in this "domain" (the hostname), handle
/etc/aliases, .forward files and users from the system database, and
attempt to deliver all other email via DNS lookups (MX, etc).
For a simple traditional Unix system, that sounds correct. The example
configuration has a commented out example for using a smarthost and more
besides. The documentation which Jeremy referred you to will take you
the rest of the way. The OS packagers already took care of stuff like
uid selection and so forth for you.
Default configuration file:
http://git.exim.org/exim.git/blob/HEAD:/src/src/configure.default
https://github.com/Exim/exim/blob/master/src/src/configure.default
Easy things are easy: install the default configuration file and you're
done. Hard things are possible. The curve for getting to accomplish
the hard things is sufficiently reasonable that Exim has become a
popular MTA.
-Phil
