On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 08:59:31AM +0200, Marc Haber wrote: > On Sat, May 27, 2006 at 07:38:23PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > > On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 12:21:17PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote: > > > The problem is that there is no way to automatically determine the > > > "best choice". > > > > I disagree. > > > > > There are common setups contradicting each other, > > > > Can you name them? > > There are still ISPs not offering a Smarthost.
Does this include residential ISPs? > And if they offer a smarthost, the range of having authentication, no > authentication, SMTP AUTH, SMTP after POP, TLS, no TLS, is rather > broad. That sucks. I didn't know that. However, it doesn't have to be so bad. Apart from the POP-before-SMTP, exim is able to handle all of them natively; and it handles TLS without requiring special setup on the client side (provided STARTTLS is properly advertised). > > > and the only way to reliably determine which setup does apply to the > > > local situation is to ask the user. > > > > I agree; however, I'm not convinced that the way exim4 currently does > > this is the most appropriate one. > > I am open to suggestions. Back when the exim4 packages were developed, > we mainly copied what exim 3 did and debconfed the questions. I'll try to come up with something. The main problem I have with the current setup is that out of the choices which are currently available, I never know which to pick since none of them seems to ever work correctly for my purposes. This may be because I misunderstand them; however, personally I wouldn't call myself an inexperienced exim user (I've been setting up some fairly complex exim-based setups), so I wonder how someone who is inexperienced would handle things. > > > Frankly, I don't think that there is any chance of simplifying the > > > setup of exim4. mail is rocket science, > > > > Certainly not. Everone uses it; it's ubiquitous. > > Almost nobody gets it right, and the mechanisms behind it are by far > the most complex every-day internet service. Even DNS is simpler. What does that have to do with getting your default setups to do it right? > > > and it should be avoided in a newbie setup - they tend to only use web > > > mail anyway. > > > > So, then cater for a default configuration that keeps that in mind. > > That default configuration would be "no local MTA at all". Which would also result in 'no local cron daemon at all'. And, thus, a breaking of the expectation established in policy 2.5, section `important'. I don't think it's a good idea. I'd think you're better off with a default that has no local domain name but which uses rewriting. -- Fun will now commence -- Seven Of Nine, "Ashes to Ashes", stardate 53679.4 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
