Bug#399185: exim4-config: The present configuration system does not allow for multiple users with the same smarthost

[Marc Haber]

On Sun, Nov 19, 2006 at 12:50:48PM +0100, TiB wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 05:46:42PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 at 12:38:09PM +0100, T wrote:
> > > I have two users that use the same smarthost. They need to authenticate with different 
> > > user/pass pairs, since the smarthost checks for valid addresses in the from header. 
> > > However, I don't see any way to implement multiple user/pass pairs in passwd.client.
> > > 
> > > I use an additional file smtp_users to determine the smarthost for outgoing mail for a 
> > > given user, as can be seen from the configuration below.
> > > 
> > > It would be nice if per-user smarthosts and per-user smarthost user/pass pairs could be 
> > > configured with the default debian exim configuration scheme.
> > 
> > per-user smarthosts don't really fit into the classical Unix Mails
> > setup that the Debian exim4 packages implement.
> 
> Ok, I see that. But still, I think the need for per-user smarthosts is
> not uncommon among desktop users; thus being able to configure them
> without "leaving" the debian exim4-config scheme would be nice.

Yes, that's why I didn't close the bug but instead asked for a patch.

> > > dc_smarthost='${extract{smart_host}{${lookup{$sender_address}lsearch{CONFDIR/smtp_users}{$value}fail}}}'
> > 
> > Don't do this, this is not supported and will probably cease to work
> > in Debian etch.
> 
> I am using etch, and it worked for a long time now. Could you
> elaborate on why this is a bad idea? 

The debconf entries have always been documented as being a list of
values. We have already stopped supporting things like
"dsearch;/foo/bar" when we changed from colon separated lists to
semicolon separated lists. This may always happen with more advanced
things when we decide to put in more magic.

> > Instead, in etch, override the DCsmarthost macro from the exim
> > configuration file.
> 
> You mean by changing dc_eximconfig_configtype in
> update-exim4.conf.conf?

No, by setting the macro DCsmarthost inside _exim_ configuration. This
does not have to do with update-exim4.conf.conf.

>  How would I implement per-user smarthosts instead?

The way that you have suggested doesn't look blatantly wrong to me.

>  I must admit that the exim configuration scheme is still a bit opaque
>  to me, even after several hours of research.

I think that the upstream docs are actually excellent.

Greetings
Marc

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