[Pkg-exim4-users] GMail, smarterhost, etc

[Antonis Kanouras]

Hello Chris,

First of all, you should really take a look at the (ample) documentation 
under /usr/share/doc/exim4-base. At the very least, read the file 
README.Debian.gz in its entirety. Debian's exim4-config will surely satisfy 
your needs if your hosting a single domain and using the system user 
database.

Now, assuming that you want to handle email for pinecam.com only, Exim's 
configuration could be very simple: Just use the system's (NSS & PAM) user 
database with tools like adduser/deluser or even something like Webmin...
Exim's configuration in this case would consist of

  "echo pinecam.com > /etc/mailname"

I would suggest you enable delivery to maildirs for improved speed and data 
safery.

Optionally, you can enable TLS and SASL authenticators so that your server 
can act as a relay for your users; working examples can be found in 
/etc/exim4/conf.d/auth/.

Another way to go about this would be using OpenLDAP for the user database, 
and something like GOsa or phpLDAPadmin to add/delete users. After that, you 
can either integrate the LDAP-based user database with the system database 
using libnss-ldap and Exim will happily play along. libpam-ldap will help 
with the authenticators in this case. Alternatively you can write your 
routers/authenticators so that Exim accesses LDAP directly (this would be a 
requirement if you're hosting multiple (virtual) domains.)

A third way would be to use an SQL database for users.

For antispam measures, Spamassassin's spamd with sa-exim and clamd with 
clamav-unofficial-sigs do a terrific job here with no need for teergrubing 
or other antisocial behaviour.

Lastly, for Webmail/IMAP4/POP3 access, Dovecot/imapproxyd/Roundcube is what 
works for me at the moment.

All relevant packages can be found in Lenny/volatile/backports:

  exim4-daemon-heavy
  exim4-config
  clamav
  clamav-freshclam
  clamav-unofficial-sigs
  spamassassin
  sa-exim

  dovecot-imapd
  imapproxyd
  roundcube

Optionally if you go for the second route:

  slapd
  ldap-utils
  phpldapadmin

I think the above should get you going for starters.

As for configuration templates, if the one provided by exim4-config and its 
assorted documentation in /usr/share/doc/exim4-base doesn't cut it for you, 
googling for "exim howto" reveals countless examples. ;-P

Cheers,
Antonio