on Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 09:16:46PM -0800, Peter Jay Salzman (p@dirac.org) wrote:
> satan$ dpkg -p exim
> (snip)
> Description: Exim Mailer
> This MTA is rather easier to configure than smail or sendmail.
> It is a drop-in replacement for sendmail/mailq/rsmtp.
> Advanced features include the ability to reject connections from
> known spam sites, and an extremely efficient queue processing
> algorithm.
>
>
> i'm looking at:
>
> Advanced features include the ability to reject connections from
> known spam sites
>
> exim can use rbl to reject msgs from spam sites. but so can every
> other MTA.
I'm reading "advanced features" not as "above and beyond other MTAs" but
as "of exim". No problem here.
> exim doesn't have a "spam reject" file that i can drop IP addresses
> into. exim doesn't use tcpwrappers to reject SMTP sessions.
You can run exim through /etc/inet.d. In which case you should be able
to design your own reject rules. Or handle this through your
ipchains/iptables configuration.
I believe you can also set up reject rules based on various
characteristics, though again, I'm not familiar with this, and don't
have direct internet mail access (fetchmail/POPD receive, smarthost
send).
> what exactly are some of these advanced features then?
I think you're looking for a comparative essay on MTAs. That's not my
specialty. However, a few thoughts off the top on Exim:
- Sane configuration files, particularly compared to Sendmail. I
_can_ drop onto a box, read, and largely understand, an exim config
(I don't read the things routinely in my spare time, really). Same
cannot be said for Sendmail. Other "modern" MTAs (postfix, qmail)
likely have similar characteristics. Not familiar with them.
- Good performance characteristics. Through friends I hear of exim
configs which handle high mail loads, certainly higher than you'll
often hear (anectdotally) exim being supposedly capable of.
- Good security track record. Sendmail's the black sheep here. Exim
runs as an unprivileged user, and minimizes use of SUID ops.
- Good set of command-line ops. The mail admin can list, query,
freeze and thaw, and delete, jobs. Commands are largely Sendmail
compatible.
- Good conformance to standards, both mail and filesystem (qmail loses
on the latter).
Exim's not the only option out there, but it's a good one.
Peace.
--
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