Re: mutt question
* Andrew Sackville-West <andrew@farwestbilliards.com> [070530 23:14]:
> On Thu, May 31, 2007 at 10:57:31AM +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
> > On Tue, May 29, 2007 at 11:00:24PM -0500, Russell L. Harris wrote:
> > > ...
> > > > Please comment and correct me if I have 'erred'.
> > >
> > > In my experience (a recent netinstall of Debian "testing"):
> > >
> > > (1) The smarthost of my ISP would not accept my mail until I
> > > configured Exim4 to "hide local mail address", with "visible domain
> > > name for local users" as the domain of my ISP ("oplink.net").
> >
> > What is the contents of your /etc/email-addresses file?
>
> I am currently using
>
> local_sender_retain = true
> local_from_check = false
> trusted_users = andrew
>
> in my exim4.conf to allow my from headers to remain unchanged in
> exim4. would /etc/email-addresses make this unnecessary?
>
> >
> > > (2) The address in the From: line of an outgoing message may be set to
> > > any address you wish, irrespective of the setting in Exim4; and this
> > > may be changed from one message to the next. Moreover, Mutt can be
> > > configured to automatically change both the address in the From: line
> > > and the signature.
> >
>
> This is the part that I think is a problem. I use different email
> addresses for different purposes and mutt automatically sets the
> appropriate from address for me depending on the mail box I'm in. So,
> would I spec more than one relationship in /etc/email-addresses? I
> would love to get my local machine's exim4.conf down to a more stock
> configuration.
>
>
> > Yeah sure, but you shouldn't have to, that's my point. Have you a script
> > in your .sig file?
> >
> > I still say that its an MTA problem.
>
> how does the MTA know what from address, among many, you want?
I am no expert in this subject, but I think that, after a bit of
contemplation, it should be evident that for a typical Debian desktop
installation, the MTA (Exim4) should not concern itself with the From:
addresses of the messages which it handles. Rather, the sole purpose
of the MTA in the typical typical Debian desktop installation is to
pass mail to the smarthost of the ISP, and to do so indiscriminately.
To see this, consider the MTA of the smarthost of the ISP, which
passes along messages from ten thousand different clients of the ISP,
each of whom potentially has one or more From: addresses which have
absolutely no relationship to the domain of the ISP, other than the
fact that the smarthost of the ISP relays them.
So it appears to me obvious that, in a typical desktop Debian
installation, the proper configuration of the MTA is that which makes
no changes in the default configuration other than changes, if any,
which are required for access to the smarthost of the ISP.
In my case, it was necessary to "hide local mail address" and to
specify the "visible domain name for local users" as the domain of my
ISP. This allows me to use the smarthost of the ISP as a relay, and
through it to send outgoing mail using whatsoever From: address I
please, without restriction.
RLH
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