Re: exim - what is it? (how does it run)
[This message has also been posted to linux.debian.user.]
In article <9xe2j-oG-3@gated-at.bofh.it>, Bob Goldberg wrote:
>
> i've spent DAYS trying to get exim to work to no avail.
In that case, don't use Exim. I'm not being sarcastic.
It's not a put-down. Exim isn't as arcane as Sendmail,
but I found it much more difficult to learn to configure
than Postfix. Exim has a friendly support group. When I was using
Exim, they answered questions for me about fairly
routine things, and I went back to see if I'd overlooked
that stuff in the manual, and it wasn't there.
"Drivers" and "Routers" that weren't mentioned at all.
Maybe it's better now.
If you're just running a workstation, msmtp and fetchmail might
be all you need. If you need the things you can do with
Exim, you can probably do them more easily with Postfix.
When I bailed on Exim I switched to Qmail. That was a mistake
I have documented elsewhere.
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/416#comment_6
> so let me start at the beginning.
>
> What exactly IS exim?
A message transport agent. See RFC2821.
A large set-UID root binary. Compiled C code.
When the mail is directed towards your domain, it's an
SMTP server. When you're sending, it's an SMTP client.
Like most MTAs, it is also a simple mail delivery agent.
But you could use Procmail for that.
>
> IOW: when I setup sendmail, I'm working with bash scripts.
>
> when I setup an exim conf file - what exactly runs it? perl?
It's a special language peculiar to Exim.
Cameron
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