multiple users for the same smarthost (exim4)

Hello,

(This is for a home network, running exim4 on Debian sarge.)

My wife and I have started using google's gmail. I want to use the
gmail server as a smarthost so that all outgoing mail is archived on
my gmail account. I got the authentification to work fine, but now
all outgoing mail goes through the same host, with the same username
and password. I have two users on the network who would like to use
separate username/password combinations for the same smarthost.

I am far from being an exim guru, but I thought that I might need to
set up separate transports somehow tied to the username of the
outgoing mail. However, even if that were to work out, there is still
the problem that there doesn't seem to be a way to assign more than
one username to a single server in /etc/exim4/passwd.clients.

Any ideas of how I should proceed, or should I just opt for a simpler
but less cool system?

Thanks for any help

Joe

Hello Joseph,

Joseph Fahey <fahey@fabula.org> schrieb:

> My wife and I have started using google's gmail. I want to use the
> gmail server as a smarthost so that all outgoing mail is archived on
> my gmail account. I got the authentification to work fine, but now
> all outgoing mail goes through the same host, with the same username
> and password. I have two users on the network who would like to use
> separate username/password combinations for the same smarthost.
>
> I am far from being an exim guru, but I thought that I might need to
> set up separate transports somehow tied to the username of the
> outgoing mail. However, even if that were to work out, there is still
> the problem that there doesn't seem to be a way to assign more than
> one username to a single server in /etc/exim4/passwd.clients.
>
> Any ideas of how I should proceed, or should I just opt for a simpler
> but less cool system?

Well, I am not sure about the coolness of the system, but I know how
this can be done - as I am doing it myself.

I use an idea I found for exim3 and converted it to exim4:

http://www.linuxer.onlinehome.de/apps/exim.htm (Sorry, German only)

This scheme uses a passwd.client (which has a different format from the
passwd.client used with exim4 on Sarge!), but it works as expected.

There are other online resources available which might help you:

http://www.tgunkel.de/docs/exim_smarthosts.en.html

HTH,
Spiro.

--
Spiro R. Trikaliotis http://cbm4win.sf.net/
http://www.trikaliotis.net/ http://www.viceteam.org/

Thanks for your reply.

>>>>> "ST" == Spiro Trikaliotis <news-200511@trikaliotis.net> writes:

ST> Hello Joseph, Joseph Fahey <fahey@fabula.org> schrieb:

>> My wife and I have started using google's gmail. I want to use
>> the gmail server as a smarthost so that all outgoing mail is
>> archived on my gmail account. I got the authentification to
>> work fine, but now all outgoing mail goes through the same
>> host, with the same username and password. I have two users on
>> the network who would like to use separate username/password
>> combinations for the same smarthost.
>>
>> I am far from being an exim guru, but I thought that I might
>> need to set up separate transports somehow tied to the username
>> of the outgoing mail. However, even if that were to work out,
>> there is still the problem that there doesn't seem to be a way
>> to assign more than one username to a single server in
>> /etc/exim4/passwd.clients.
>>
>> Any ideas of how I should proceed, or should I just opt for a
>> simpler but less cool system?

ST> Well, I am not sure about the coolness of the system, but I
ST> know how this can be done - as I am doing it myself.

Less cool meant just sending a bcc of everything through the gmail
account. Very crude hack.

ST> There are other online resources available which might help
ST> you:

ST> http://www.tgunkel.de/docs/exim_smarthosts.en.html

This URL was helpful, because it got me thinking. I ended up doing
something a little bit different, using a separate passwd.* file for
each user. So I added passwd.user1 and passwd.user2 where user1 (or
user2) is identical to $local_part.

Then I modified auth/30_exim4-config_examples so that for each
authentication type the password file was
{CONFDIR/passwd.{$local_part}} instead of {CONFDIR/passwd.client}

It is still a bit of a hack, but initial testing indicates that it
works. (At least for user1 -- me --, user2 hasn't logged in yet.)

So thank you very much for your help!

Joseph

>>>>> "me" == Joseph Fahey <fahey(do_not_spam_me)@fabula.org> writes:
[snip]
me> Then I modified auth/30_exim4-config_examples so that for each
me> authentication type the password file was
me> {CONFDIR/passwd.{$local_part}} instead of
me> {CONFDIR/passwd.client}

me> It is still a bit of a hack, but initial testing indicates
me> that it works. (At least for user1 -- me --, user2 hasn't
me> logged in yet.)

Ooops! should have tested more! Not $local_part, but $sender_address,
and the filename must be called passwd.user1@example.com, etc.

All better now (I think/hope).

Joseph