Exim vs Procmail (was: Sendmail vs Exim vs Others)

From: Vincent Lefevre (vincent_at_vinc17.org)
Date: 01/31/04

  • Next message: Vincent Lefevre: "Re: postfix [was Re: Sendmail vs Exim vs Others]" 
    Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 01:09:21 +0100
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

    On 2004-01-30 18:34:17 +0000, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
    > See http://www.exim.org/ . Click on "Documentation and FAQs".

    Thanks. The FAQ says to use procmail. :)

    > The same documentation is available as a text file in
    > /usr/share/doc/exim (spec.txt and filter.txt).

    There are several things I don't like:

    * Exim uses the .forward file which is also used by other MTAs.
      This may lead to clashes and lost mail if something changes at
      the system level (e.g. another MTA is used). A bit dangerous.
      A .eximrc would have been a better idea.

    * The behavior may depend on some choices done by the sysadmin
      (or the package maintener).

    * An error is treated as a delivery failure. This is bad as the
      message would be lost and the sender probably annoyed by a
      mailer-daemon. A non-zero exit status that propagates (like
      with procmail) would be the solution. Note: I get my remote
      mail by POP3 with getmail.

    * A result of a pipe can't be retrieved (and that's why the FAQ
      recommends to use procmail for such things).

    Another point is that exim isn't the only MTA. Whereas the user can
    have procmail filters on all his accounts, this isn't necessarily
    possible with exim filters.

    However, procmail isn't perfect. The main problem is that it isn't
    very powerful and may need other tools (mainly formail, but also
    perl for the most complicated filters). A 100% perl-based solution
    (with primitives for MIME decoding) would probably better for me. 

    -- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/> - 100%
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  • Next message: Vincent Lefevre: "Re: postfix [was Re: Sendmail vs Exim vs Others]"

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