Re: Lenny/exim4: how to set helo for outgoing SMTP

randall wrote:
Kilian wrote:


Under etch, I just changed helo_data in /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template
manually - not very nice, but it did what I needed. Now my mailconfig is
broken because some hosts won't accept my mails as the HELO does not
match the IP of the firewall, of course. Is there really no way to
change the outgoing HELO value in exim 4.69-9? I am using the "internet"
config of exim4.
i am not familiar with Exim, but with postfix i use in my config
"myhostname = mail.songshu.org"
there should be something similar with Exim i guess.

Yep, in postfix it really is as simple as setting myhostname in main.cf
- this is the value postfix uses for identifying itself in remote SMTP
sessions, regardless of the DNS record for the host it runs on.

another option would be to ask your isp to change the PTR record on that
IP to the HELO exim uses.

I have a firewall with a public IP and a PTR record for that IP. There
are several hosts behind the firewall with private IP addresses. Some of
them send mails to the internet, so I cannot change the PTR of the
firewall to one of those hostnames. I need exim to identify itself in
the HELO sequence as the PTR record for the firewall; RFC 822 states:

HELLO (HELO)

This command is used to identify the sender-SMTP to the
receiver-SMTP. The argument field contains the host name of
the sender-SMTP.

Now to the receiver SMTP, my host appears as the firewall, so IMHO, it
must identify itself with the hostname set in the DNS for the firewall.

[...]
HELO is for identifying the mailserver, not the domain it sends for.
there is no reason why the hostname of the mailserver should match the
domain names of the mails it sends out

I agree.

if both HELO and the PTR record say mail.server.com there is no problem,
whatever the domain of the send mail might be.

Exactly, and herein lies my problem...

-- Kilian


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