Bug#370790: Debian README for exim4 misleading re TLS.

[David Lawyer]

Package:exim4-base
Version:4.60-3

My ISP started requiring TLS authentication so I checked the exim document
supplied by Debian: README.Debian.gz.  It reads:

2.2. Using TLS

2.2.1. Exim 4 as TLS/SSL client

   Both exim4-daemon-heavy and exim4-daemon-light support TLS/SSL using
   the GnuTLS library and STARTTLS. Exim will use TLS via STARTTLS
   automatically as client if the server exim connects to offers it. TLS
   on connect is not natively supported. You can stop reading now if you
   are not setting up a mailserver which needs to offer TLS for incoming
   connections.
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Since I was going to use TLS as a client, it looks like I have nothing
to do.  So I did nothing and found that my outgoing email was rejected
by my ISP and became frozen.  After many hours of checking and
debugging I found that I needed to fill in the file
/etc/exim4/passwd.client.  Then all was OK.  But it does mention this in
the README doc:

2.3. SMTP-AUTH

2.3.1. Using exim as SMTP-AUTH client

   If you want to set up exim as SMTP AUTH client for delivery to your
   internet access provider's smarthost put the name of the server, your
   login and password in /etc/exim4/passwd.client. That file also
   contains verbose information about the required format.
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Perhaps this isn't part of TLS, but prior to my ISP requiring TLS, my
email worked fine with nothing in this file (except comments starting
with #).  I had no idea that I needed this file

Someone else on the Internet seems to have had similar problems.  He
(like me) read that you don't need to do anything to get TLS if you're
a client.  But apparently, the changes resulted in passwd.client being
required.  So the doc might reference the section about passwd.client
prior to telling readers to stop reading.  Or better, exim could
produce an error message in the logs saying it found nothing (or
incorrect info) in passwd.client.