Bug#394438: exim4: allow SMTP from remote when configuring for smarthost

[Marc Haber]

On Sat, Oct 21, 2006 at 01:21:26PM +0200, A Mennucc wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 21, 2006 at 12:41:28PM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote:
> 
> > The packages also asks "IP-addresses to listen on for incoming SMTP
> > connections:" at debconf priority medium. - This question is
> > definitely asked at the correct priority, as it has a reasonable
> > default value.
> 
> AFAICR, this question was not asked during my test install. 

In current sid, exim does not ask any questions at high priority, so
during d-i installation, there is no question asked by exim and exim
defaults to a "local mail only" setup. If you dpkg-reconfigure
exim4-config at a later time, all questions are asked.

This behavior was strongly requested by the Debian installer people
and I do not intend to change this unless the tech ctte overrides me
(and the installer team).

I surely hope that the version that introduces this change makes it to
etch in time.

> So, it really seems that that question is not asked during standard install.

Feature. See /usr/share/doc/exim4-config/NEWS.Debian.gz for 4.62-4.

> > even if exim only listens on 127.0.0.1 it will except mail by SMTP,
> (I suppose  s/except/accept/ )
> > (SMTP from the local machine), so the question is formally correct.
> 
> The question "IP-addresses to listen on for incoming SMTP  connections:"
> is formally correct, but is not asked during install, and
> its default is not what people do expect from a SMTP server
> that is configured to
>  "mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail"

I disagree here.

> IMHO, when the person installing Debian chooses 
>  "mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail"
> s/he most probably is sending email anywhere on the Internet,
> and is expecting replies from anywhere on the Internet.

I disagree here.

> But  "IP-addresses to listen on for incoming SMTP  connections:" 
> will be silently set to "127.0.0.1" . 
> 
> This is not what people do expect.

I think it is not expected by people that their exim accepts
connections from anywhere by default.

> My suggestion is: if the user chooses to configure Exim4
> to only do local delivery, then set the default of
>  "IP-addresses to listen on for incoming SMTP  connections:"
> to 127.0.0.1 ; in all other cases, set it to accept 
> all connections.

Thanks for this suggestion. I am not going to accept it.

Greetings
Marc

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