MailScanner/Sendmail Gateway LDAP

[Peter Bonivart]

Trever Furnish wrote:
> I think the functionality would be useful to *most* sites - I would expect
> (based on absolutely nothing but my own daydreams) that most mailscanner
> installations are relays for existing servers, NOT final destinations for
> the mail they process.
>
> On a relay-only system that *only* handles inbound email, there should
> almost never be a reason for that system to handle a bounce or DSN.  But if
> the relay doesn't know about valid users, then it has to accept the message.
> When it tries do deliver the message to the final destination server and
> that server refuses to accept it, then the mailscanner relay becomes
> responsible for generating and delivering the bounce.  Just a minor
> annoyance.
>
> Regarding the MAQ, maybe add a little description that contains the
> buzzwords people search for on this topic?  Something like:
>
>         Mail gateways (relay-only systems) are more effective
>         when they can reject INVALID or UNKNOWN USERS at the MTA
>         level instead of accepting the message.  There are
>         several ways to make an MTA aware of INVALID USERS.
>         One approach is to use LDAP.  Here are some examples:

I hear you but you're now promoting a concept, not answering a question
and that's what the MAQ is for. We should only push good practice if it
avoids bad practice and lowers the number of questions asked on the list
and I don't think pushing people to implement this rather advanced
concept would do that, probably just the contrary. If it was up to me I
would have removed this entry from the MAQ since it's already described
in the FAQ.

IMHO the MAQ should be about getting a *basic* MailScanner working
correctly, everything beyond that will confuse beginners.

--
/Peter Bonivart

--Unix lovers do it in the Sun

Sun Fire V210, Solaris 9, Sendmail 8.12.10, MailScanner 4.31.6,
SpamAssassin 2.63 + DCC 1.2.50, ClamAV 0.73 + GMP 4.1.2, Vispan 1.4

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