More mail questions

More mail questions

[Hadron Quark]

I am using smtpmail package through a gmail smtp server to send email.

But if I use gnus to send a mail to "root@localhost" why isnt procmail
picking it up and diverting it to my local root mmaildir? Procmail does
its job just fine when I use the Linux commandline "mail" command.

I'm unsure where postfix and smptmail.el fit together.

Any pointers appreciated.

-- 

Re: More mail questions

[Tim X]

Hadron Quark <hadronquark@gmail.com> writes:

> I am using smtpmail package through a gmail smtp server to send email.
>
> But if I use gnus to send a mail to "root@localhost" why isnt procmail
> picking it up and diverting it to my local root mmaildir? Procmail does
> its job just fine when I use the Linux commandline "mail" command.
>
> I'm unsure where postfix and smptmail.el fit together.
>
> Any pointers appreciated.
>
> -- 

When using smtpmail, emacs connects directly to the remote smtp server
and totally bypasses your local smtp server (postfix). Your procmail
is probably the default delivery agent for your local smtp server
(this is the standard config these days). 

This means that your message addressed to user@localhost is being sent
to the remote gmail smtp server, which if correctly configured, should
probably reject the message (i.e. doesn't accept @localhost addresses
unless they come from that machine) or possibly it will attempt to
find a user with that name on that server (but I think this would be
an incorrect configuration). In your example, it would be delivered to
wherever root mail messages are delivered for the remote smtp server -
probably one of the sys admins.

Mail sent via other programs than emacs/gnus don't know about
smtpmail and is using your local smtp server (postfix) and as the mail
is originating locally, accepts the message and passes it to procmail,
which delivers it to the mailbox. 

I recently started using smtpmail because my ISP has placed all their
dynamic IP addresses into various blacklists and messages I sent via
my local smtp server (which was setup as a smarthost that relayed all
non-local mail to my ISP smtp server, would often get rejected by
destination hosts that were using a very strict mail policy which
refuses to accept mail from blacklisted IPs. Many ISPs are doing this
these days to protect themselves from being blacklisted by a customer
who runs a local smtp server which is either misconfigured and gets
abused by a spammer or to send spam themselves. 

I've been running this configuration for a couple of weeks now and it
works quite well. The only downside is that sometimes there can be a
slight delay between sending the mail and getting emacs responding
again - probably due to high loads on the remote smtp server. I have
also configured fetchmail to retrieve my mail from remote imap/pop
mailboxes and hand it directly to procmail. This means I no longer
need to run a mail server at all - which is great as I'm way past
finding maintaining a mail server "fun" and the less I have to
maintain the better. I was running exim as my local mail server as it
is easy to setup. Postfix is probably overkill for a local machine,
unless you have many users and lots of mail traffic. From memory, I
also seem to remember it is a bit difficult to run postfix and NOT
have it run as a daemon listening on prot 25. Many people don't
realise that you only need an smtp server listening on a port if you
are accepting mail from a remote host. Likewise, many people forget
that the mail server (postfix, sendmail, exim etc) don't actually
deliver mail, but instead use a delivery program, such as procmail. 

HTH

Tim
-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: More mail questions

[Hadron Quark]

Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:

> Hadron Quark <hadronquark@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I am using smtpmail package through a gmail smtp server to send email.
>>
>> But if I use gnus to send a mail to "root@localhost" why isnt procmail
>> picking it up and diverting it to my local root mmaildir? Procmail does
>> its job just fine when I use the Linux commandline "mail" command.
>>
>> I'm unsure where postfix and smptmail.el fit together.
>>
>> Any pointers appreciated.
>>
>> -- 
>
> When using smtpmail, emacs connects directly to the remote smtp server
> and totally bypasses your local smtp server (postfix). Your procmail
> is probably the default delivery agent for your local smtp server
> (this is the standard config these days). 

I figured this.

>
> This means that your message addressed to user@localhost is being sent
> to the remote gmail smtp server, which if correctly configured, should
> probably reject the message (i.e. doesn't accept @localhost addresses
> unless they come from that machine) or possibly it will attempt to
> find a user with that name on that server (but I think this would be
> an incorrect configuration). In your example, it would be delivered to
> wherever root mail messages are delivered for the remote smtp server -
> probably one of the sys admins.

Yup.

>
> Mail sent via other programs than emacs/gnus don't know about
> smtpmail and is using your local smtp server (postfix) and as the mail
> is originating locally, accepts the message and passes it to procmail,
> which delivers it to the mailbox. 

After I setup my exim4 procmail_pipe or something yes.

>
> I recently started using smtpmail because my ISP has placed all their
> dynamic IP addresses into various blacklists and messages I sent via
> my local smtp server (which was setup as a smarthost that relayed all
> non-local mail to my ISP smtp server, would often get rejected by
> destination hosts that were using a very strict mail policy which

Which is why I switched to smtpmail too - and it took ages to get it
going.

> refuses to accept mail from blacklisted IPs. Many ISPs are doing this
> these days to protect themselves from being blacklisted by a customer
> who runs a local smtp server which is either misconfigured and gets
> abused by a spammer or to send spam themselves. 
>
> I've been running this configuration for a couple of weeks now and it
> works quite well. The only downside is that sometimes there can be a
> slight delay between sending the mail and getting emacs responding
> again - probably due to high loads on the remote smtp server. I have

I dont have that at all. I moved to emacs snapshot - returns very
quickly. Dont forget you can also setup smtpmail to queue the posts.

> also configured fetchmail to retrieve my mail from remote imap/pop
> mailboxes and hand it directly to procmail. This means I no longer

Same as.

> need to run a mail server at all - which is great as I'm way past
> finding maintaining a mail server "fun" and the less I have to
> maintain the better. I was running exim as my local mail server as it
> is easy to setup. Postfix is probably overkill for a local machine,
> unless you have many users and lots of mail traffic. From memory, I
> also seem to remember it is a bit difficult to run postfix and NOT
> have it run as a daemon listening on prot 25. Many people don't
> realise that you only need an smtp server listening on a port if you
> are accepting mail from a remote host. Likewise, many people forget
> that the mail server (postfix, sendmail, exim etc) don't actually
> deliver mail, but instead use a delivery program, such as procmail.

Well, procmail doesnt deliever remotely - thats why you need smtpmail/
exim configured to deliver via a smarthost.

Unfortunately TLS authentication, while working last night, is now
scuppered. But thats by the by.

But this still begs the question : how to configure gnus to
(preferably using procmail rules) palm off emails destined to local users
and NOT to send them off to the smtp server I am using from smtpmail.

>
> HTH
>
> Tim

-- 

Re: More mail questions

[Tim X]

Hadron Quark <hadronquark@gmail.com> writes:


> But this still begs the question : how to configure gnus to
> (preferably using procmail rules) palm off emails destined to local users
> and NOT to send them off to the smtp server I am using from smtpmail.
>

I don't use gnus for mail, but rather VM. With vm, there is an add-on
package called vm-pcrisis, which I *think* allows vm to use different
smtp servers based on criteria like the from address being used or the
domain mail is being sent to. The main objective of this package is to
allow you to use one configuration to represent yourself as different
people (i.e. different mail addresses). 

It might be worth having a look at this package to get some ideas. 

Off the top of my head -

- Write a function which will set the smtpmail-smtp-server variable to
an appropriate server based on the recipient address i.e. if it is
localhost or does not have a domain attached, use the local smtp
server, otherwise send it to the remote smtp server. 

- Have this function then call the smtp-mail-send-it function as its
last form. 

- Set this function as the value for message-sned-mail-function

Another alternative would be to use defadvice around smtpmail-send-it
using the 'before form to set the smtpmail-smtp-server variable before
the function proper is called. This would have the possible advantage
of working regardless of the mail sending interface used (i.e.
send-mail-function or message-send-mail-function). 

HTH

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au

Re: More mail questions

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:

> Hadron Quark <hadronquark@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I am using smtpmail package through a gmail smtp server to send email.
>>
>> But if I use gnus to send a mail to "root@localhost" why isnt procmail
>> picking it up and diverting it to my local root mmaildir? Procmail does
>> its job just fine when I use the Linux commandline "mail" command.
>>
>> I'm unsure where postfix and smptmail.el fit together.
>>
>> Any pointers appreciated.
>>
>> -- 
>
> When using smtpmail, emacs connects directly to the remote smtp server
> and totally bypasses your local smtp server (postfix). Your procmail
> is probably the default delivery agent for your local smtp server
> (this is the standard config these days). 

/../

> I recently started using smtpmail because my ISP has placed all their
> dynamic IP addresses into various blacklists and messages I sent via
> my local smtp server (which was setup as a smarthost that relayed all
> non-local mail to my ISP smtp server, would often get rejected by
> destination hosts that were using a very strict mail policy which
> refuses to accept mail from blacklisted IPs. Many ISPs are doing this
> these days to protect themselves from being blacklisted by a customer
> who runs a local smtp server which is either misconfigured and gets
> abused by a spammer or to send spam themselves. 
>
> I've been running this configuration for a couple of weeks now and it
> works quite well. The only downside is that sometimes there can be a
> slight delay between sending the mail and getting emacs responding
> again - probably due to high loads on the remote smtp server. I have
> also configured fetchmail to retrieve my mail from remote imap/pop
> mailboxes and hand it directly to procmail. This means I no longer
> need to run a mail server at all - which is great as I'm way past
> finding maintaining a mail server "fun" and the less I have to
> maintain the better. I was running exim as my local mail server as it
> is easy to setup. Postfix is probably overkill for a local machine,
> unless you have many users and lots of mail traffic. From memory, I
> also seem to remember it is a bit difficult to run postfix and NOT
> have it run as a daemon listening on prot 25. Many people don't
> realise that you only need an smtp server listening on a port if you
> are accepting mail from a remote host. Likewise, many people forget
> that the mail server (postfix, sendmail, exim etc) don't actually
> deliver mail, but instead use a delivery program, such as procmail. 


Greatly helpful explanations Tim. That's what I do too on the Tx side,
although on Rx side I use gnus's POP mail facility and rely on my
ISP's fitlering (and manual intervention for training via webmail
interface).

-- 
Gernot Hassenpflug (gernot@rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp)      Tel: +81 774 38-3866
JSPS Fellow (Rm.403, RISH, Kyoto Uni.)              Fax: +81 774 31-8463
www.rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp/radar-group/members/gernot   Mob: +81 90 39493924