anyone using exim4 and fastmail.fm's SmartHost on a debian machine?

[Harry Putnam]

I am trying to setup exim4. Not getting far. Mainly because I'm
completely unfamiliar with exim having used sendmail for many years.

I really really do NOT want to pound thru piles of exim docu to find
the few bits I need.

Is there anyone here who might offer a sample config or outline that
is doing something similar to what I list below?

1) single user home machine running debian

2) Currently trying to use the smtp server at fastmail.fm as SmartHost.
(I have accounts with them and have used them that way for a couple
of years, using sendmail.)

3) no kind of commercial operation.
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------

Those parameters must describe thousands of folks out there except for
the fastmail smtp part and even there its probably hundreds.

I think part of the sticky thing with exim4 is using an authenticating
SmartHost. In sendmail it involves the use of an authinfo file and
possibly some kind of masquerading. With the appropriate settings in
sendmail.mc.

In exim4, I've found a few things on google telling how to do that in
exim4 but it is not working for me. Debian offers a lot of exim docu
on board the host too. But it is so much one really needs to know
where to start and where to jump around too.

I don't yet know how to make exim tell me what the problem is.

[Eric S Fraga]

Post by Harry Putnam
I am trying to setup exim4. Not getting far. Mainly because I'm
completely unfamiliar with exim having used sendmail for many years.

I cannot help you directly. I gave up on exim4 many years ago now as I
found it overly complicated for my needs. I switched to msmtp. Maybe
you should consider the same?

[Adam Sjøgren]

Post by Harry Putnam
I am trying to setup exim4. Not getting far. Mainly because I'm
completely unfamiliar with exim having used sendmail for many years.

This is probably not what you need, but when I looked at Exim and
Postfix many years ago, I found Postfix much easier to configure.


Best regards,

Adam

[lee]

Post by Harry Putnam
I am trying to setup exim4. Not getting far. Mainly because I'm
completely unfamiliar with exim having used sendmail for many years.
I really really do NOT want to pound thru piles of exim docu to find
the few bits I need.
Is there anyone here who might offer a sample config or outline that
is doing something similar to what I list below?
1) single user home machine running debian
2) Currently trying to use the smtp server at fastmail.fm as SmartHost.
(I have accounts with them and have used them that way for a couple
of years, using sendmail.)
3) no kind of commercial operation.

As root, run 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config'.

That should do all you need, and IIRC it will ask you for a smarthost.

However, my recommendation is to get familiar with exim and to copy
/usr/share/doc/exim4/examples/example.conf.gz to /etc/exim4/exim4.conf
and edit it to your needs. That's the only way to figure out how exim
is actually configured.

A smarthost setup requires several entries:


[...]
begin routers

smart_route:
driver = manualroute
domains = !+local_domains
transport = smarthost_smtp
route_list = * fastmail.fm

[...]
begin transports


# This transport is used for delivering messages over SMTP connections.

remote_smtp:
driver = smtp


# send via smarthost

smarthost_smtp:
driver = smtp
# port=465
hosts_require_auth = fastmail.fm
hosts_require_tls = fastmail.fm


[...]
begin authenticators
[...]
fixed_cram:
driver = cram_md5
public_name = CRAM-MD5
client_name = "***@newsguy.com"
client_secret = "<your password>"


Of course, there are several ways to provide authentication, so adjust
to your needs. If you put your password into the config, make sure only
root can read it.

Exim has outstanding documentation, and since you've been able to deal
with sendmail, you'll find exim ridiculously easy to configure. Its
mailing list also used to be very good, only I haven't looked at it in a
long time.