Re: Changing the default for `send-mail-function'

[Richard Riley]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden> writes:

> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:
>
>>     Times have moved on.  All other modern mail readers have moved on from
>>     trying to use the local MTA to send email out, because the world has
>>     changed.  These days, it's way more likely that you need to talk to your
>>     ISPs local servers directly, and you need to fill out some credentials
>>     tied to your account.
>>
>> If a client program can do that, why can't Exim do that?
>
> Because SMTP is slowly moving towards a regime of per-user
> authentication.
>
> That is, to send someone email these days, you often have to provide a
> user name and a password.  If you're the only one sending mail from your
> machine, it's theoretically possible to configure exim to provide these
> credentials to the upstream MTA.  (At least I think it's possible -- I
> haven't actually checked.)  If there are two people sending email from
> your machine, that obviously isn't what you want to do, what with the
> password then being shared and stuff.

Assuming I havent got completely lost here, exim4 "smart hosts" are a
doddle to configure. But only for one user. For more than one email
account/smtp smarthost there are a plethora of google hits some of which
might work - matching email and/or user to the corect authentication
details needed for that user/email specific smarthost. If thats not
relevant excuse the intrusion.