Mailing List Archive: exim: dev

[Bug 857] New: The logic of ACL acl_smtp_rcpt is unintuitive

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postmaster at st

Jun 26, 2009, 2:13 AM

Post #1 of 2 (485 views)
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[Bug 857] New: The logic of ACL acl_smtp_rcpt is unintuitive

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http://bugs.exim.org/show_bug.cgi?id=857
Summary: The logic of ACL acl_smtp_rcpt is unintuitive
Product: Exim
Version: N/A
Platform: Other
OS/Version: Linux
Status: NEW
Severity: bug
Priority: low
Component: ACLs
AssignedTo: nigel[at]exim.org
ReportedBy: postmaster[at]st.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de
CC: exim-dev[at]exim.org

Hi,

Yesterday, I moved my main acl checks from acl_smtp_rcpt to acl_smtp_connect.
To my great surprise, it turned out that after this change EXIM did not want to
accept emails :-(

The cause is that, since all acls are evaluated as true if they are not
specified (or commented) in the config file, I assumed that it would be the
same for acl_smtp_rcpt. But it's not the case!

This is unintuitive. Even if this logic is documented (in sec 7.1), it's always
better to provide an intuitive and "natural" configuration.

Thanks for this great tool,

Martin

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ph10 at hermes

Jun 27, 2009, 3:19 AM

Post #2 of 2 (443 views)
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Re: [Bug 857] New: The logic of ACL acl_smtp_rcpt is unintuitive [In reply to]

On Fri, 26 Jun 2009, ST admin wrote:

> The cause is that, since all acls are evaluated as true if they are not
> specified (or commented) in the config file, I assumed that it would be the
> same for acl_smtp_rcpt. But it's not the case!
>
> This is unintuitive. Even if this logic is documented (in sec 7.1), it's always
> better to provide an intuitive and "natural" configuration.

However, it is also important to provide a "safe" default. Also,
people's intuitions differ. :-) It is deliberate that Exim will not
accept any recipients by default. You have to tell it which ones to
accept. Now, I'm no longer working on Exim, so the current maintainers
may choose to change if they want to, but I suspect they won't because
it would be a huge incompatible change. And, personally, I still think
the current default is correct.

--
Philip Hazel

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