On Sat, Nov 01, 2003 at 09:52:41AM +0100, Martin Lesser wrote:
> > The file doesn't belong to vpopmail exclusively. It really belongs to
> > qmail, and vpopmail wants to add and remove items from it for it's
> > misguiding implementation of relaying.
> What do you mean with misguiding? vpopmail - like others - only tries to
> record the REMOTEIP for SMTP after POP purposes.
I personally believe that /etc/tcp.smtp should not be writable by
anybody other than the root user himself, setting it up.

> > Qmail looks at /etc/tcp.smtp via tcpserver, which only allows a single
> > file to be specified, so there is also a tcp.smtp is in
> > /var/vpopmail/etc, then qmail NEVER looks at it, as it really needs
> > /etc/tcp.smtp.
> Just for clarifying: tcpserver (and not qmail) looks into a cdb-file
> which you define as option for tcpserver with -x /path/to/file.cdb. 
That is exactly what I said: 'Qmail looks at /etc/tcp.smtp via
tcpserver'.

> So if one uses vpopmail the run-file for qmail-smtpd could be changed in
> a way that tcpserver looks in another cdb-file for which vpopmail has
> write access. The vanilla vpopmail suggests this IIRC.
The problem is that tcpserver only takes the last '-x' parameter it is
passed, so you cannot give it multiple cdbfiles.

I'd like to enforce a clean seperation between the tcp.smtp that is set
by the administrator and the tcp.smtp that vpopmail wants to create.

No application should ever re-write configuration files as it goes,
there is too much potential for disaster, and ideally should have no
permissions to write to the files even.

[snip standard information about how qmail-smtpd uses tcpserver].

Worst case scenario:
somebody finds a way to exploit vpopmail and add arbitrary information
to your cdb-file. now they use your mail server to send spam etc. I can
simply turn off the extra relaying added in by vpopmail, and leave my
original (and seperate) tcp.smtp file intact.

> > A much better overall solution is to use the relay-ctrl package (see my
> > notes in the latest qmail conf-smtpd and courier-imap stuff about it).
> Ack.
Why 'Ack'? The relay-ctrl package is simply the RELAYCLIENT stuff
abstracted and made a lot more useful. It also doesn't violate my
configuration files. I don't see any convincing reasons why it is less
suitable than vpopmail's less than idea implementation of relay after
auth.

Another nastiness with vpopmail, is that is I wanted to remove the relay
after auth only, I'd have to recompile it, versus just flipping a
configuration setting.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
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