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Posted to users@spamassassin.apache.org by Don Saklad <ds...@zurich.csail.mit.edu> on 2006/12/04 21:20:09 UTC
How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
How do novice end users, neophytes examine things and determine
what is the mail delivery agent ?... as a general understanding
of the particular system at hand.
This is with respect to setting up a secondary mail file for
screened spam type messages that later can be checked over for
any false positives.
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
Posted by Jonas Eckerman <jo...@frukt.org>.
Don Saklad wrote:
> How do novice end users, neophytes examine things and determine
> what is the mail delivery agent ?...
They ask the system administrators.
> as a general understanding
> of the particular system at hand.
For this they might have to read the documentation.
Regards
/Jonas
--
Jonas Eckerman, FSDB & Fruktträdet
http://whatever.frukt.org/
http://www.fsdb.org/
http://www.frukt.org/
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
Posted by Alan Premselaar <al...@12inch.com>.
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Don Saklad wrote:
> How would, where would a mail transfer agent tell you the
> mail delivery agent for a the system at hand?...
>
> Developing instructive information without acronyms,
> without industry jargon that complete novices, neophytes
> can use easily is the heart of the matter.
Don,
to my knowledge, there is no way to determine the MDA (mail delivery
agent) without having access to the mail server's configuration files.
Alan
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Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
Posted by Jonas Eckerman <jo...@frukt.org>.
Mike Jackson wrote:
>> mail delivery agent for a the system at hand?...
> Just connect to port 25 and observe the banner.
That normally won't work. The banner normally only includes the mail *transfer* agent and not the mail *delivery* agent.
Even though many MTAs have a builtin or bundled MDA, many of them can be configured to use another one. Also, many MTAs forward mail to internal MTAs for delivery.
Regards
/Jonas
--
Jonas Eckerman, FSDB & Fruktträdet
http://whatever.frukt.org/
http://www.fsdb.org/
http://www.frukt.org/
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
Posted by Don Saklad <ds...@zurich.csail.mit.edu>.
How do you do it?...
> Just connect to port 25 and observe the banner. Not 100%
> foolproof, but most of them either identify themselves
> (Sendmail) or have a recognizable banner (Postfix, Qmail,
> Exchange).
Thank you Mike Jackson !
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
Posted by Mike Jackson <mj...@barking-dog.net>.
> How would, where would a mail transfer agent tell you the
> mail delivery agent for a the system at hand?...
Just connect to port 25 and observe the banner. Not 100% foolproof, but most
of them either identify themselves (Sendmail) or have a recognizable banner
(Postfix, Qmail, Exchange).
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery
agent.
Posted by SM <sm...@resistor.net>.
At 16:40 04-12-2006, Don Saklad wrote:
>How would, where would a mail transfer agent tell you the
>mail delivery agent for a the system at hand?...
You are using Exim as the mail transfer agent. Exim comes with its
own mail delivery agent. The mail delivery agent would be specified
in the Exim's configuration file.
Regards,
-sm
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
Posted by Don Saklad <ds...@zurich.csail.mit.edu>.
How would, where would a mail transfer agent tell you the
mail delivery agent for a the system at hand?...
Developing instructive information without acronyms,
without industry jargon that complete novices, neophytes
can use easily is the heart of the matter.
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
Posted by Theo Van Dinter <fe...@apache.org>.
On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 01:32:44PM -0800, Evan Platt wrote:
> Unless I'm not understanding you... You could attempt to telnet to
> the mail server on port 25, some will say for example:
> 220 example.com ESMTP Postfix
Assuming the MTA doesn't tell you (I think most of them do), you can do
something like:
$ sudo lsof -i :25
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
master 2134 root 11u IPv4 5054 TCP *:smtp (LISTEN)
smtpd 21230 postfix 6u IPv4 5054 TCP *:smtp (LISTEN)
smtpd 21231 postfix 6u IPv4 5054 TCP *:smtp (LISTEN)
[...]
and find out what process is listening on port 25, in this case, postfix.
--
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Don't marry a girl whose father calls her princess.
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery agent.
Posted by Shane Williams <sh...@shanew.net>.
On Mon, 4 Dec 2006, Evan Platt wrote:
> At 12:20 PM 12/4/2006, you wrote:
>> How do novice end users, neophytes examine things and determine
>> what is the mail delivery agent ?... as a general understanding
>> of the particular system at hand.
>>
>> This is with respect to setting up a secondary mail file for
>> screened spam type messages that later can be checked over for
>> any false positives.
>
> Unless I'm not understanding you... You could attempt to telnet to the mail
> server on port 25, some will say for example:
> 220 example.com ESMTP Postfix
The way I read the message (which may also be incorrect), Don wants to
know about the MDA (for instance procmail), not the MTA (like
sendmail, postfix, etc.). While your MTA and MDA can often be the
same software, this isn't necessarily true.
In any case, the best first step is to determine the MTA using the
method Evan suggests. Once you know the MTA, you can probably check the
config files. For example, grep for the string "Mlocal" in
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf and if it makes reference to procmail, the MDA
is procmail.
--
Public key #7BBC68D9 at | Shane Williams
http://pgp.mit.edu/ | System Admin - UT iSchool
=----------------------------------+-------------------------------
All syllogisms contain three lines | shanew@shanew.net
Therefore this is not a syllogism | www.ischool.utexas.edu/~shanew
Re: How to examine a system and determine the mail delivery
agent.
Posted by Evan Platt <ev...@espphotography.com>.
At 12:20 PM 12/4/2006, you wrote:
>How do novice end users, neophytes examine things and determine
>what is the mail delivery agent ?... as a general understanding
>of the particular system at hand.
>
>This is with respect to setting up a secondary mail file for
>screened spam type messages that later can be checked over for
>any false positives.
Unless I'm not understanding you... You could attempt to telnet to
the mail server on port 25, some will say for example:
220 example.com ESMTP Postfix
Evan