Skip to main content

exim all mail catcher

All mail catcher with Exim 4, on Debian 8

We have un bunch of "development" VM that has the feature of sending a mail via a relay, or MTA. 

We usually achieve this by setting the "mail host" setting in the used framework or CMS.

But for development purpose, there is no need to really send the message over the Internet: if the "mail host" catches it all and delivers it to a mailbox, the work is done.

Here is how to setup an Exim 4 on Debian 8 in order to make it catched all mail for all destination and always deliver it to a single local mailbox. That signel local mailbox can then be accessed via IMAP so that the development team can check if the message has been sent by the application.

Configuring with "debconf"

The first stage of configuration is done with debconf

# dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config

Then choose the following answers:

  • Internet site; mail is sent and received directly using SMTP
  • System mail name: (put the FQDN of this machine)
  • IP-addresses to listen on : (leave empty)
  • Other destinations for which mail is accepted:   *
    (Remember we want to catch all destination)
  • Domains to relay mail for: *
    (Remember we want to catch all destination)
  • Machines to relay mail for: 192.168.128.0/23
    (Ajust to your subnet)
  • Keep number of DNS-queries minimal (Dial-on-Demand)? <yes>
    (As far as we wont deliver to the outside world, we dont need to query DNS)
  • The remaining options are up to you

Modify the "deconf'd" configuration

The generated configuration is stored in
/var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated

We need to copy this to
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf

Then we edit it, and the only line to edit is in the "system_aliases:" router:
-  data = ${lookup{$local_part}lsearch{/etc/aliases}}
+  data = mihamina

This will route all the messages to the "mihamina" Maildir: just install a Dovecot-IMAP and a webmail in order to see the messages.

Note that
  • "mihamina" user must have been created.
  • we dont need to touch the "aliases" file

Popular posts from this blog

npm run build base-href

Using NPM to specify base-href When building an Angular application, people usually use "ng" and pass arguments to that invocation. Typically, when wanting to hard code "base-href" in "index.html", one will issue: ng build --base-href='https://ngx.rktmb.org/foo' I used to build my angular apps through Bamboo or Jenkins and they have a "npm" plugin. I got the habit to build the application with "npm run build" before deploying it. But the development team once asked me to set the "--base-href='https://ngx.rktmb.org/foo'" parameter. npm run build --base-href='https://ngx.rktmb.org/foo did not set the base href in indext.html After looking for a while, I found https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/issues/13560 where it says: You need to use −− to pass arguments to npm scripts. This did the job! The command to issue is then: npm run build -- --base-href='https://ngx.rktmb.org/foo...

wget maven ntlm proxy

How to make wget, curl and Maven download behind an NTLM Proxy Working on CentOS, behind an NTLM proxy: yum can deal without problem with a NTLM Proxy wget, curl and Maven cannot The solution is to use " cntlm ". " cntlm " is a NTLM client for proxies requiring NTLM authentication. How it works Install "cntlm" Configure "cntlm"  by giving it your credentials by giving it the NTLM Proxy Start "cntlm" deamon (it listens to "127.0.0.1:3128") Configure wget, curl and Maven to use "cntlm" instead of using directly the NTLM Proxy Note: You will have then a kind of 2 stages Proxy : cntlm + the NTLM proxy Configure CNTLM After installing cntlm, the configuration file is in "cntlm.conf". You must have your domain (in the Windows meaning), proxy login and  proxy password. Mine are respectively: rktmb.org, mihamina, 1234abcd (yes, just for the example) You must have you NTLM Proxy Hostnama or IP ...

Undefined global vim

Defining vim as global outside of Neovim When developing plugins for Neovim, particularly in Lua, developers often encounter the "Undefined global vim" warning. This warning can be a nuisance and disrupt the development workflow. However, there is a straightforward solution to this problem by configuring the Lua Language Server Protocol (LSP) to recognize 'vim' as a global variable. Getting "Undefined global vim" warning when developing Neovim plugin While developing Neovim plugins using Lua, the Lua language server might not recognize the 'vim' namespace by default. This leads to warnings about 'vim' being an undefined global variable. These warnings are not just annoying but can also clutter the development environment with unnecessary alerts, potentially hiding other important warnings or errors. Defining vim as global in Lua LSP configuration to get rid of the warning To resolve the "Undefined global vi...