exim4 config does not honour /etc/mailhelo

[Seegras]

Binary package hint: exim4

Exim does not honour /etc/mailhelo where one could configure the correct helo based on the sending IP; nor other decent means to configure the HELO, apart from putting "primary_hostname" into /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template (which gets lost when using dpkg-reconfigure) or changing the Name in /etc/hosts (which is impossible for some mailhosts behind firerwalls).

# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
Release: 10.04
# apt-cache policy exim4
exim4:
  Installed: 4.71-3ubuntu1

[Chuck Short (zulcss)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:
1. Is this reproducible?
2. If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug? Be as detailed as possible.
This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[Seegras (seegras)]

Hello

* on the Mon, Feb 07, 2011 at 02:02:56PM -0000, Chuck Short wrote:
> 1. Is this reproducible?

Absolutely. The exim-Config in Ubuntu just has no provisions to set
helo_data from /etc/mailhelo (or somewhere else).

See
http://www.exim.org/exim-html-current/doc/html/spec_html/ch30.html

> 2. If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?
> Be as detailed as possible.

echo "my.new.helo" > /etc/mailhelo
/etc/init.d/exim4 restart
telnet localhost 25
HELO somedomain

And behold; the HELO-Message is _NOT_ my.new.helo but some hostname
probably from /etc/hosts.

The point is: This isn't a feature that was present, nor is the use
of a file named /etc/mailhelo standard (only widely used), BUT the
functionality itself is very much necessary, for instance for mailhosts
behind firewalls. And solving the problem by hand excludes of course
the generation of an exim-config by dpkg-reconfigure.

Kind Regards
Peter
--
"Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
"It's also true that those who would give up privacy for security are
likely to end up with neither." -- Bruce Schneier