Hello,

I stumbled over a very simple task - creating a user rewriting for
outgoing mails (smtp) so that the server does not bounce my messages
(because the local domain is not an official domain, of course). IMO a
very common problem.

However, I followed rewrite.html and it did not work. Why? That page is
full of examples but the simple thing - the need of running postmap on
the mapping file, is not mentioned _anywhere_ there. Neither does
"apropos hash" really help - nothing ever would tell a new user to look
in the "postmap" manpage for a thing needed to enhash the list.

Please consider mentioning this in the rewritting.html file. And also
tell the upstream that ADDRESS_REWRITING_README.html has the same
problem. No mention of postmap whatsoever. Or even about the need of
"hashing" at all - one has to guess what is required to do. Not really
user-friendly. Feel free to call me a whiner, but that is just the first
impression from someone having used other MTAs in the last years and now
giving postfix a chance. Further, I think that main.cf should give a
howto about how to map local adresses to outside world adresses. With
exim, it is not a problem at all, the hint is IIRC very visible and you
have just to change the line in /etc/email-adresses. With postfix, you
have to RTFM, find nothing (see below), RTF random M looking for a
solution, finding nothing, using google, which points you to
rewrite.html which looks interesting but shows you the wrong things,
asking on IRC or reviwing postfix.org links to find
ADDRESS_REWRITING_README.html, do what is said there, wonder why the
stupid thing does not accept it, look around, rename generic to
generic.db because you assume that the doc is wrong (should be
generic.db and not generic there), curse again, look for a "hashing"
utility (that is why I write this report), find nothing, google again,
find something called STANDARD_CONFIGURATION_README.html mentioning
postmap in a small side note and completely different context, giving
the stupid thing the last chance and running it. Great. Does work now.
But not userfriendly at all.

I would expect Debian's main.cf contain something like:

# To do rewritting of outgoind mail adresses (smtp) to look like beeing
# from a valid adress, add lines like
# "username@systemMailName validAddrName@yourIsp" to /etc/postfix/smtp_rewrite
# and run "postmap /etc/postfix/rewrite", then uncomment this:
# smtp_generic_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/smtp_rewrite


And for the "apropos" problem - at least the postfix manpage should
mention few popular words. postfix(1) sux anyway. Compare
it with perlfaq(1) - there you see a short explanation for every manpage including
buzzwords that people are looking for. I would expect something like:

postmap (1) - Postfix lookup table management, conversion between
plaintext, hashed and database formats.

Imagine, you are a new user and look for rewriting. What will you find
by looking for "rewri"? TRIVIAL-REWRITE(8)! What does that have to do
with the popular request (address rewriting)? At the first glance:
nothing.

Eduard.

Hello,

thinking twice about my configuration problems, I think the whole
rewritting thing can be integrated into the debconf setup easily. I
imagine somethink like:

1. Menu question:
Assuming the mail addresses of the local users shall not be identical
with those visible in outgoing mails. You can setup postfix to do
automatic rewritting of address parts to preset different, valid
addresses to the public. This can be done in different ways, please
choose the one you need:

 * No rewritting needed, the local addresses are valid for public (1.1)
 * Keep the username part of the address but change the hostname (1.2)
 * Map complete addresses to different mail addresses (1.3)

Resulting in following dialogs:
1.1: continue as usual
1.2: Text entry:
Please enter the visual name of the domain which is responsible for the
receival of local mails. Eg. specify "example.org" if the local users
receive their mails trough example.org having the same name, so
"user@foo.example.org" would be rewritten to "user@example.org".
1.3: Text entry
Please specify pairs of local user names and visible email addresses
that should be presented to the public instead of local email addresses,
separated by space.
Example: "foo bar@example.org baz sam@example.org"

There may be another dialog, asking whether the rewring applies, smtp
only or others.

When done, the setup it would create a table with given users/hosts,
hash it as needed and integrate into config.

Eduard.

Sehr geehrter Käufer,

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