Re: [Evolution] seperate identities and outgoing servers

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org>]

On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 09:46 +0100, Pete Biggs wrote:
> > > > In most mail clients (thunderbird, kmail), when creating a mail account,
> > > > you define an identity (i.e. a mailbox=address+incoming server) but you
> > > > do not need to specify a particular outgoing server (e.g. smtp). This
> > > > server is defined in a separate (and independent) step.
> > > > I think this is much better than in Evolution where the configuration
> > > > associates a mailbox with an smtp server.
> > > > Suppose I have 2 mail accounts/identities:
> > > > * my name firstdomain net with incoming server imap.firstdomain.net
> > > > * my pseudo seconddomain com with incoming server pop.seconddomain.com
> > > > and that I can also use
> > > > * smtp.fisrstdomain.net in my workplace only
> > > > * smtp.seconddomain.com at home only
> > > > My question is : how do I configure Evolution if I want to send a
> > > > message using my second identity when I'm at work (ie using
> > > > smtp.fisrstdomain.net)? Can I choose an outgoing server independently
> > > > from my mail identity (some kind of smtp selection functionality)?
> > > select an SMTP server other than changing your identity, but in
> > > principle you could do it by configuring Evo to use sendmail rather than
> > > SMTP, and getting sendmail to understand your location. That's really
> > > outside the scope of this list.
> > Thanks for mentioning that possibility. I think this is a critical issue
> > when choosing a mail client (for laptop users)

I'd asset that if this [selecting an SMTP server] is an issue - someone
should go talk to the network admin about just fixing the root of the
problem.  This is a trivial issue with a cleaner 'upstream' solution
[see below].

> It's not that difficult to do in Evo.  But first you need to get away
> from this idea of an "identity" - it's a concept, not an integral part
> of email - different clients do things differently, if the way Evo deals
> with life is not for you, then so be it, I don't particularly like the
> way Thunderbird does things :-)

+1 Thunderbird stinks. :)

> Since you only have two servers and two SMTP relay hosts, it's a
> relatively simple thing to setup two accounts that reflect the normal
> way things are done, i.e. imapA & SMTPa and imapB & SMTPb.  You can then
> setup two "dummy" accounts effectively as imapA & SMTPb and imapB &
> SMTPa, but crucially you set the receiving type on those accounts as
> "NONE", so they won't actually retrieve any mail (but other than that
> they should be identical).  Then when you want to send things via SMTPb
> as imapA you just select the relevant item in the "From:" drop down in
> the composer.

+1 for creating send-only accounts.

> > > Personally, I just use smtp.gmail.com from everywhere, but of course
> > > Gmail keeps a copy of every message you send (that can be viewed either
> > > as an advantage or a disadvantage), and may violate company policy or
> > > clash with corporate outgoing filters.
> > Right again
> What should happen is that each SMTP relay should be authenticated and
> accessible from anywhere, then it doesn't matter where a mobile client
> is on the net. 

Which is trivial with split-horizon DNS.  Have you admin CNAME
smtp.{your-domain} on the internal DNS to the internal host and CNAME
smtp.{your-domain} on the extranet DNS to the extanet host.  Done, and
no further diddling with clients - they can moving outside, inside, and
back again with no issue.