I need exim to use multiple IPs - not account based

[Eric Martello]

I have several IPs that I want to reserve for sending email:

mail1.domain.com
mail2.domain.com
mail3.domain.com
etc...

I want Exim to bind to those IPs when sending, so that all outgoing mail will be evenly distributed over those domains REGARDLESS of the account which sent the email.

Is there a way to do this? Is it possible to make a configuration directive that would allow me to have exim lookup this info from a text file and select one of the domains listed in the text file? Even if it is randomly choosing from the text file, that is fine. I don't know enough about exim config to do that.

I am aware of "/etc/mailips" and that is not what I am looking for, because I want to decide myself which IPs exim uses for sending. Thanks.

[DomineauX]

Interesting concept.
While I wouldn't want to go that route myself, I could certainly imagine times where the option would be nice.

[Eric Martello]

I found a way to make it work exactly as I wanted to. When sending, it will select an interface IP based on the HELO name my application uses when connecting to Exim.

Basically if I connect to send mail:

HELO mail1.domain.com

Exim will automatically choose an IP from mailips which is associated with mail1.domain.com

mail1.* can increment as much as needed. It doesn't need to be sequentially named, I just did that for convenience.

I'm using a custom program to send mail so my solution may not be the answer for everyone, but it was simply of matter of replacing the expansion variable within the existing code.

You have to do chatter +i on the conf, mailips and mail_reverse_dns files or CPANEL will kindly overwrite them with the UPCP.

I wish this forum was a bit more active because CPANEL's one-size-fits-all implementation of things fails on many fronts. There needs to be more granular control over the server and how it works at a more fundamental level. I'm stuck using the apps cpanel decided were "best for everyone" and it seems to take them ages to support new stuff, or add options. In this case I think exim is working nicely but it sure took a lot of tweaking on my part to get it there.

I posted this thread like a week ago and not even one CPANEL guy bothered to drop a hint...and there are even more unanswered questions in this forum, not only mine (my question I answered myself ).

[DomineauX]

I wish this forum was a bit more active because CPANEL's one-size-fits-all implementation of things fails on many fronts. There needs to be more granular control over the server and how it works at a more fundamental level. I'm stuck using the apps cpanel decided were "best for everyone" and it seems to take them ages to support new stuff, or add options. In this case I think exim is working nicely but it sure took a lot of tweaking on my part to get it there.

I posted this thread like a week ago and not even one CPANEL guy bothered to drop a hint...and there are even more unanswered questions in this forum, not only mine (my question I answered myself ).

While I can understand your feelings on this, I just have to point out the fact that CPanel is pretty well regarded as being far and away the fastest major control panel to implement new features and support new versions.
I have many years of experience with Parallels Pro (formerly Ensim Pro) and Plesk and you might be amazed to learn how slow they both were/are about implementing changes. (Simple example, Parallels Pro/Ensim Pro finally updated uw-imap in 2008 to the 2007b version from the previous 2004g version due to complaints about SSLv2 being enabled going back 2+ years)

Also for the level of customization you were looking for in this thread, CPanel really has no need to respond since they already do what they can by providing such a very customizable Exim environment. They simply cannot be expected to develop or support a feature that 99% of web hosts would not find much use for.
Their current implementation for sending mail out from dedicated IP's for sites that have them is already a huge feature that I actually have a dedicated server customer who spent well over $10k in custom development to accomplish for their Email Marketing business.

[Eric Martello]

Well, now people have a way to do what I wanted to do.

I agree that CPanel is among the better control panel packages out there, but I still maintain that the ability to fine-tune the applications cpanel supports should be part of the package they offer. For instance, editing Exim's configuration in WHM isn't very intuitive, so you have to edit it directly from the shell to make important changes...changes that cpanel overwrites with daily updates.

But whatever..for now it is working and I can't complain.