Jun 18

How to configure Exim to send email using a Gmail account as a Smart Host. After following this guide, Exim should be able to send email out to the internet via your Google Gmail account.

1. Prepare Exim4 using dpkg

dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config

Selections:

a) General type of mail configuration: mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail

b) System mail name: localhost

c) Ip Addr to listen on: 127.0.0.1

d) Other destinations~: <blank>

e) Machines to Relay for: <blank>

f) ip address or hostname of the outgoing smarthost: smtp.gmail.com::587

g) Hide local mail name in outgoing mail: No

h) Keep number of DNS queries minimal: No

i) Delivery method for local mail: Maildir format in home directory

j) Split configuration into small files: Yes

2. As root, edit /etc/exim4/passwd.client and add the following.

Don’t forget to change emailaddress@gmail.com to your own email address and password to your own password:

gmail-smtp.l.google.com:emailaddress@gmail.com:password
*.google.com:emailaddress@gmail.com:password
smtp.gmail.com:emailaddress@gmail.com:password

Note: You are probably worried about having your password in this file – don’t worry, we’ll make sure the permissions are set correctly in the next step.

3. Set permissions on the /etc/exim4/passwd.client file

Type the following, as root, in the console:

chmod 640 /etc/exim4/passwd.client
chown root:Debian-exim /etc/exim4/passwd.client

4. Add/Edit the /etc/exim4/email-addresses file

In the console as root, add or edit the /etc/exim4/email-addresses file. Just add the following line (no others)

your-local-user-name@localhost:    your-gmail-email-address

And set permissions:

chmod 640 /etc/exim4/email-addresses

5. Edit the /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf file

It should look like the following:

dc_eximconfig_configtype='smarthost'
dc_other_hostnames=''
dc_local_interfaces='127.0.0.1'
dc_readhost=''
dc_relay_domains=''
dc_minimaldns='false'
dc_relay_nets=''
dc_smarthost='smtp.gmail.com::587'
CFILEMODE='644'
dc_use_split_config='true'
dc_hide_mailname='false'
dc_mailname_in_oh='true'
dc_localdelivery='maildir_home'

6. Restart Exim

/etc/init.d/exim4 restart

That should be it!

Feb 2

I recently found a page at TechPatterns that makes installing proprietary Video Card drivers when using the Debian Sid (unstable) distribution quite easy and automated.

The sgfxi script provides a simple and (in my case anyway) reliable means to swap between your open video drivers, and the proprietary Nvidia or ATI drivers. Please note that this script is for Debian Sid and not Ubuntu

I also noticed that my computer ran about 10 degree’s cooler once I had installed the driver. So if anyone is having over heating problems, ensuring that you are using your video card’s processor could be your answer. If you do have overheating issues, a possible cause/solution is also mentioned in my ASUS A8JS Hardware Review post.

The above was tested on an ASUS A8JS Laptop running Debian Sid (2.6.23-1-686 kernel).