>Though I trust Len and Sandy regarding the present condition where no
>firewall SMTP proxies support ESMTP, is it not conceivable that a proxy
>*could* be made to have access to the user+password file?

sure

>  Am I missing some
>obvious impediment which would explain why SMTP proxies cannot obtain access
>to the user+password data for fundamental reasons?

The problem is the which database interface? from the firewall program to 
the authentication database of users+passwords.   Mail servers use all 
kinds of users databases, mostly proprietary, as with Imail.

To avoid the proprietary aspect and to support various OS's used by 
mailservers, a firewall program could specify an "secure" LDAP server.

ie, it's really very complicated, in general, for a firewall to support 
user+passwords for SMTP AUTH.   The best approach would be via some RFC 
standard directory service like LDAP.  But IMail's case LDAP server can't 
be used securely for authentication to external LDAP clients like a firewall.

Len

__________________________________________________________________
www.menandmice.com/DNS-training : DNS Training
BIND8NT.MEIway.com : ISC BIND for NT4 & W2K
IMGate.MEIway.com  : Build free, hi-perf, anti-abuse mail gateways


Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html 
to be removed from this list.

An Archive of this list is available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/

Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked
questions:  http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/

Reply via email to