# Authenticate on a different machine?



## fullauto (Jun 23, 2012)

I was wondering if it is possible to have Sendmail run on one machine, but have it authenticate via /etc/passwd on a different machine? How would one go about accomplishing this if it is possible?

Basically, I have an Apache22 server that also runs MySQL for the PHPBB3 on that same machine.  All of the registered users on the PHPBB3 will have web space on that machine, but I want a different machine to handle sendmail. However, I don't want to have to clone the /etc/passwd directory every time I create a new user.

Any help would be greatly apreciated. :e

------ Edit ------

Look Dutch! I finally figured out how to format!


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## wblock@ (Jun 23, 2012)

One way to do this is to have the machine with the users run its own copy of sendmail(8), using the mail server machine as a smarthost.


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## kpa (Jun 23, 2012)

yp(8) maybe... but it requires a network you can absolutely trust. Another option that is more likely to be more secure and robust is LDAP.


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## dave (Jun 29, 2012)

+smarthost

That way, if there are network outages, the Apache22 machine will simply hold mail until the other machine is available again.

=== EDIT ===
Actually, now I see that perhaps what you want to do is the reverse.  You want sendmail to be able to deliver mail into mailboxes on the Apache22 machine?  That sounds like you might be asking for more trouble than it's worth.  Any way you cut that, you are going to have trouble if the network goes down.


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