8:11 a.m.
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 14:57, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 13:41, Jean-Rene Cormier wrote:
> I think Postfix is pretty much the best alternative since it even has a
> sendmail command (called the Postfix to Sendmail compatibility
> interface) so programs that sends mail using sendmail will still work.
> I'm not aware of any other MTA that can replace sendmail in this way,
> though I could be wrong...
Most MTAs have some degree of sendmail command line compatibility simply
because its the historic unix way of mail injection - however since its
also evolved and never been documented its also interesting to implement
:-(
Exim can be used as a drop in replacement for sendmail (including
handling aliases & .forwards, but the config is significantly
different).
I'd look favourably on the idea of having the default default (as in
absolutely no questions asked on install) MTA be something that does no
local delivery at all, but is intended to punt everything to your
company or ISP smarthost
"Exim is not designed for storing mail for dial-in
hosts. When the
volumes of such mail are large, it is better to get the messages
Ždelivered¡ into files (that is, off Exim's queue) and subsequently
passed on to the dial-in hosts by other means."
This makes exim a rather poor choice for a default MTA for me ;)
imho sendmail is nice as the default MTA, making it forward to your
ISP is rather easy..
--
Vennlig hilsen/Best Regards
Nils Olav Selåsdal
System Engineer
UtelSystems a/s
w w w . u t e l s y s t e m s . c o m
8:33 a.m.
New subject: Fedora Core 2 wishlists
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 10:11, =?ISO-8859-1?Q? Nils O. Sel=E5sdal?= wrote:
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 14:57, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 13:41, Jean-Rene Cormier wrote:
> > I think Postfix is pretty much the best alternative since it even has a
> > sendmail command (called the Postfix to Sendmail compatibility
> > interface) so programs that sends mail using sendmail will still work.
> > I'm not aware of any other MTA that can replace sendmail in this way,
> > though I could be wrong...
>
> Most MTAs have some degree of sendmail command line compatibility simply
> because its the historic unix way of mail injection - however since its
> also evolved and never been documented its also interesting to implement
> :-(
>
> Exim can be used as a drop in replacement for sendmail (including
> handling aliases & .forwards, but the config is significantly
> different).
>
> I'd look favourably on the idea of having the default default (as in
> absolutely no questions asked on install) MTA be something that does no
> local delivery at all, but is intended to punt everything to your
> company or ISP smarthost
"Exim is not designed for storing mail for dial-in hosts. When the
volumes of such mail are large, it is better to get the messages
delivered into files (that is, off Exim's queue) and subsequently
passed on to the dial-in hosts by other means."
This makes exim a rather poor choice for a default MTA for me ;)
imho sendmail is nice as the default MTA, making it forward to your
ISP is rather easy..
That's easy to do with Postfix too, you only need to setup relayhost =
mailserver.yourisp.com in your main.cf
Jean-Rene Cormier
8:33 a.m.
New subject: Fedora Core 2 wishlists
Nils O. Selåsdal wrote:
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 14:57, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
>On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 13:41, Jean-Rene Cormier wrote:
>
>>I think Postfix is pretty much the best alternative since it even has a
>>sendmail command (called the Postfix to Sendmail compatibility
>>interface) so programs that sends mail using sendmail will still work.
>>I'm not aware of any other MTA that can replace sendmail in this way,
>>though I could be wrong...
>
>Most MTAs have some degree of sendmail command line compatibility simply
>because its the historic unix way of mail injection - however since its
>also evolved and never been documented its also interesting to implement
>:-(
>
>Exim can be used as a drop in replacement for sendmail (including
>handling aliases & .forwards, but the config is significantly
>different).
>
>I'd look favourably on the idea of having the default default (as in
>absolutely no questions asked on install) MTA be something that does no
>local delivery at all, but is intended to punt everything to your
>company or ISP smarthost
"Exim is not designed for storing mail for dial-in hosts. When the
volumes of such mail are large, it is better to get the messages
´delivered¡ into files (that is, off Exim's queue) and subsequently
passed on to the dial-in hosts by other means."
This makes exim a rather poor choice for a default MTA for me ;)
imho sendmail is nice as the default MTA, making it forward to your
ISP is rather easy..
And doing the same thing with postfix is childs play! :-)
--
Chuck Mead <csm(a)redhat.com>
Instructor II, GLS
Disclaimer: "It's Thursday and my name is Locutus of B0rk!"
Addendum: "Bwahahaha! Fire up the orbital mind-control lasers!"
8:34 a.m.
New subject: Fedora Core 2 wishlists
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 14:11, =?ISO-8859-1?Q? Nils O. Sel=E5sdal?= wrote:
"Exim is not designed for storing mail for dial-in hosts. When
the
volumes of such mail are large, it is better to get the messages
delivered into files (that is, off Exim's queue) and subsequently
passed on to the dial-in hosts by other means."
That sentence could be rewritten as "Exim is not a UUCP system". In
fact if you read it you will see its not talking about exim use *on*
dial up hosts, but exim use accepting mail for onward SMTP connection
*to* dial-up (or lousy connectivity) hosts.
Use on a dial-up host also has some restrictions - however these seem to
apply to every MTA I have seen so far, so its just a case that its
stated within the exim docs.
This makes exim a rather poor choice for a default MTA for me ;)
imho sendmail is nice as the default MTA, making it forward to your
ISP is rather easy..
I am less anti-sendmail than I used to be - its no longer the top CERT
advisory item of every year.
However if we are catering for the dumb user default install I tend to
think we should not have *any* MTA (qmail, postfix, sendmail, courier or
exim) but use something closer to a MDA (Mail Delivery Agent) - maybe a
MIA (Mail Inject Agent) which punts everything off to a managed mail
system*. We should not be encouraging every tom, dick and harry to be
their own mail system administrator because there is pitifully low clue
levels in this field already.
Those that know what they are doing (know as opposed to think they know)
could then install a MTA of some form. I would like exim to be one of
the supported alternatives (even though I run postfix on a few boxes).
[Now ducking out of this thread as far as exim is concerned (will follow
any comments on my MIA idea) since I don't want to join the list, and
immediately have a full scale flame war :-) ]
Nigel.
* I am aware that all the MTAs can be configured to act exactly as I
describe the MIA above. However MTAs are complex beasts with
interesting (and complex) security relationships across the system. A
pure MIA - and I know there are a couple around - could be *much* less
privileged since it has no local delivery to care about.
--
[ Nigel Metheringham Nigel.Metheringham(a)InTechnology.co.uk ]
[ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]
8:45 a.m.
New subject: Fedora Core 2 wishlists
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 10:34, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
However if we are catering for the dumb user default install I tend
to
think we should not have *any* MTA (qmail, postfix, sendmail, courier or
exim) but use something closer to a MDA (Mail Delivery Agent) - maybe a
MIA (Mail Inject Agent) which punts everything off to a managed mail
system*. We should not be encouraging every tom, dick and harry to be
their own mail system administrator because there is pitifully low clue
levels in this field already.
Postfix can easily be configured as a null client and if you need a real
MTA you can easily change a few settings in the config and restart
postfix. No need for extra packages.
Jean-Rene Cormier
9:22 a.m.
New subject: Fedora Core 2 wishlists
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
I am less anti-sendmail than I used to be - its no longer the top
CERT
advisory item of every year.
However if we are catering for the dumb user default install I tend to
think we should not have *any* MTA (qmail, postfix, sendmail, courier or
exim) but use something closer to a MDA (Mail Delivery Agent) - maybe a
MIA (Mail Inject Agent) which punts everything off to a managed mail
system*. We should not be encouraging every tom, dick and harry to be
their own mail system administrator because there is pitifully low clue
levels in this field already.
I actually think this is the best idea so far. We should be doing everything
possible to reduce the number of misconfigured mail servers out there.
Not installing an MTA by default would IMO be a good start. If you think
you need it but do not know how to install it odds are you do not need it. :-)
Nigel.
* I am aware that all the MTAs can be configured to act exactly as I
describe the MIA above. However MTAs are complex beasts with
interesting (and complex) security relationships across the system. A
pure MIA - and I know there are a couple around - could be *much* less
privileged since it has no local delivery to care about.
........Tom
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5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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Chuck Mead -
Jean-Rene Cormier -
Nigel Metheringham -
Nils O. Selåsdal -
Tom Diehl