Weee!  Cascade!

On Tue, Mar 13, 2001 at 03:38:52PM +0000, Matthew Byng-Maddick wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, David Cantrell wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 13, 2001 at 03:19:46PM +0000, Matthew Byng-Maddick wrote:
> > > On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, David Cantrell wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Mar 13, 2001 at 03:09:42PM +0000, Matthew Byng-Maddick wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Dave Cross wrote:
> > > > > > I've just seen a downside to the "no non-standard modules" rule, which is 
> > > > > > that we'll have to send all mail by piping to sendmail. And that really 
> > > > > > hits your cross-platform compatibility.
> > > > > Why is this a problem? /usr/lib/sendmail is the published interface.
> > > > And for those unfortunate enough to be using Windows?
> > > Then are they going to be running an SMTP listener? If so, where?
> > I neither know nor care.  I was taking issue with your claim that relying
> > on /usr/lib/sendmail is a good idea.
> 
> This arose because of your original claim that relying on an SMTP listener
> is a good idea. What happens if, say, your reverse DNS is temporarily
> unavailable

Then you have more important things to worry about, such as finding an
ISP with a clue.

>             and some hosts are deferring messages from you? This policy
> will probably be implemented across backup MXs too. SMTP allows for
> deferral. If you can't stick them on a queue, you shouldn't be trying to
> do SMTP.

Why not?  It's not as if the sort of people using web-mail scripts without
their own mail server have anything important to say.  If it was important,
they would invest in their own server or at least an ISP that provided
appropriate facilities.

Of course, what you should do is try *both*.  Actually, you should first
try to use a module.  If that fails, see if /usr/lib/sendmail exists and
is executable.  If it is, then great, use it.  If it isn't available, try
direct SMTP.  Graceful degradation is a Good Thing.

>          /usr/lib/sendmail is a good interface for not worrying about
> this, as it will always put messages on a queue in the first place. 4xx
> are deferrals.
> 
> Also, some MXs are *slow*. How do you guarantee to do your SMTP
> asynchronously from your HTTP transaction?
> 
> If you neither know nor care, then why advocate this in the first place?

Cos it's wrong to just assume sendmail is available.

BTW, try reading what I write in future.  If you had, you would have
noticed that I said "(joke)" after talking about looking for relays.
If you think that counts as 'advocating' that, then I would suggest
investing in some English lessons.

-- 
David Cantrell | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david/

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