Chris Knadle wrote: > On Fri, October 8, 2010 5:45 pm, Ron Guerin wrote: > >> Ben Stoutenburgh wrote: >> >>> I can't think of a version of Fedora that did not have Sendmail >>> installed by default. It has been a member of the Base package group >>> forever to be LSB compliant. >>> >> If that's true, virtually every other major Linux distro is not LSB >> compliant, in a way that makes LSB compliance sound like a bad thing. >> > > Yeah that doesn't sound right. If that were true then why would RHEL be > running Postfix? I bet the LSB requirement is likely only that the link > to "sendmail" (i.e. /usr/bin/sendmail) point to the MTA and be a "Sendmail > work-alike". >
Without looking it up, I'm willing to bet money on that. Precisely because the correct operation of the local mail server is so integral to the administration of a *nix system, and the way much of that mail enters the MTA is via the sendmail wrapper. > The last time I was helping run a Fedora box it came with Sendmail by > default, which I quickly replaced with Postfix. > I realize by now I sound like a Sendmail basher, and I guess I am, even though it's been a bazillion years since I personally used it. And when I've heard stories about consultants who show up on site and replace an MTA it's made me cringe, but really, replacing Sendmail is almost never wrong. ;) > >>> There is some debate among the developer to remove this, but that >>> will not change prior to Fedora 15 >>> (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NoMTA). >>> >>> >> This article says only that they wish to make _an_ MTA optional. >> That's neither here nor there about which one they install by default. >> For the record, I'm opposed to the idea. All systems should have a >> functioning MTA upon installation, because for umpteen hundred years >> now, everything depends on using it to send administrative messages. >> > > Occasionally I run systems without any MTA; it works in the short-term, > but I eventually end up installing an MTA in order to receive important > warning messages. So while I'm not opposed to the idea of making an MTA > optional in theory, in practice I also find it's needed. The only place I > can see a lack of an MTA is for embedded devices that just don't have the > space for one. > > However that said, far too often what you'll find is that an MTA is > installed by default, but not configured to upload mail anywhere, and also > with nobody reading the local mail. Depending on how you look at this, > this is either only slightly better or possibly worse than having no MTA > installed at all. > I agree this is a flaw in the present setup. It's one that snuck in along with the "GUI Era", I suspect. (not that one has anything specifically to do with the other) When everyone was using Pine and Mutt, you didn't have this problem. Now, for obvious reasons, we live in a world of POP3 and IMAP4 and not the presumption of a local mailbox in one of the standard mailbox formats (practically speaking, that's either mbox or Maildir). Is there some master Bugzilla for the Intertubes where we can file a bug along with the suggested fix that distros ship MUAs that automatically connect to the local user's mailbox unless told not to? > How many people on this list bother to configure their desktops and > laptops to allow forwarding mail to an external mail server? [I just > recently had to do this, but before that I never bothered.] > I tend to be religiously observant about MTAs being properly operational. Yet, this year, I installed Linux on a notebook for myself, selected the MTA I prefer these days, and then forgot to set it up to route around any ISP's attempt at filtering. This eventually got done when I went looking for a problem, which had gone unnoticed simply because the mail was queued and unable to escape any of the networks I'd been connected to. Obviously you've pointed out two important flaws in how things work (or fail to) in the real world. Maybe mail isn't the right way to get these messages, but it's what we have, and it's what we use. And if it's set up properly, it works a good deal better than what you get in Windows, which is the equivalent of the unwatched mailbox. (Event Viewer use is not a passive act) My question would be, how many people configured their systems to get the mail out, out of regret that this was not already happening? I'm now one of those people. - Ron _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Nov 3 - Open Source Hardware: Bugs, Beagles and Beyond Dec 1 - IBM's Open Client Deployment Jan 5 - Building a Comunity Site with Drupal
