On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Andre M. V. wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002, Ian C. Sison wrote:
>
> > In short, nothing that can convince me that sendmail is a better solution
> > than qmail or postfix. So please excuse me if i disagree totally with
> > you. I do not accuse you of being a zealot for anything (you keep on
> > repeating that), what i do is speak my mind about what i consider to be a
> > better solution on a purely technical basis.
> >
> > If you want to refute me, then do so also on a technical basis, not on
> > what may be construed as circumstancial evidence to support your point,
> > the irony of which is that they can be also used to support my point.
>
> circumstantial evidence? I was giving you hard facts
> or links from the internet and you showed me nothing! :)
Which i claim to be totally useless. I can show you sites on the internet
which claim that there are absolute cures for aging.
> All I can see are opinions.
Based on my own efforts to find the best solution, yes.
> You also mentioned that:
>
> "Forget sendmail. It's slow, it's old, its monolithic,
> its insecure, and its a resource hog."
>
> slow:
> A search in google for "sendmail benchmarks" (take a
> grain of salt...) and take a look at what you see.
> Fastest is qmail, sendmail and next is postfix. But they
> are not terribly far away in performance. If you can
> give me a benchmark which shows that sendmail is very
> slow, that would be great.
I believe this will degenerate into another exchange of URLs, but here
goes anyway:
This site evaluates sendmail performance to be 'LOW'
http://mailsoftware.cjb.net/
This site actually has benchmarks of sendmail, postfix and qmail. Note
that they are missing some numbers for sendmail, because in their words:
"Slow implementations are omitted"
http://www.kyoto.wide.ad.jp/mta/eval1/eindex.html
This site has more relevant data, with a 'mails/second' delivery rate:
http://www-dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de/~ma/postfix/bench2.html
>
> old:
> If it's old, you will not use it? X, *nix and cobol is
> old but are being used until today. What's the point?
>
Yes i will not use it if there are more _MODERN_ alternatives available.
That's because i have an OPEN MIND about considering NEW and MODERN
solutions as opposed to the much older and supposedly "mature"
solutions.
Maybe that's why majority of people today are using JAVA or C++ instead of
COBOL or it's object oriented facelift. Maybe they have open minds too.
> monolithic:
> Yes, bind and linux can be _________ ? What's the point?
THe point is, that i am equally against the monlithic design of bind as
well, and would consider DJBDNS if there wasn't so much controversy over
the author.
An OS kernel is too complex and too low level to be broken up into
different proglets unlike a relatively simple application like an MTA or
Name server. If we all insisted on a micro-kernel type of Linux, we would
still be in the pre-alpha stage right now just like the GNU Hurd. A line
must be drawn, and it's usually on the side of practicality.
> Insecure:
> Historically yes. with the new version or old version?
A software's history of security issues is enough evidence for me as to
why its monolith structure is prone to security problems. For now the
drop priv band aid of sendmail works, but i just wonder how long it will.
> Resource hog:
> Care to backup that statement? Since you evaluated them
> all, could you share some hard facts about it?
Could it be that i was swapping and running out of memory on a sendmail
based system, and when i replaced it with qmail i was able to deliver mail
much faster with less memory consumption? Gee i'm sorry i don't have the
numbers (i should have written it down had i known that two years later
someone would ask me for them). I however do not have the experience of
having witnessed a server perform better when its MTA was replaced from
qmail to sendmail. Do you?
> I'm not out to convince you that sendmail is a better
> solution. If you don't want to use sendmail, fine. I
> really don't care. :) Just don't impose your opinion
Neither do i care. But i do care about pointing newbies to the direction
which i believe is the best possible solution based on experience i have
had and the information i have gathered from peers and from technical
documents. I did not 'bash' you for choosing sendmail. I DID suggest
that the poster DUMP sendmail and install postfix or qmail, and i will
keep on doing it, as my contribution to this technical list.
You are also free to do your part, that is citing 'big sites' which use
sendmail or claim that it's age or maturity is its major advantage.
> not to use it on others or bash people who use it as
> their MTA. This is a free country after all.
Exactly my point. Let others be the judge of what is right for them based
on their own particular requirements and points I and others have raised.
> If people opt for sendmail because they want technical
> support, have in-house sendmail knowledge or enterprise
> mail needs, respect that decision.
Sometimes the decision is made for them by default. Unfortunately because
sendmail comes stock in a great MAJORITY of Linux/Unix distros people
don't realise that they have a choice. WHat i do is to simply make it
known that there are better solutions to MTA applications than sendmail.
_
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