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Date:      Mon, 7 Oct 2002 11:07:04 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Stuart Barkley <stuartb@4gh.net>
To:        FreeBSD-Stable <stable@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: After cvsup, can't send mails
Message-ID:  <20021007095605.H92197-100000@precipice.4gh.net>
In-Reply-To: <20021007084358.T659-100000@topperwein.dyndns.org>

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Just picking an almost random message:
> > Put this into your /etc/make.conf: SENDMAIL_SET_USER_ID=YES
> >
> > Then rebuild the world and you get back exactly the old sendmail
> > functionality.  It works perfectly for me:
>
>     And completely circumvents the increased security of no longer
> running sendmail as root.  :-(

The new sendmail split userid functionality is currently incomplete
(at least as of 4.7RC2).  It appears close to complete and I encourage
its completion.

Most of the systems I run only use outgoing mail and are not systems
built from source.  These systems have trusted local users so local
exploits are not a large concern.  Remote exploits are much more of a
concern on these systems (thus they don't currently have sendmail
listening on any ports).

Incoming mail is processed by a single central system and additional
system administration is expected (but not wanted).

With the current split sendmail:

- You wind up with two mail queues, but mailq can only read details
about one of the queues (and not the correct one).  'mailq -Ac' will
successfully process the outgoing queue, but that queue is mostly
empty in the current setup.

- You wind up with an unnecessary process listening on port 25 (at
least its bound to localhost).

- You still have a sendmail process running as root on every machine,
so you are still vulnerable to root attacks via crafted messages sent
to that process.

- The current /etc/rc.conf knobs are a little confusing for a new
user.

- /etc/make.conf doesn't seem like the right place to control end
system functionality.  This should be controlled with /etc/rc.conf
knobs.

- The current /etc/mail/Makefile doesn't allow for a host specific
submit.mc file.  This is necessary to be able to set and control
outgoing queue options (smarthost, timeouts, etc).

Fixes to make it more suitable would include:

- Eliminate the older root based mail queue for outgoing mail.  Just
send the outgoing mail directly to the desired hosts like normal
sendmail works.  Two options would be helpful here one to do standard
MX based outgoing routing and the other to route directly to a
smarthost.

- Improve the rc.conf knobs and split sendmail controls into separate
incoming and outgoing controls.  This is difficult while also
attempting to keep old rc.conf files working.

- Fix mailq to better deal with systems with two mail queues.
Currently it defaults to the old root queue but doesn't have the
access necessary to display useful information.  This can be difficult
since mailq (sendmail) needs to be set[ug]id in order to read the
queue.

- Teach /etc/mail/Makefile about creating a 'hostname'.submit.mc file
so that host specific configuration changes don't get lost on
upgrades.  This should not be that hard and alone would address many
of these issues.

Stuart


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