Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 16:06:17 +0200 From: Gerhard Sittig <Gerhard.Sittig@gmx.net> To: security@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: sendmail default run state Message-ID: <20000924160617.M5065@speedy.gsinet> In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20000923223152.04470e70@localhost>; from brett@lariat.org on Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 10:34:23PM -0600 References: <20000923145557.G5065@speedy.gsinet> <20000922222026.A33410@mithrandr.moria.org> <200009222118.e8MLId117503@orthanc.ab.ca> <20000923145557.G5065@speedy.gsinet> <200009240514.XAA09239@harmony.village.org> <200009222118.e8MLId117503@orthanc.ab.ca> <20000922222026.A33410@mithrandr.moria.org> <200009222118.e8MLId117503@orthanc.ab.ca> <20000923145557.G5065@speedy.gsinet> <4.3.2.7.2.20000923223152.04470e70@localhost>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 22:34 -0600, Brett Glass wrote:
> At 06:55 AM 9/23/2000, Gerhard Sittig wrote:
>
> >Are you sure of the above facts? IIRC _any_ UNIX MUA will use
> >the sendmail command line interface (/usr/sbin/sendmail) for
> >outgoing mail. Only MTAs talk SMTP.
>
> Many -- in fact most -- MUAs talk SMTP. And for good reason:
> it's universal. You can talk to either the local machine
> OR a remote machine that way, while going through local
> sendmail requires extra code.
As does SMTP conversation you didn't have to know about when only
feeding stdin of /usr/sbin/sendmail. I cannot judge what's more
expensive and error prone. But tradition says that a sendmail
executable is there (no matter who really provides this
functionality).
On Sat, Sep 23, 2000 at 23:14 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> In message <20000923145557.G5065@speedy.gsinet> Gerhard Sittig writes:
> : Are you sure of the above facts? IIRC _any_ UNIX MUA will use
> : the sendmail command line interface (/usr/sbin/sendmail) for
> : outgoing mail. Only MTAs talk SMTP.
>
> MH talks directly to the smtp port when sending mail and bad things
> happen if no SMTP daemon is running.
I hate it when that happens. You (as well as all the other
contributors I didn't cite above) are absolutely right. And I
notice I'm old fashioned and not always wanting to follow what
others call "progress". :)
But once MUAs start talking SMTP I still feel they take over what
was MTA work before. :> And when they do, "localhost" seems a
bad choice to assume a mail daemon to be running on. I would at
least do a "dig $DOMAIN mx" (or "dnsmx $DOMAIN" for those who
think it to be more appropriate) survey or have my user
(respective workstation's admin) tell me which machine to connect
to.
I still stand to the essence "Almost no machine in a LAN needs
sendmail_enable=YES and you know quite exactly the ones which do,
since they're dedicated mail servers or relays." This seems
quite analogeous to DNS. You might install the software (bind
and query tools) everywhere. But you only have few machines run
the daemon and point any other there by means of resolv.conf (in
addition of installing some "dumb" caches - i.e. nullclients - ,
maybe). And you don't have every program talk DNS but have them
use the resolver lib. That's most easily extendable giving the
advantage to every client without changing it. But I could be
wrong again and overlook the difference in complexity of these
two protocols and the need of applications to participate
directly ... :)
virtually yours 82D1 9B9C 01DC 4FB4 D7B4 61BE 3F49 4F77 72DE DA76
Gerhard Sittig true | mail -s "get gpg key" Gerhard.Sittig@gmx.net
--
If you don't understand or are scared by any of the above
ask your parents or an adult to help you.
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20000924160617.M5065>