Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 10:26:37 +0000 From: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> To: zhangweiwu@realss.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: why do I need sendmail Message-ID: <20031220102637.GB6942@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <Law11-F353wBKIC3EHZ00056f9b@hotmail.com> References: <Law11-F353wBKIC3EHZ00056f9b@hotmail.com>
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On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 03:29:23PM +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
> Hello. Just to confirm: if I use dial-up connection on my laptop and use
> the ISP's smtp server to send emails, I don't really need sendmail's most
> functions, so it is safe to set 'sendmail="NO"' in rc.conf without loosing
> local emails like "weekly run output", is it?
If you're using something like Netscape or Evolution for your e-mail
needs, then yes, you don't need an MTA on your local machine to do
that. However, automatic e-mails from your system -- usually from the
periodic(8) scripts -- do require sendmail(8) or equivalent.
Note that you don't need to have sendmail listening on port 25 for
incoming e-mail, but you do need sendmail to run occasionally to
process outgoing messages in the mail queue. You can achieve that by:
sendmail_enable="NO"
sendmail_msp_queue_enable="YES"
Now, the sendmail MSP (Mail Submission Process) needs to hand-off the
e-mail to a MTA (Mail Transport Agent) -- you can either run an MTA
process locally, or you can configure the MSP to deliver straight to
your provider's smarthost.
For the first, just add:
sendmail_submit_enable="YES"
which will start up a sendmail process that listens on the loopback
address only.
For the second, you should create a slightly customized sendmail
configuration, as follows:
# cd /etc/mail
# cp freebsd.submit.mc submit.mc
# vi submit.mc
(or whatever your favourite editor is) and change the last line from:
FEATURE(`msp', `[127.0.0.1]')dnl
to
FEATURE(`msp', `smtp.yourprovider.net')dnl
where smtp.yourprovider.net is the mail smarthost provided by your ISP.
Then:
# make
# make install
# make restart
Note that these configurations will cause your system to dial-up every
time you send an e-mail. If that's not acceptable to you, then you
can generate a configuration that just queues up the mail and only
attempts to deliver the next time that your link comes up. But that's
a topic for another e-mail.
> I was told nowadays many spam filters only accept smtp server's email when
> the smtp server is in the same domain as the sender's email address. So it
> seems I better not use the sendmail on my laptop to send emails in case
> they are filtered. Should I? Thank you.
That's not the case, and a server set up in that way would be breaking
the SMTP standards. It's perfectly permissible to run e-mail for
several different domains from the same server.
What you do need to ensure is that your system and your e-mail address
are appropriately registered in the DNS. Generally if you use the
SMTP service from your provider, then this will not be a problem.
Cheers,
Matthew
--
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks
Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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